Described as a regatta that is ‘not important in terms of results’ by the Irish Sailing Association, Laser sailor Finn Lynch's consistent score against a quality fleet in the Bay of Palma has, on the contrary, produced a very important result that reveals the depth of his Paris ambitions. 

By dint of an error-free series and a thrilling medal race finish, the National Yacht Club ace took fourth overall at the Princesa Sofia Trophy, the first Olympic classes regatta to be sailed in three years.

It's yet another credible international career-high in a fleet of 160 for the 25-year-old and a result that matches his previous best overall score from Mallorca in 2019.

The ILCA 7 medal race

Lynch went into the medal race in fifth place having climbed up the top ten from ninth on Wednesday and made the best of the points situation to finish with the leather medal. 

With the moderate breeze freshening off Ca'n Pastilla on the Bay of Palma, the ILCA7 medal race was the first final to get underway for the Princess Sofia trophy and Lynch made a clean start and was up to fourth place by the first mark.

In the next two legs, he held the lead until the final few hundred metres when the wind freshened on the opposite side of the course and he was overtaken on the finishing line to place third in a group of overlapped leading boats.

Nevertheless, the result was enough to move him from fifth to fourth place, continuing his rise through the ranks of the top ten boats all week.

Britain's Michael Beckett placed seventh in the race and took the Gold medal as Afloat reports here while Australia's Matt Wearn was second and took Silver. Germany's Philippe Buhl was last in the race and placed third overall.

Finn Lynch put together a really solid event in Palma while sailing with a swollen arm that meant taking painkillers for two days of the competition Photo: Sailing Energy

Far from being 'not important', Saturdays’ fourth overall result is a valuable confidence boost both in terms of Lynch's physical and mental preparations, right at the beginning of a crucially short Olympic cycle for Paris 2024.

The Laser hopeful who, did not qualify for Tokyo but a few months later finished second at the World Championships last November has had a head-scratching time of it of late.

While whatever happened for Tokyo is not easy for Lynch or his supporters to reconcile, the hope now must be that the 2021 Worlds and 2022 Palma scoresheets bring with them a real sense of belief.

After all, Lynch became Ireland’s youngest ever Olympic helmsman when he qualified for Rio at the first attempt in 2016.

Judging by his early achievements already in this triennial there is no reason he cannot repeat the feat for Marseille in arguably the hottest of all the Olympic classes.

After a 'challenging' Tokyo Review, Irish Sailing needs to show it is putting all efforts into ensuring Lynch's promising tack towards Paris continues. It should do its utmost to eliminate any needless shoreside aggravation, (such as onerous clauses in team contracts) that have the potential to knock him or indeed other team members off course.

Next up for Lynch is May's defence of his 2021 silver medal at this year's Worlds to be held in Puerto Vallarta in Mexico.

Full results here

Britain's 27-year-old Michael Beckett from Pemorkeshire took Princesa Sofia Trophy Gold in the ILCA 7 class Photo: Sailing Energy

On painkillers and sailing with a swollen arm, Ireland's Finn Lynch secured his medal race place when he moved up to fifth place overall at the end of Gold fleet racing in the ILCA7/Laser single-handed fleet today at the Princesa Sofia regatta.

After another breezy day on the Bay of Palma The National Yacht Club sailor had a fifth place in the opening race of the day and followed with his worst result of the week, a 22nd which then became his discard.

The result marks the end of 10 races for the 163-boat class with the top ten placed boats going forward for a brief race on Saturday to decide the podium places.

The best place that Lynch can achieve is fourth to match his previous best at this regatta in 2019.

"Finn has put together a really solid event this week," said Lynch's coach Vasilij Zbogar. "He's had an issue with a swollen arm so it’s hard to sail but all credit to him, he didn't want to give up even on painkillers for two days."

"The upside is that we'll get some medal race practice after a long gap but the downside is that a medal isn't an option so fourth is the target."

British sailor Michael Beckett is  guaranteed a medal and hilled about carrying an 11 points lead into his medal race, ahead of Germany’s 2020 world champion Philipp Buhl and Australia’s Tokyo gold medallist Matt Wearn:

Beckett said, “I love the medal races. It is good to have a points gap. Last time I did this regatta I was 21^st and this is a great regatta and everyone is back after the Games. I have done a lot of work with the squad and this week I have been fast and it has just felt as good as I have felt in training.”

Ireland's other sailor in the ILCA7 event is Ewan McMahon Howth YC) who placed 32nd overall after the ten race fleet series ended and who is going to work on executing the upwind legs better.

