#49erfx – A promising mid–fleet performance for Ireland's newest Olympic sailing duo came to a dramatic halt on Lake Garda, Italy yesterday when a race course crash put paid to a stronger performance for  49erFX pair, Andrea Brewster and Saskia Tidey in the ladies skiff class. 

Luckily a suspected broken arm for crew Saskia Tidey has turned out to be only heavy bruising following a crash in yesterday's high winds at the climax of the Italian Olympic regatta.

The team tweet as below:

Forstay to the face and banged up arm ... Hectic day at the office #skiffracing pic.twitter.com/ZHt5rd4JAm

— Saskia Tidey (@SaskiaTidey) May 10, 2014

#olympicsailing – Annalise Murphy took another race win to make it three in a row for the Laser Radial European champion on Lake Garda yesterday but a 16th in race six yesterday evening may yet prove costly for the Dubliner who is defending her Eurosaf crown at Vela Garda Trentino, Italian Olympic week. She counts 23 points overall, just three points off overall leader, the Italian Silvia Zennaro.

Conditions were lighter than normal on the lake with the local Ora wind not as strong as had been forecast.

In the mens 49er, Ryan Seaton and Matt McGovern dropped to fourth yesterday in their 23–boat fleet having previously held second overall.  

In the women's 49erfx Andrea Brewster and Saskia Tidey are 17th after nine races in their 28–boat fleet.

Full results here. Racing continues this morning.

#eurosaf – Two race wins moves Ireland's Annalise Murphy up seven places overall in the second day of Italian Olympic week on Lake Garda. The Laser Radial European champion made it a clean sweep in races three and four to lie 14 points off the overall lead held by Amelie Riou of France.

In the mens 49er class Ireland's Ryan Seaton and Matt McGovern have also moved up to second overall after counting a 3 and 4 in today's races.

In the women's 49erfx class Andrea Brewster and Saskia Tidey are 18th after four races sailed. 

Results and regatta site here.

Racing continues tomorrow.

Andrea Brewster and Saskia Tidey are full time sailors campaigning to represent Ireland at the Rio 2016 Olympics, with the ambition of bringing home a medal in the 49erFX class.

For the latest news campaign news click here

Team Brewster/Tidey are members of the Irish Sailing Association Olympic Development Squad and recognised as Ireland's most promising female pairing for the Olympic qualification in the 49erFX.

Their partnership began in August 2013 just prior to the World Championships, where they put in a solid first event performance taking away some top 5 results but most importantly a wealth of experience to build on. Now with a winter of training behind them they are keen to get back out racing on the World Cup circuit in 2014 to hone their skills and continue to learn and improve before the first Olympic Qualification Regatta the ISAF Worlds in Santander.

Team Brewster/Tidey have recently come onboard with Pledge Sports which is a crowd funding scheme aimed at helping Irish athletes raise money in order to compete at the highest level in their sports.

Sponsors already supporting Team Brewster/Tidey's campaign include Spirit Motor Group in partnership with Volvo Ireland, who have provided Andrea and Saskia with a vehicle to ensure they and their equipment gets transported efficiently and safely around Europe.

Adding a professional image to the team, with coordinating wetsuits, boots and other vital pieces of necessary sailing clothing is GUL Performance Apparel. Other supporters include the Royal Irish Yacht Club, Zest Boatworks, LDC Sailing, Wyldsson, Phyisicool and Moatt Sails.

Andrea and Saskia are enthusiastic about sharing their campaign highs and lows and regularly post pictures and updates on their Facebook page Team Brewster/Tidey IRL 49erfx Sailing. 

Profiles and History:

Name: Andrea Brewster
Age: 31
Nickname: AB

Sailing CV:
- Previously represented Britain as a member of the Olympic Laser Radial Squad.
- An experienced campaigner with numerous top 10 finishes at International, European and World Championships.
- Highest World ranking of 5th in the Laser Radial.
- Represented GBR at 2003 Pre-Olympic Regatta.
- Career highlight to date is winning the Bronze medal at the 2008 World Championships in the Laser Radial Class.
- Currently representing Ireland on the ISA Olympic Development Squad.

Name: Saskia Tidey
Age: 20
Nickname: Sas

Sailing CV:
- Won the sole place to represent Ireland at the 2009 ISAF Youth World Championships.
- Irish Youth National Champion 2009/2010 in the Laser Radial.
- Irish Sailing Academy Squad member 2009 - 2011.
- Represented Ireland at the Laser Radial European and World Championships 2009 -2011.
- Crew member onboard the first all female 18ft skiff team racing in Sydney, Australia for the season of 2012- 2013.
- Represented Ireland in the 49erFX 2013 World & European Championships.
- Currently representing Ireland on the ISA Olympic Development Squad.

