For the first time ever, Northern Ireland had two sailors competing in the Junior U23 World Championship for Olympic 49er and 49erFX at Travemünder Woche in Germany late last month.

With competitive racing and up and down the leaderboard, over 100 teams descended on the city of Lübeck show their skills and compare their progress to their peers as they transition from youth to senior racing.

The NI sailors were each in different pairings with sailors from Tralee and Dublin.

Erin McIlwaine from Newcastle Yacht Club launched her 49erFX campaign last spring with Ellie Cunnane of Tralee Bay SC, as previously reported on Afloat.ie, and has been training both abroad and in Dublin throughout the summer.

Despite entering two previous events this year, the Junior Worlds were their first real test as previous events were either cancelled or so windy half the fleet didn’t compete.

Ellen Barbour from County Antrim Yacht Club is fresh into the class after transitioning from the ILCA 6 this summer and teamed up with Elysia O’Leary of Dublin’s Royal St George YC.

Elysia has been sailing the boat for a while now but was on the lookout for a crew to campaign with. Ellen, a competitive ILCA sailor in her own right, was also looking for new options in the sport and together they created the ideal pairing.

Both teams had a steep learning curve to put all their training into practice among a large fleet of very talented sailors from across the globe. Erin and Ellie ultimately came up short of the Gold fleet, despite posting to back-to-back race wins and showing signs of great future potential.

Ellen has had just two months’ experience using a trapeze and sailing with a new partner, and this was very much a training exercise rather than a results-based event. The goal was to take part and asses the big areas the team need to work on and learn more about how the top teams get the boats around the course.

Erin McIlwaine says: “Overall, it was a very enjoyable event, racing in some mixed and tricky conditions. Unfortunately, we made some weak decisions at the start of the week that ultimately left us just outside the Gold fleet.

“Winning two out of three races in the final series confirmed that we were sailing well and can now focus our efforts on the Senior World Championships in The Hague.”

Ellen Barbour added: “Having never trapezed before and only being in the boat for two months, we went in knowing mistakes would be made and it would be a great learning experience.

“We had a few good race results which we are happy with and we have come away with a clear idea of what we need to work on in the coming month.”

Measuring success for girls in sailing is also a topic that was discussed in a recent webinar hosted by RYANI to discuss its research on understanding the experience of women and girls in the sport.

Kate Broderick, RYANI pathways officer, provided her own experiences of sailing which have been shared on the RYA website HERE.

Erin McIlwaine is an 18-year-old sailor from Kilkeel on the South Down coast and a member of the nearby Newcastle Yacht Club and Royal St. George in Dun Laoghaire on Dublin Bay.

Erin has recently teamed up with Ellie Cunnane from Tralee Bay SC to campaign a 49erFX for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, USA. Erin is the skipper, and she and Ellie began sailing together in the 49erFX in July of this year after a long friendship that evolved in the Junior Topper Class. They currently sail out of the Royal St George Yacht Club.

The 49erFX European Championship will be held at Vilamoura in Portugal in October next, so Erin and Ellie head out to that venue on Boxing Day to train and will return to Ireland in March ahead of a busy competition season.

Erin McIlwaine on the helm and Ellie Cunnane in the 49erFX Photo: via Facebook

Erin can count among her achievements to date the Female World Topper Championship in China in 2018 and then she moved into the 29er two-person dinghy. She travelled to CN El Balis, in Spain in August last to the 29er World Championships.

Erin said “ This was a huge event, with a record number of boats for the 29er class. With 240 teams competing, we were split into six fleets, spread over three courses. I was sailing with Emily Conan from Royal St George Yacht Club, and we got eighth in the Silver Fleet and eighth Girls overall”.

Ellie was placed in the top third of the 72-boat fleet at last year’s EURILCA Youth Championships in Croatia.

Around the middle of May Erin and Ellie bought an FX with the aim of training over the summer. That began at Tralee Bay SC with Thomas Chaix from Dinghy Performance before starting training with Irish Sailing as part of the new 49er FX Development Programme.

RYA Northern Ireland posted on Facebook “Great to see further diversity in our sport, with double-handed sailing becoming more popular and increased Olympic Sailing opportunities for female athletes”.

Erin is being supported by Boost Drinks through its partnership with SportsAid.

Five Irish sailors will be looking to make a big impression at the 49er Worlds 2022 in the frigid waters of Nova Scotia, which get under way this coming Wednesday 31 August.