McMahon's younger brother Jamie placed 25th in the Silver fleet after a promising start to the series on Monday when he scored top 20 results in his qualification flight.

The medal race final for the ILCA7 class takes place at 10 30 (Irish Summer time) on Saturday 9th April.

Full results here

Some clever sailing through minimising race course errors has put Finn Lynch into sixth place overall in the Laser/ILCA 7 class at the Princess Sofia Regatta in Mallorca today.

The National Yacht Club ace scored eighth and 14th in fresh winds today on the Bay of Palma, scores that give him a highly prized sixth place with just two races remaining in the Gold fleet series.

With the possibility of further improvement tomorrow, Lynch has the prospect of a medal race finish in his first event towards Paris 2024. 

Howth's Ewan McMahon slipped to 30th overall after placing 39th and 21st, his brother Jamie lies in  80th place in the 160-boat fleet.

Best of the Laser Men today was Olympic Champion Matt Wearn who continues his comeback from 32nd overall on the opening day of the competition. 

The Australian was third in the first race when it paid to go left and struggled a bit more in the next when it paid to go right, still scoring a reasonable 12th. Michael Beckett (GBR) was only a point less consistent than Wearn with 14th in the first race and narrowly missing out on a race win against Filip Jurišić (CRO) to finish second. “I got the day half right,” said Beckett, “which was probably about all that anyone managed today. It was hard to read the pattern of the breeze so that was a pretty good day out, really.”

A race win for Philipp Buhl (GER) puts the 2020 World Champion just two points behind Beckett’s lead, with Wearn now 15 points off the top. France’s Jean-Baptiste Bernaz, the overnight leader did not race today.

Results here

A most consistent performance from Irish Laser sailor Finn Lynch on the Bay of Palma shows the depth of the Rio Olympian's ambition for Paris 2024 as the National Yacht Club ace broke into the top ten overall of the 162-boat fleet.

Gold fleet racing started for the ILCA7 class today with Lynch taking an eighth place that matches his top ten scores of the qualification series.

A 15th place in the next race is his discard so far with four races remaining in the Gold fleet to decide the top ten boats that will sail Saturday's medal race final.

"I feel good after a tricky day with lots of shifty winds," said Lynch after racing. "I'm happy with my position after four days of racing to have not used my discard - 15th is still a good result in Gold fleet."

Ireland's other ILCA7 Gold fleet sailor Ewan McMahon had a mixed day, discarding a weighty 49th place but staying calm to deliver a third place straight after. The Howth sailor lies 23rd overnight.

Younger brother Jamie McMahon lies eleventh overall in the Silver fleet after a 14th and a discarded 47th place.

Racing continues for all fleets on Thursday and Friday to decide the top ten in each event for Saturday's medal race final.

French veteran campaigner Jean Baptiste Bernaz, who is setting out on his fifth consecutive Olympic journey looking to represent France at their home games holds the overall lead in the ILCA 7 class just one point ahead of his German training partner Philipp Buhl who won the second race for gold fleet.

“The first race was not easy there was one big wind shift and if you were not there you were finished. I lost about ten boats and finished 18th but the second race was better. It was that kind of day.” Said Buhl, the 2020 world champion who is looking to get to his third Olympics “This feels different this time because it is a much shorter lead in. It is not always enjoyable. When you are sitting around in the rain waiting it is not so nice but when you are leading a gold fleet race in the sunshine in good conditions this evening, that is good fun and keeps you motivated.”

Results here

Consistent Finn Lynch kept Irish hopes of a top ILCA 7/Laser result at Palma’s Princesa Sofia Regatta on a gusty second day of qualification in the 162-boat fleet. 

Rio 2016 Olympian Lynch (National Yacht Club) sits in 20th overall out of 163 boats so makes the 55-boat Gold fleet cut with races to spare.

Likewise, his main rival for Paris 2024, Howth YC’s Ewan McMahon counts three out of four races with top 14 places so also makes the Gold fleet in 38th place overall.

McMahon's younger brother Jamies lies 56th overall dropping back in the overall scores after a capsize in a choppy Bay of Palma.

Ireland's Finn Lynch (IRL 216890) is captured by drone rounding the weather mark on day two of the ILCA 7 racing at the Trofeo S.A.R. Princesa Sofía in Mallorca. Photo: Sailing Energy

Beckett on top in ILCA 7, gold medallist on the prowl

Britain’s Michael Beckett moved to the top of the 180 boat ILCA 7 leaderboard after scoring 1,2 in the Blue Group of Qualifying.

Reigning Olympic Champion Matt Wearn winner here in 2018, scored the reciprocal results of 2,1 in Blue Group but the Australian has risen only to 32nd overall in the 167 boat fleet after a DNC yesterday.