#49erfx – In this six minute video production former British Laser ace Andrea Brewster reveals how with no option to further her sailing career in the UK she has opted to sail for Ireland with new crew Saskia Tidey and the stated aim of bringing back an Olympic sailing medal from Rio in 2016. 

The video tells how the team formed, what the daily grind is like on the Skiff circuit and what goals are being set by the girls for the 2014 season that started last week in Palma where they finished 37th out of 50 at the penulitmate round of the ISAF World Cup.

#49erfx – New Irish Olympic sailing combination are aiming high with the stated ambition of 'bringing home a medal' in the 49erFX class in Rio in three year's time. Andrea Brewster and Saskia Tidey are full time sailors campaigning to represent Ireland at the Rio 2016 Olympics and are in Palma, Mallorca today on the first stage of that journey at the ISAF World Cup. 

Their partnership began in August 2013 just prior to the World Championships, where they put in a solid first event performance taking away some top 5 results but most importantly a wealth of experience to build on. Now with a winter of training behind them they are keen to get back out racing on the World Cup circuit in 2014 to hone their skills and continue to learn and improve before the first Olympic Qualification Regatta the ISAF Worlds in Santander.

According to this morning's team press release 'Team Brewster/Tidey are members of the Irish Sailing Association Olympic Development Squad and recognised as Ireland's most promising female pairing for the Olympic qualification in the 49erFX'.

#49er – Irish 49er skiff duo Ryan Seaton & Matt McGovern from Belfast have finished outside their target of top 10 in their first world championships on the road to Rio 2016 but have nevertheless posted a credible 14th overall in a 90–boat fleet.  And in the women's 49erfx class Ireland's Andrea Brewster and Saskia Tidey who have only been sailing together for two months had a good regatta for their first event finishing 36th. The highlight of the event for the new team was a race win in the silver fleet on the penultimate day in the 53–boat fleet.

In both the men's 49er and women's 49erFX the day started with a petit final which was made up of the sailors who were in 10th – 20th position in the Gold Fleet and the winner competed in the three final races with the top 10 afterwards.

Seaton and McGovern finished in 16th in the petit final which left them in 14th position overall in the regatta.

It was a good event for Team NZL who won the event with Burking & Tuke and their teammates Hansen & Porebski finished in 2nd place. Australia's Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen, London 2012 Gold medalists finished in 5th place.

#49er – Skiff duo Ryan Seaton & Matt McGovern will compete in the 49er World Championships in France next week along with new Irish women's combination Andrea Brewster and Saskia Tidey in the new 49erFx skiff class.

The six day and potential 25 race regatta held in Marseille  will be the biggest test of the year for the London 2012 partnership, especially as team bosses are already talking up the prospect of a 'replication of the recent successes of Olympic teammate Annalise Murphy', the new Laser European champion. The pair are targeting a solid top 10 finish to keep Rio plans on track.

Included in the 96–boat fleet will be three-time World Champions and London 2012 Gold medallists Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen from Australia who have most recently been competing in the America's Cup. Kiwis Peter Burling and Blair Tuke, London 2012 Silver medallists and 2013 49er European Champions will also be in attendance. With the Worlds being late in the season it has given everyone a chance to get back up to speed post Olympics. Without doubt this will be the toughest event of 2013. 

This championship will conclude what has been a busy summer for the Northern Ireland pair who had their best performance of the year at the Sail for Gold regatta in Weymouth in June when they won Gold. 

Also competing at the regatta are female 49erFX campaigners Andrea Brewster and Saskia Tidey.

#rio – In the first twist in Irish Olympic sailing's build up to Rio 2016, there's been a major reshuffle in Irish women's skiff sailing. The change comes just months after two separate high profile campaigns were announced. Rival women's 49erfx campaigns have apparently merged this month, leaving two former opponents establishing a new double-handed bid.

Helmswoman Andrea Brewster from one team and crew Saskia Tidey from another pairing have teamed up as a new crew combination seeking the qualification standard for Rio 2016.

Although Claudine Murphy and Brewster announced their four year campaign in May – talking up how delighted they were to be sailing together –  the pair have split after just three months.

According to an August 31st posting on the team facebook page, Murphy, elder sister of Laser Euro champion Annalise, is returning to medical studies at UCD.

The last event the pair competed in was the 49er/FX British Nationals. While they say they had made progress in the new class, they also conceded some aspects of their sailing were 'not so brilliant!'.

 'We are sad to announce that our campaign has come to an end', they said.

