Irish 49erFX pairing Annalise Murphy and Katie Tingle who are seeking a place on the Tokyo 2020 startline are lying 36th in their 57 boat fleet overall after scoring 24, 12 and 19 in the opening three races of the European Championships in Weymouth today.
The teams faced a 'challenging' easterly breeze and big waves off the Dorset coast in the opening rounds and these conditions are quite a contrast for Murphy and Tingle who made a gentle debut to the class just a few weeks ago at their first regatta, a light air Trofeo Princesa Sofia in Mallorca.
Annalise's Rio teammate Saskia Tidey of the Royal Irish Yacht Club, who switched to sail for Team GB with Charlotte Dobson for Tokyo, is off to a flying start and lying fourth overall.
Full results are here.
Junior World Champions Show Skiff Ladies the Way
Young Swedes, Vilma Bobeck and Malin Tengstrom, who won the Junior World Championship in 2018, today showed how in heavy weather, they are right in line with the World’s best.
“We suspected we could perform like this, as we’d had some good training sessions, but taking two wins and then sailing through the fleet to recover to a third is beyond our expectations,” commented the plucky helm Bobeck.
The duo started well in the first two races, and couldn’t be reeled in, taking wire-to-wire victories in both races. In the final race of the day, they started poorly but moved up throughout the race passing on every leg.
Bobeck, the helm, is a towering figure, almost the tallest sailor in the fleet. Together with the average sized Tengstrom the duo were the only 49erFX female team to compete with the top two male teams at the 2018 Junior Worlds, which was a very windy regatta in Marseille, France. This season they have finished between 8th and 21st through Miami, Vilamoura, Palma, and Genoa, but almost all of the racing this season has been in light winds. Today, they got their time to shine.
Among the ten teams chasing them are the Olympic Champions, three other World Champions and two further European Champions. Holding their leading position won’t be easy, but today was a great way for a young team to make a mark.