Beckett was pleased with his day but is expecting a much harder fight from tomorrow Wednesday when the top tier get reorganised into Gold Fleet racing. “None of it’s easy but in those conditions today the top five do start to stretch a bit of a gap after a while,” said Beckett. “Tomorrow it’s going to be much harder, the margins will be much smaller and the quality of the fleet will make it a bigger challenge.”

 Racing continues on Wednesday for all fleets and the prospect of lighter conditions for the second half of the regatta that continues until Saturday when the medal race finals for all classes will be sailed.

All three Irish Laser men survived two tough opening races to be in the top 20% of the massive total 154-boat ILCA 7 fleet after day one of the giant Trofeo Sofia in Mallorca today.

The National Yacht Club's Finn Lynch lies in 17th place and Howth brothers Ewan and Jamie McMahon are lying 26th and 30th respectively in what is effectively their first event on the road to the single Irish Laser place at the Paris 2024 Olympics. 

All three Irish helmsmen were inside the top thirty boats in their flights.

Lynch had a consistent day with ninth and fifth places.  "It was survival conditions but I'm happy with the day and that I didn't make any mistakes," the Carlow sailor said after coming ashore at the Can Pastilla sailing base.

In every respect other than the air temperature there was a baptism of fire on the Bay of Palma when some of the Olympic classes started racing. 

Strong, gusty offshore breezes pumped up to well over 25kts at times to provide a stiff test.

Cyprus's Pavlos Kontides, the 2012 Olympic Laser silver medallist, posted two wins to lead ahead of GBR’s Michael Beckett and Germany’s Philipp Buhl who both sailed to a second and a first in their respective qualifying fleets.

Ireland's Lynch finished in fourth place in the 2019 regatta here but as regular Afloat readers know the Dun Laoghaire ace since took second in the World Championships in Barcelona last November, so is highly regarded as Ireland's top hope for a podium place in Mallorca this week.

Tomorrow (Tuesday 5th April) sees the start of the full competition when all ten classes will be in action.

The 49er skiff event will feature Tokyo Olympians Robert Dickson and Seán Waddilove as well rivals Séafra Guilfoyle and Johnny Durcan in their second major competition together. 

Results are here. 

It looks like Ireland's three ILCA 7/Laser competitors at the giant 51 Trofeo Sofia Mallorca are in for a 'baptism of fire' this morning, according to local reports, with strong winds forecast and all three Olympic medalists from Tokyo competing in the first of the World Cup Series regattas.

When racing starts this morning on Mallorca’s famous Bay of Palma the regatta will usher in a whole new era for Olympic classes sailing. Of the ten classes set to race this week, five are new to the roster of classes that will race at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

As Afloat previously reported, competing in the week-long regatta (Monday 4 to Saturday 9 April) is the National Yacht Club's Finn Lynch and Howth brothers Ewan and Jamie McMahon in the ILCA 7 (Laser).

Lynch finished in fourth place in the 2019 regatta but as regular Afloat readers know the Dun Laoghaire ace since took second in the World Championships in Barcelona last November, so is highly regarded as Ireland's top hope for a podium place in Mallorca.

Club Nàutic S’Arenal

It is an appropriately big stage, exciting return as the first major Olympic classes regatta since 2019 welcomes the debut of the high speed, high octane iQFOiL, men’s and women’s foiling windsurfing fleets, the men’s and women’s foiling Formula Kite fleets and, for the first time at the mixed 470 two person dinghy.

The high level of anticipation is shared equally between the 1,000 sailors as well as the local organisers who have worked tirelessly to ensure that this huge undertaking, which requires an unprecedented eight course areas and 250 officials on the water, goes off without a hitch.

And with a stiff 20kts offshore north-easterly wind forecast, Monday’s debutants, the iQFoil fleets and the Mixed 470s will be offered something of a baptism of fire, as will be the two ILCA fleets, the strongest of which is the Men’s ILCA 7 class which sees all three Tokyo medallists resuming rivalries for the first time since the Games.

High quality field

The Men’s iQFOiL has drawn a high quality field which is a mix of past RS:X Olympic campaigners transitioning to the foiling board, and foiling windsurfers from the Professional Windsurfing Tour.

Kiran Badloe (NED) is the twice RS:X world champion and Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion.

Righting moment - weight and power - are among the primary requirements for top straight line speed. Badloe is up from a lithe RS:X 73 kilos to ‘somewhere around 90 kilos’.