In the 49er division, the experienced skiff duo of Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove (Howth Yacht Club/Skerries Sailing Club) will be up against the new Royal Cork pairing of Séafra Guilfoyle and Johnny Durcan within a challenging field.

Séafra Guilfoyle (left) and Johnny Durcan

Meanwhile, in the 49erFX, Dun Laoghaire’s Saskia Tidey and new Team GB skiff partner Freya Black will be looking to improve upon their 24th-place finish in last month’s Europeans and make a bigger splash at Hubbards on St Margaret’s Bay, some 50km west of Halifax.

Robert Dickson (left) and Sean Waddilove

The village’s community waterfront on the site of a former fish processing plant has been completely transformed in preparation for the championships hosting the cream of 49er, 49erFX and Nacra 17 racers the world over.

Racing at the 2022 World Championship runs from Wednesday 31 August to Monday 5 September with daily live streams from Day 3 (Friday 2 September). 

A teenage sailor who competed for Tunisia at Tokyo 2020 has tragically died after an accident while training at sea.

According to BBC Sport, 17-year-old Eya Guezguez drowned after the boat she was sailing with her twin sister Sarra, who survived the incident, capsized in strong winds in the Mediterranean off the North African country's capital Tunis on Sunday (10 April).

The Guezguez twins were 16 when they raced in the 49erFX class at the Tokyo Olympic Games last summer — in a field that included Dublin sailor Saskia Tidey — and placed 21st overall.

They had been tipped to be future stars in the two-handed class.

BBC Sport has more on the story HERE.

The current Olympic and world champions in the 49er and 49erFX will compete for the 51st Trofeo Princesa Sofía Mallorca against top contenders in both classes.

Many of the leading sailors have been training during recent days, taking advantage of the excellent conditions on the bay of Palma, sporting the striking black sails that have been incorporated as the new official equipment for Paris 2024.

Among the 10 classes that will compete for the 51st Trofeo Princesa Sofía, the 49er stands out as the fastest and most spectacular monohull in the fleet.

The powerful two-person skiff has been an Olympic class for the 49er since the Sydney 2000 Games — and since Rio 2016 for the women’s 49erFX. Both share the same hull and crew of two, but the FX has a scaled-down rig.

According to Canadian Ben Remocker, manager of both classes: "The special thing about the 49er and FX is the balance between skipper and crew.

“In other classes, the crew is almost anonymous, whereas here he basically drives the boat with the sails and works in full conjunction with the skipper, which has allowed many sailors in the class to become great and respected sailing professionals, such as Xabi Fernandez, Blair Tuke or Iain Jensen. The 49er was the catalyst for them to become what they are today.”

With just under two weeks to go before the annual showdown begins on the waters of Palma, the list of entries includes a total of 80 boats from 28 nations in the 49er class and 59 teams representing 25 nations in the 49erFX class.

A cocktail of talent

The 49er fleet will include the world leaders in the class, who arrive in Palma after making interesting crew changes. Such is the case of GBR’s Olympic champion helm Dylan Fletcher, who will now compete with Rhos Hawes as crew.

Also changing partners are the 2021 world champions, the Dutchmen Bart Lambriex and Pim van Vugt, now in different boats, and Denmark’s representatives in Tokyo 2020, Jonas Warrer (the 2008 Olympic champion) who now sails in a rival boat against his former crew Jakob Precht Jensen.

In addition to the performance of these new partnerships, the new Spanish duo formed by Diego Botín and Florian Trittel is generating a lot of expectation. This new pairing will land in Mallorca directly from San Francisco, where they are competing with the Spanish SailGP team.

The 470 Olympic runner-up, Swedish Fredrik Bergstrom, will be making his debut in the 49er. And wwo boats will fly the Indian flag, something slightly more unusual in this division.

Saskia Tidey and Freya Black are a new 49erFX team for Paris 2024

Simply the best

In the 49erFX category, the Olympic champions of Tokyo 2020 and Rio 2016, Martine Grael and Kahena Kunze, will be back in Palma. The Brazilians’ track record includes six medals in the last nine World Championships (one gold, four silver and one bronze) and the title of champions in the last edition of the Trofeo Princesa Sofía Mallorca.

The Mallorcan Javier Torres, Grael/Kunze’s coach in their last titles, highlights the revolution undergone by the 49erFX fleet since the Games: “Of the top 10 from Tokyo, seven are no longer here, but there is a young generation that is very strong and will give us something to talk about: the Belgians, the Poles... We will have to see how the change of the New Zealanders works out.” Torres is referring to Alexandra Maloney, Olympic runner-up at Rio 2016, who is now competing with Olivia Hobbs.

