Displaying items by tag: ILCA 6
Eve McMahon Makes Top 15 at ILCA 6 Europeans, Athens
Nineteen-year-old Eve McMahon concluded the weather-hit ILCA 6 class European Championships in 15th place overall.
Already qualified for Paris, the Howth Olympic debutante will compete at the forthcoming French Olympic Week in Hyeres as her final major competition before the Olympics.
She was coached this week in Athens by ILCA 6 Rio silver medalist Annalise Murphy, who said: "Eve is so young, still only 19 and sailed a great week to come 15th at a European championship is really great.”
Maria Erdi of Hungary clinched her first-ever European championship title, adding to her accolades as the reigning World champion from the previous year in The Hague. This marks her second European medal, following her bronze achievement in Andora, Italy, in 2023. Securing victory in the Medal Race, she concluded the championship with 21 points after seven races.
Viktorija Andrulyte of Lithuania secured second place with 27 points, earning the Silver medal along with qualification for Paris 2024.
The Bronze medal went to French sailor Louise Cervera, who amassed 29 points.
Croatia’s Elena Vorobeva finished fourth overall, clinching the second Olympic spot at stake in this championship.
Top 10 ILCA 6 Women’s Senior Europeans:
1 – Maria Erdi HUN 21 pt
2 – Viktorija Andrulyte LTU 27 pt
3 – Louise Cervera FRA 29 pt
4 – Elena Vorobeva CRO 37 pt
5 – Nazli Cagla Donertas TUR 49 pt
5 – Emma Mattivi ITA 49 pt
7 – Pernelle Michon FRA 53 pt
7 – Agata Barwinska POL 53 pt
7 – Anne Marie Rindom DEN 53 pt
10 – Marie Barrue FRA 58 pt
Royal St. George's Sean Craig Leads at ILCA 6 Masters World Championship, Australia
Irish Masters ILCA/Laser champion Sean Craig of the Royal St. George Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire Harbour shot straight to the top of the ILCA 6 Masters World Championship with two fourth places scored in breezy conditions in the opening races of the Adelaide, Australia-based regatta.
Craig, on eight points, leads Australian Colin Beashel by one in the Grand Master division after two races sailed back to back. Lying third is American Andrew Holdsworth on 10 points.
The competition continues until next Saturday, February 10th.
The event follows last week's exploits at the same venue, where Finn Lynch and Ewan McMahon competed in the first of three trials at the 2024 ILCA 7 World Championships.
As regular Afloat readers know, Craig earned his first Grand Master title last May when he finished top of the Barcelona Masters Championships in Spain.
Spain proved a successful hunting ground for the 59-year-old Dun Laoghaire ace, who won a Bronze Medal at the EurILCA Masters Europeans at L’Escala in Spain in October 2022.
Scroll down the results sheet (below) to read the latest ILCA 6 (Radial) Grand Master scores.
Sienna Wright Of Howth YC Is “Sailor of the Month (Junior International)” for January
Although Sienna Wright of Howth is just 15, she approaches sailing in particular and life generally with remarkable sophistication and style. Thus her mid-January winning of the Silver Medal in the ILCA 6 Youth Women’s Worlds in Argentina, coupled with her total victory in the U17 Championship in the same series seemed to flow on seamlessly from a podium place in the Youth Worlds in December.
ILCA Youth Sailor Zoe Whitford from East Antrim Boat Club Awarded Mary Peters Trust Bursary
Seventeen-year-old Zoe Whitford from East Antrim Boat Club on Larne Lough is one of ten young athletes to be awarded a £500 bursary by the Mary Peters Trust.
The Sports section of Local Women Magazine in Northern Ireland reports the partnership aims to help young talent on their sporting journeys.
The Mary Peters Trust was established to create an ongoing meaningful commemoration of her Gold Medal win in the 1972 Olympic Games. It is Northern Ireland’s leading sporting charity.