According to the statement, Brewster is continuing to campaign for Ireland in the debutante class, teaming up with Saskia Tidey, the crewing partner of Belfast lough helmswoman Tiffany Brien, Ireland's other 49erFx campaign. 

While there is no word of any replacement crew for Brien's campaign, the former Miss Northern Ireland was back sailing an RS Elite at the British Nationals on Belfast Lough in August.

Annalise Murphy's older sister Claudine has announced plans to join Annalise on Rio's Guanabara Bay in the latest Irish women's skiff campaign.

Claudine has teamed up with former British trialist Andrea Brewster in a bid for the Irish 49erfx slot against Tiffany Brien and Saskia Tidey also seeking a place in the official squad and a place in this new class for the Rio games.

Here Claudine gives some background on her campaign:

I met Andrea for the first time at the 2004 Laser Radial Europeans in Bangor. Andrea has been sailing the laser full time since then and was Annalise's training partner for the London Games. Annalise had joked about us teaming up in the FX for 2016 but we did not look into it seriously until February of this year. Andrea has dual citizenship so decided to use this to team up with me and start a campaign. She has been in the top 30 in the world consistently from 2005 to 2012 in the laser radial, her most notable result being a bronze medal at the 2008 Laser Radial Worlds. We both decided we had similar ambitions in our sailing and are at a position to go full time to give it a proper go.

We intend on debuting at Sail for Gold in Weymouth where we have been training for the past five weeks. Portland harbour is ideal for learning how to skiff sail as it is large and relatively obstacle free! We then plan on attending the next European cup event in Kiel followed by the Europeans in Denmark. There is then quite a large gap until the worlds in Marseille in mid September.

Our short term goals are to make ISC funding so we can progress forward into 2014 with support.  Our main goal for now is to learn to control the boat in all conditions. Skiff sailing in a breeze is more extreme than any kiteboarding or skiing I have done in my last year of travelling! We have had some very comical scenarios in this learning process which makes the terror and injuries sustained worthwhile! I am also very glad of the fitness I worked on last year when I rowed for DULBC while doing my Masters in Trinity. Skiff crewing is very physical so my fitness regime has increased dramatically in the past few months.  Long term it will be important to qualify the nation in Santandar next September as it will be much more difficult to do so with the new continent divisions in nation places for 2016.

I think the difficult thing about sailing a double handed boat is finding somebody you can have a successful working partnership with. But I am delighted to have found somebody to sail with who is so talented and dedicated to Olympic sailing as Andrea is. We are basing ourselves in DunLaoghaire from now so between ourselves and Annalise in her moth we will give the pier onlookers lots of entertainment this summer!

Claudine and Andrea in flying form in a training session in Weymouth. Photo:Tom Peel

Below Andrea also gives some background to the new campaign:

Towards the end of last year I made the decision to sail the 49erFX which is the new Women's Skiff Class in for Rio 2016. The FX is by far the most exciting class ever to be brought in for Women to sail at the Olympics and I could not resist the opportunity to sail full time in such a fantastic boat. So I bought an FX and with the help of some good friends I began learning to try and master the art of skiff sailing.

The difficulty I have found about learning to sail the FX is that as a beginner its fairly risky to go sailing in anything much above 15 knots so that immediately reduced the amount of days I was able to train. Between October and March I think I managed to do about 3 weeks of sailing in total as either there was too much wind or I was unable to find anyone to sail with. I started looking for someone to team up with to get a campaign underway back in September and despite trying out with some very good sailors I was unable to find anyone in a position to be able to sail full time with me. After such a slow start and still no full time crew I was beginning to wonder if I was realistically going to be able to continue campaigning. I thought back to conversations I'd had with my great friend and training partner for the last few years in the Radial, Annalise Murphy from Ireland. We used to joke that I should become Irish and sail a skiff with Annalise's sister Claudine for 2016. At the time it sounded pretty far fetched but nearly 6 months after buying my FX and no further on with a campaign I realised that this might be the only opportunity I might have. My Mum's side of the family are all of Irish descent, so I knew that I could be eligible to sail for Ireland. After talking it through with Claudine and discovering that she was also at a cross roads in life which meant she could go full time if sailing if she wanted, we decided to try out together in the FX. We discussed things in great detail and I was pleased to learn that we both shared the same aspirations for the campaign and from there we decided to seize the opportunity and go for it!

So I am now pleased to officially announce that Claudine Murphy and I are campaigning for Rio 2016 sailing for Ireland. We are only a few weeks into our training so far but as you can see from the picture we are throwing ourselves into it!

I am very grateful for all the support and encouragement I have received so far from everyone about my decision to switch to sail for Ireland. I have many fond and proud memories of my time representing Britain and I am now looking forward to this next exciting chapter in my life!