Other pairs making their debut in Palma are those formed by the current World Champion, the Dutch Odile van Aanholt, and the Tokyo 2020 bronze medallist Annette Duetz; or the Team GB pair of Freya Black and Saskia Tidey, the latter a two-time Olympian, 2020 world runner-up and Dublin native now based in Dorset.

Black sails

As the first scoring event for the Hempel World Cup Series, the 51st Trofeo Princesa Sofía Mallorca will be the first time that the teams will use the new regulation equipment for Paris 2024 in competition, in which the incorporation of 3Di technology sails stands out.

This detail will mean a spectacular aesthetic change in the fleet due to the characteristic black colour of the material, but it will also mean an interesting change in performance, at least in theory.

“Still a few teams that don’t have it, and of course teams can use the old equipment through the season as well,” Remocker says. “We’ll see what the performances differences are.”

The 49er and 49erFX teams will be based at the Club Nàutic S’Arenal. Their competition programme will consist of a maximum of 12 races to be sailed between 4-8 April, and their medal race on 9 April.

The 51st Trofeo Princesa Sofía Mallorca is the first qualifying regatta for the Hempel World Cup Series 2022, organised by World Sailing, the International Sailing Federation. For more visit www.trofeoprincesasofia.org

Two-time Olympian Saskia Tidey has teamed up with 20-year-old Freya Black (pictured below) in the 49erFX after Tokyo partner Charlotte Dobson called time on her Olympic career.

A national champion in the 29er class, Black is returning to skiff racing after competing in the mixed 470 class for the past two years for a tilt at Paris 2024.

Tidey, a member of the Royal Irish Yacht Club, was forced to quit the Irish team after Rio and cited a lack of opportunities at home. 

As regular Afloat readers will know, Dobson and Tidey had a commanding lead in the early stages of the Tokyo Regatta before finishing sixth overall. 

“Freya is a great young sailor who has transitioned seamlessly into the FX from the 29er/ 470 class,” said Tidey, 28, from Sandycove on Dublin Bay but now based full time in Portland, Dorset.

Tidey told Afloat: “There was a sparkly feeling in the boat when we first sailed. I left the boat park that day feeling pretty motivated and excited to see more. Our attitudes, beliefs and raw competitiveness have blended so well from the get-go. I truly believe in our potential to represent Great Britain at Paris 2024 and challenge for medal-winning performances towards LA 2028.”

Black, from Goudhurst, Kent, added: “Partnering up with Sas in a 49erFX is a huge opportunity for me to make the jump into a team that has the experience and knowledge of a medal-worthy campaign. Bringing together Sas’ epic crewing skills and my 470 background of racing and boat feel, we see the potential of a great team.”

“It feels pretty good to be back in the harness and wearing the BST bib again. I have put a lot of thought into why I want to continue to develop as a world-class sailor with the BST. I still have the passion for pressure & the fire inside me to push for more.

“When the opportunity to sail with Freya Black presented itself I was really excited to take it. Freya is a great young sailor who has transitioned seamlessly into the FX from the 29er/ 470 class. There was a sparkly feeling in the boat when we first sailed. I left the boat park that day feeling pretty motivated and excited to see more. Our attitudes, beliefs and raw competitiveness have blended so well from the get-go. I truly believe in our potential to represent Great Britain at Paris 2024 and challenge for medal-winning performances towards LA 2028.

“Currently we are in Lanzarote training. This year is about playing with the boat as a new team and learning from our mistakes. With it being such a short cycle to Paris 2024 we will be making the most of every hour we have to ensure we qualify GB for the Olympic Games. I am honoured to have the opportunity to challenge a third Olympic Games in the 49erFX and be back with the British Sailing Team.”

The first major event of 2022 for the British Sailing Team will be the Princess Sofia Regatta in Palma, Mallorca, in early April.

The 49erFX partner of Dun Laoghaire’s Saskia Tidey at Tokyo 2020 has spoken of her fond memories of competing at the highest level as she called time on her Olympic career.

As previously reported on Afloat.ie, Charlotte Dobson was among a host of top names in British sailing who announced their retirement from Olympic campaigning this week.

Originally contesting in the Laser Radial (now ILCA 6), the Scottish sailor switched to the 49erFX skiff when it was introduced in 2014, teaming up with Sophie Ainsworth. The pair won their spot with Team GB for Rio 2016, finishing ninth.