Larne-based Zoe has been competing in the single-handed Laser for some time, and among her 2023 achievements, she was the placed girl in the ILCA 6 class in the Youth Sailing National Championships at Howth Yacht Club and first female and overall 7th in the 2023 RYANI Youth Championships at Ballyholme. Zoe also secured a place in the coveted Gold Fleet Youth Europeans in Poland in July.
Racing in the ILCA 6 class, Zoe has a highly competitive discipline demanding strategic decision-making and strong aerobic fitness.
Local Women continues saying that Zoe’s passion for sailing had been evident from a young age. Zoe said: “I have always grown up around the yacht club as my Mum sails regularly and seeing people on the water from a young age lit a fire in me. I began my sailing journey through participating in summer beginner sailing courses at age seven and have been a member of the RYA Youth Performance Programme for six years, first while competing in my Topper and then in both ILCA 4 (Laser 4.7} and ILCA6.
Chris Dorman, newly appointed Commodore of East Antrim BC, is delighted at Zoe’s progress. “I think it’s fantastic that Zoe has been selected for the bursary. She is more than deserving of it, given the immense effort and time commitment that Zoe puts into her sailing career, not to mention the juggling act of her academics included in the mix. Normally, when I’m speaking to her Mum, Lucy, she’s telling me how Zoe is away training here or competing there! It’s great that a young club member is doing so well”.
Sienna Wright Celebrates World Silver Medal Win at ILCA6 Youth Championship in Argentina
Celebrations in Argentina on Friday night for Howth Yacht Club's Sienna Wright (15) were well earned as she added to her ILCA 6 medal haul with a silver medal – and the under 17 title, too – on the final day of racing at the 2024 class Youth's Women Fleet of the World Championships at Yacht Club Argentino.
After 12 races sailed and one discard, the Irish youth world bronze medalist had an eight-point margin in the 31-boat fleet to claim the silver prize and, as Afloat reported previously, held second overall going into the final rounds.
On the sixth and final day of the championship, the last races were held with a south wind of approximately 8 to 12 knots.
Italian Maria Vittoria Arseni became the overall champion after sailing consistently well all week. The third-place award went to Italian Ginevra Caracciolo.
The 15-year-old Dubliner included three race wins in her tally (including a standout performance on a penultimate day by winning the first race of the day), but discarding a retiral from race six, so on 25 points, Arseni ended up some 12 points clear at the top.
Scroll down the results for the girl's division results below.
Howth's Eve McMahon Seeks One of Seven Paris Olympic Berths at Argentina ILCA 6 Worlds
Ireland's Eve McMahon, is set to participate in the first major Olympic-class world championship of 2024 in Argentina.
The ILCA 6 event, which starts on Friday, will see 105 sailors from 47 nations compete over six days to secure a place in the women's single-handed event for next summer's Olympics in Paris.
McMahon, a 19-year-old Howth Yacht Club sailor, the Irish Sailor of the Year for 2021 and 2022, is barely a year into her senior-level career, but she is hoping to secure one of seven places for her ILCA 6 class.
In Autumn last year, she won the U21 world title in her class in Tangiers, Morocco, and in 2022, she topped out her youth career with a hat-trick of gold medals at international championship events.
For McMahon, her primary focus will be securing a place for Ireland at the Olympic Sailing regatta in Marseilles next July. Eleven nations have already won places, with another seven spots up for grabs in Argentina. Further opportunities to qualify Ireland remain at the European championships and at the French Olympic Week in Hyeres in late April.
As the sole senior-level campaigner in the ILCA6 class, McMahon won't face a trials series, unlike the other two disciplines already qualified for Ireland. The ILCA7 and 49er skiff will decide Irish Sailing's nominees to the Olympic Federation of Ireland for the national team.
Double Silver for Howth’s Sienna Wright in International ILCA 6 Competition This Month
It’s been a bumper month for Howth Yacht Club’s Sienna Wright on the international stage, with U17 silver medals in the ILCA 6 Youth Worlds and Europeans.