The effervescent Dutch windsurfer enthused, “It’s a new start and it’s like a new sport. I’ve put on a lot of weight since racing the RS:X in Tokyo. I’m 1.95m, so staying at 73 kilos for Tokyo was really hard, having to diet. For me it’s good to be somewhere above 90kg is good, I feel healthier. We need the extra weight because when the foil lifts us out of the water we have no water resistance and we hit high speeds. So it’s a little bit faster to have more weight to swing down.”

“The iQFOiL is great because it brings the whole windsurfing community together. We’ve got guys from the PWA, guys from the slalom and the freestyle, and then we’ve got former Olympians like me. And it’s great to see that everybody has their own strengths. The PWA guys are incredibly fast and they know the gear really well, how to tune it and how to tweak it, They’re just very fast sailors. So if they get a bit of runway, they can go quite fast. The guys that come from the Olympic fleet, they're a little more strategic. I think we read the wind shifts a little better and we would like to think we’ve got a bit more fitness and an ability to keep pumping the sail longer. Eventually the guy that's going to win is going to be somewhere in the middle. You’ve got to be fast enough. You’ve got to match the guys that come from the PWA, but you're also going to have to sail smart around the race course,” said Badloe.

470: the best of the men’s and women’s fleets

And the mixed 470 fleet is poised and ready to show the virtues of what here amounts to the amalgamation of the best of the men’s and women’s fleets. GBR’s Women’s 470 Olympic gold medal winning crew Eilidh McIntyre is racing with Martin Wrigley and believes there will be little to choose between the different combinations of male or female helms and crews.

“It is so exciting. What is most exciting is to be merging the top of the men’s fleet and the top of the women’s fleets and that means a lot more boats. I think there will actually be more depth in the class and it will be harder to make the top 12, say, or the top 15 and I think here we will see some high points scoring especially among the newer teams.” Says“But really we are all in the beginning phase. There is so much to learn and improve. The really big thing is getting the team work down and roles and responsibilities.”

With a maximum sized fleet of 180 boats racing, as the new ‘quadrennial’ starts the ILCA 7 men’s fleet has lost absolutely nothing in quality and intensity. Australia’s reigning Olympic champion Matt Wearn sets off this week on his quest to become the first sailor to win consecutive ILCA 6/ Laser Olympic titles. Pressed by an Australian squad which he warns ‘could finish four or five of us in the top ten’ he is only too aware that he will have a battle on his hands to make selection for the 2024 Olympic spot.

Wearn observes, “There are only two years to go until Paris so this feels like a new beginning and I really want to get started on the right foot. There are 20 or 30 guys who can win a regatta in the ILCA 7. I am sure we will see other guys who had results in the Worlds who will be keen to do well.

“We have some new, younger blood in and they are hungry and pushing me hard. One of them, Zac Littlewood, got fifth at the world championships. He his hungry and keen to push me off my perch for Paris and so I have to be on my toes. We are stronger than ever, I would not be surprised if we had four or five of us in the top 10 this week.”

Local hero

Local hero Joan Cardona, Spain’s Bay of Palma bred 2020 Finn bronze medallist, has slimmed down from a Finn max of over 100kgs to ‘somewhere around 80’ as he returns to the Laser at the home regatta that he first sailed as a callow teenager.

“I've been sailing in this regatta since I was 14 years old in the Laser,” grins Cardona who is the Balearics’ first Olympic sailing medallist since Palma’s Jordi Calafat won 470 gold in Barcelona, “The first one I think was 2013 and I was at Optimist age but I was already with the big guys, the likes of Nick Thompson, Robert Scheidt,... I was so young I didn't even know them.”

Cardona concludes, “It's great to be back in Palma after such a long time. It's my first international regatta in ILCA 7, and also at home since the Games so I want to do well. My preparation is going very well, with the feeling that I'm getting better every day. But I think it will be difficult to get a good result, because it's a very competitive class, and I'd be happy with a top 30 finish. I'm not so much focused on the result as on competing at my highest level with the training I've been doing, and we'll see.”

Regatta technical director Ferrán Muniesa, promises a typically varied week of winds, “Mallorca is always known for different conditions and I think we will get a good mix through the week. It looks we will start with a NE’ly breeze offshore of about 20kts and then it will shift to the NW to the Mistral direction in the middle of the week, and then the last two days and for the medal race we are looking at S and SW’ly winds, one or two days of seabreeze. I never like to talk about the weather but we should sail every day.”

After recent warm-weather training, there should be no 'rustiness' from Irish Olympic campaigners keen to get on the right tack for Paris 2024 in Palma, Mallorca on Friday morning.