Dobson then joined forces with Ireland’s Saskia Tidey following the Royal Irish Yacht Club sailor’s decision to move to Team GBR in 2017, citing a lack of opportunities for her to pursue her career at home.

The duo quickly established themselves as a powerhouse of the 49erFX fleet, backed up by string of podium results silvers at the Olympic test event and the 2020 World Championships.

Dobson and Tidey led the Tokyo 2020 regatta in the windy early stages before being overhauled later on as the breeze turned light, eventually finishing sixth.

Dobson, who married Dylan Fletcher a few weeks after returning from Tokyo, is now looking to work in banking.

“We gave it a really good crack but it wasn’t enough at the end. I think you have to know when it’s time to say that we did our best but it wasn’t really good enough”

On retirement, the 35-year-old from Rhu, near Glasgow, says: “The latest news for me is that I’m going to hang up my sailing boots and trapeze harness and say goodbye to the Olympic world. It’s been an amazing period of time, and now I’m going on to work out what the next thing is.

“It was a pretty easy decision to be honest. I genuinely felt in the couple of years before Tokyo that Saskia [Tidey] and I had given ourselves the best chance of winning a medal in Tokyo. We’d worked with some incredible coaches and support staff, and had some amazing sailors in our training groups. When you’re proud of the campaign you put together you have to accept the result at the end.

“We gave it a really good crack but it wasn’t enough at the end. I think you have to know when it’s time to say that we did our best but it wasn’t really good enough.”

Asked for her fondest memories of the Games, Dobson says: “It’s probably more of feeling than a memory. Regardless of the result not turning out the way we wanted, I wholeheartedly feel hugely proud to be part of that Tokyo team.

“We were surrounded by excellent people doing pretty incredible things. The atmosphere was one of elevating yourself. It was a huge honour to see some of the sailing greats that we had do their thing, and try to emulate that.”

As for her future plans? “I’m dipping my toes into the real world slowly, and I’m hopefully going to find a job in banking,” she says. “I’m definitely not going very far from Portland, I love it here. Sailing has brought me all the way from the west coast of Scotland to this little island and I love it. I won’t be completely disappearing.”

Dobson also had the following advice for sailing’s next generation: “I’d say just stay in love with our sport. It’s the most incredible sport, and so wide-ranging. You can sail fast boats, slow boats, complicated boats, simple boats, with people, on your own… Never lose the love for the sport.

“Do as much sailing across a variety of boats. And if you decide you want to go to the Olympics it’s totally possible. Anything is possible when you set a goal, put your mind to it and crack on.”

Martine Grael and Kahena Kunze (BRA) have won gold in the 49erFX Women with Tina Lutz and Susann Beucke (GER) taking silver and Annemiek Bekkering and Annette Duetz (NED) bronze.

The remaining Irish interest in the Tokyo sailing regatta focussed on one-time regatta leader Saskia Tidey of the Royal Irish Yacht Club who sailed with Charlotte Dobson into sixth overall after finishing seventh in the medal race.

Brazil was struggling for a lane out of the start but found a gap at the committee boat in the last 10 seconds and tacked out to the right on a lonely path while the other nine boats carried on towards the left.

First around the first mark was Argentina, Norway in second with Brazil in third and the Netherlands in fifth - advantage Brazil.

On the first downwind leg, the Netherlands were fighting with Germany and Spain for the silver and bronze but Annemiek Bekkering and Annette Duetz (NED) got stuck on the outside of a slow mark rounding at the leeward gate, held up the French team. The Dutch were now at the back, in 10th and out of the medals.

However, up the final windward leg, the Dutch pulled back two critical places, enough to get them ahead of Tamara Echegoyen and Paula Barcelo (ESP) for the bronze medal.

Victoria Travasco and Maria Sol (ARG) won the Medal Race by a long distance from Norway. But a third across the finish was sufficient for Brazil to win the gold medal. Grael and Kunze have successfully defended the Olympic title they won in Rio 2016.

Results here

Charlotte Dobson, 35, from Rhu, Scotland, said:

“That was some morning I think I’ve had. The end of our campaign and our medal hopes, but amazing to watch Dylan and Stu win their gold medal.

“They’ve been amazing supporters of ours the whole way through this cycle and this morning optimises to me the ying and yang of sport - with amazing results someone has to lose. That’s kind of what we know when you get into this world. You risk feeling terrible for the moment to be able to feel how Dylan and Stu feel right now.