Last week in Gdynia, Poland at the Youth European Championships (12-19 July), the younger sister of April’s Junior Sailor of the Month Rocco Wright placed 13th overall in the gold fleet and second among the under-17s in an impressive performance in the former Laser Radial.
And it came just two weeks after a similarly strong showing at the class Youth World Championships in Dziwnów, Poland (1-9 July) where she claimed silver in her age bracket and placed 18th overall.
Speaking after her latest achievement, Sienna said of the week: “It was quite tricky, very shifty conditions, long days waiting, long hours, but in the end it was a good result so I’m happy.”
A black flag for Eve McMahon (19) in race five of the Paris 2024 Olympic Test event in Marseille has been a setback for the Howth sailor, who lies in the top one-third of her ILCA 6 38-boat fleet.
McMahon is 12th after six races from ten and counts 4, 16, 12, 15, (39)BFD, and 13 to be on the same points as the 11th-placed Finn, Monika Mikkola and one point off the top ten.
Two victories saw Belgium’s Emma Plasschaert surge into ILCA 6 contention as she bounced back from disqualification on Monday to climb to fourth.
“It’s a nice feeling; sailing bullets is always fun,” said the two-time world champion. “I got the strategy right, and it’s nice when everything falls into place.
“It’s important to trust the process and believe one DSQ doesn’t have to affect everything that follows.
“It was tough, I didn’t have the best night’s sleep, but I just focused on the job at hand and tried to gain every point I could.”
Also enjoying an upturn in fortunes was Hannah Snellgrove (GBR), who recorded finishes of fourth and eighth to move into eighth overall.
Snellgrove turned 33 on the opening day of competition and was pleased to have a more successful day to celebrate.
“The birthday didn’t go according to plan, so we are doing a belated birthday two days later,” she said.
“Day one was a bit rough, a yellow flag and one not so good result, so it has been good to put in a few top-10s ever since. I had some good starts today and that made life a bit easier.”
Marit Bouwmeester (NED) and Maud Jayet (SUI) are the joint-leaders on 24 points, three ahead of Chiara Benini Floriani (ITA) with Plasschaert a point further back.
Reigning world and Olympic champion Anne-Marie Rindom remains very much in the mix in fifth.
Results are here
After three days of hectic racing, Rush Sailing Club's Tom Fox won by a single point in the ILCA 6 class of Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta on Sunday, beating Afloat's pre-regatta tip of Darren Griffin as the Malahide sailor was top three at the Masters' Nationals in the last two years.
Fox got off to a great start with two race wins on Friday, but Griffin countered with wins in races five, six and seven on Sunday in the 17-boat fleet.
Racing took place on the relatively more sheltered Salthill course on Dublin Bay but there were severe gusts off the Blackrock shore.
Only a point separated the pair by Sunday's closing race eight, with Fox on 18 and Griffin 19.
Hugh Delap, who heads to the Master European Championships in September, took third.
The 2023 regatta, the ninth edition of Ireland's largest regatta, concluded on Sunday with final races for most classes and a great festival of sailing across the waterfront and Dun Laoghaire town as four sailing clubs come together for the biennial event; Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club, Royal Irish Yacht Club, Royal St. George Yacht Club and National Yacht Club.
While Darren Griffin (MYC/RStG) must be a favourite on paper for the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta ILCA 6 dinghy title as he was top three at the ILCA 6 Master Nationals in the last two years, another north Dublin sailor, Tom Fox of Rush, will also be very fast if the forecasted breeze materialises this weekend.
A 21-boat fleet ILCA 6 fleet for the four-day Dublin Bay event also sees the return of some dark horses such as Ivor McNamara (who returns periodically to Lasers) and Marc Coakley (back home from working abroad) plus two Water Wag sailors, John O’Driscoll and Hugh Delap, who’ve opted for the single hander this week. Both could be up near the top, especially DeLap who has improved a lot in the ILCA this year and is heading to the Master European Championships in September.
Included in the VDLR mix are five female helms making the ILCA 6s one of the biggest dinghy turnouts this weekend.