“I’m sure this gold medal [Dylan Fletcher’s] is going to follow me around. It will be on our dining table I’m sure for the foreseeable future, but I’m just really, really, really proud of him and the team that has been around both Dylan and Stu, and Sas and I. The support we’ve got, the help we’ve had from the National Lottery to even be here, is just second to none.

“Sometimes this campaign when it got difficult, certainly with covid, you look around at the support around you, you think if you can’t do it with these guys around you, you probably don’t deserve to. And I mean the support we’ve had has been incredible.

“We had another light wind and choppy medal race. Just as the breeze was starting to pick up, we were on first. We didn’t have the best start and lane hold, and then we got a bit dictated to by that time, so really the race was kind of out of hands in that light wind stuff and it’s really important to be in control of your race.

“We kind of did come back into it right at the end, so that was really nice to do that last little bit with the kite up past the rest of our team. To be honest a large part of the damage was done in the last two days in the lighter winds.

“At this level you can’t expect to win medals with holes in your performance and unfortunately we kind of got found out this week in these lighter winds, which is frustrating because in the past we’ve dealt with that weakness. But yeah, really disappointing.

“We fought for every place we could around the medal race, the spirit was really good all the way up to the end so we have that to be proud of.

“It’s been amazing [to watch Dylan win gold]. Very, very stressful, I feel really bad for what we have done to our parents and friends and family over the last couple of weeks, but really, really proud. This morning he just seemed so on it and so ready. When I saw the split from the kiwis, I was really proud of him, like he was backing himself and he was really confident. And he and Stu are such an incredible team together, they bring the best out in each other. I can’t really be more happy for him to be honest.

“[The wedding is planned for] 26th August, so not too long to even out the tan lines! No [the preparations aren’t done] in the slightest, but time and pressure will make us organised. I’m sure we’ll just be decisive. The wedding is in Portland which is where we live.

“Quite often it does happen like that [a close finish], but not usually for gold and silver, that will probably be one of the moments of the sailing games I would have thought. It’s just amazing for that to be broadcast to our friends and family at home and all the people who have really put us here, buying lottery tickets, supporting sports, so thank you National Lottery we hope we gave you a good show this summer.”

Saskia Tidey, 28, from Sandycove on Dublin Bay, said:

“It was a week of two halves. We started off with some pretty glamour conditions here in Japan, a lot more what of what we were expecting, real skiff conditions and we started off on the right foot. And the second half of the week we lost wind which is pretty challenging in our boats. But you know we fought through it and we pushed hard and tried to fight for every inch and it hasn’t gone our way.

“But in saying all that, we’ve put together a campaign over five years and it’s been an honour to sail with Charlotte and to be part of this team. Now it’s about cheering on everyone else and being part of the rest of the experience.”

Royal Irish Yacht Club skiff crew Saskia Tidey from Dun Laoghaire Harbour faces another 24-hour wait for her medal race at Tokyo 2020. 

The 49er and 49erFX medal races are each postponed until tomorrow. They will be added to the programme that includes the Nacra 17 Medal race.

As Afloat previously reported, Tidey sailing with Charlotte Dobson for Team GB are eight points off the 49erFX Podium and 11 points off the lead. 

One time fleet leaders, the Scottish-Irish duo excelled in this week's stronger conditions but had a torrid couple of days in Enoshima's light stuff.  The pair are silver medal winners from the 2017 World Sailing Cup

Going into the 49erFX Women Medal Race two high-class teams share the top spot on equal points – the double World Champions Annemiek Bekkering and Annette Duetz (NED) who will wear the yellow bibs, and Martine Grael and Kahena Kunze (BRA) looking to defend their Olympic title from five years ago.

Only three points off the lead are Tina Lutz and Susann Beucke (GER) who are promising to race aggressively for the gold, while just back from them are the reigning World Champions from Spain, Tamara Echegoyen and Paula Barcelo.

Unstoppable and steadier through high-speed manoeuvres in the stronger winds, Charlotte Dobson and her Dun Laoghaire Harbour crew Saskia Tidey have ruled the waves of Sagami Bay this week for Team GB but light winds on Friday dropped the pair back to fourth overall after counting (16), 14 and 15 in their 21-boat fleet.

Others in the fleet took the softer breeze as an opportunity to attack for the lead in the Women’s Skiff fleet on the Kamakura Course.

The Royal Irish Yacht Club's Tidey, who represented Ireland at Rio and switched to Team GB because of lack of opportunity at home, remains an odds on favourite for medal success come Saturday though and is currently just seven points off the overall lead and one point off third place.

Results and overall standings are here