The Princess Sofia Regatta is the first major international event since the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo.

A team of seven Irish will join a fleet of 1,000 sailors, 800 boats and boards, representing 62 nations.

And with only 850 days to Paris, there is no shortage of competition with the regatta now exceeding organisers targets. But not all teams are in Palma, however, as Russian and Belarussian crews are excluded under an IOC directive.

Recent Irish training camp activity, some of it on the Mallorcan race track itself, means Ireland is in the hunt for some early Olympic class results.

Competing in the week-long regatta (Monday 4 to Saturday 9 April) is the National Yacht Club's Finn Lynch and Howth brothers Ewan and Jamie McMahon in the ILCA 7 (Laser).

Lynch finished in fourth place in the 2019 regatta but as regular Afloat readers know the Dun Laoghaire ace took second in the Worlds in Barcelona last November, so is highly regarded as Ireland's top hope for a podium place next Friday.

The Carlow native did, however, lack form at a recent training regatta at the venue just a fortnight ago, an event in which rival Ewan McMahon took tenth overall as Afloat reported here. 

Racing for the Lasers starts on Monday 4 April.

There will be no Irish interest in the Radial (ILCA 6) class, as the recently crowned Irish Sailor of the Year Eve McMahon focuses on her Leaving Certificate studies and clubmate Aoife Hopkins is recovering from COVID.

Starting a day later than the Lasers in Mallorca are Howth and Skerries 49er Olympians Robert Dickson and Seán Waddilove, and Royal Cork rivals Séafra Guilfoyle and Johnny Durcan in their first major competition following the 49er Worlds in Oman last November where both Irish boats made the gold fleet. 

Royal Cork 49er duo Séafra Guilfoyle and Johnny Durcan

The 49ers have been based in Lanzarote for a winter training camp and training hard as Prof O'Connell of North Sails Ireland discovered here.

This event is the first time that the 49er class can use new regulation equipment for Paris 2024 which includes the use of North's 3Di technology sails with their characteristic black colour.

Also racing from Dun Laoghaire is Saskia Tidey who has launched a new TeamGB 49erFX campaign.

Mallorca line up

• Monday 4 April - First day of racing for ILCAs, 470, iQFoils
• Tuesday 5 April - First day of racing for 49er, 49erFX, Nacra and Formula Kites

With the Paris 2024 Games less than two and a half years away, there is a sense of urgency and enthusiasm among competitors to be sailing in world-class competition once again. Following a two-year hiatus caused by the global pandemic, there is a renewed sense of optimism in the spring air of Palma, as many sailors get to see, and race against, each other once again.

Organised jointly by Club Nàutic S’Arenal, Club Marítimo San Antonio de la Playa and Real Club Náutico de Palma, the Trofeo Princesa Sofía has long been the regatta to mark the start of the European racing season for the Olympic fleets. However this year is the first time since 2014 that the event has been part of the Hempel World Cup, the annual circuit for the Olympic elite. It’s a vital event for competitors to see how their training has been going over the past months and years, and an opportunity to make a statement of intent on the world stage at the start of the Paris 2024 Olympic cycle.

This year’s regatta in Palma also marks the first time the new high-speed events in Olympic sailing line up at a world-class regatta alongside the more established classes. Here’s a rundown of the 10 events set to take place at this and other regattas in the 2022 Hempel World Cup Series:

FORMULA KITE

Formula Kite is a high performance hydrofoiling class using regulated series registered production equipment to limit campaign costs. Capable of speeds up to 40 knots, the foiling kiteboarders will become the fastest athletes in the 122-year history of Olympic sailing. Capable of achieving more than four-times wind speed in as little as 6 knots of breeze, the kitefoilers will be racing closest to the shore in Palma. To find out more, read here.

FORMULA KITE MEN

The French have been setting the pace in the early years of this new sport. Reigning world champion Theo de Ramecourt will be vying for French supremacy against the likes of Nico Parlier (son of Vendée Globe legend Yves) and Benoit Gomez. There are some seriously fast teenagers in this fleet too, notably Riccardo Pianosi from Italy who took third in the Worlds last season at the age of 16. Strong contingents from Spain and Denmark are entered, including four members from two generations of the Danish family, the Becketts.

FORMULA KITE WOMEN

The USA’s sole entry in the women’s division is also the stand-out talent in this fast-developing fleet. Daniela Moroz has been setting the pace in women’s kitefoiling for the past couple of seasons, including winning the Worlds last October. As with the men, the French are the strongest squad headed by the fast-improving Poema Newland. Ellie Aldridge is best of the British contingent, but the dark horse is Israel’s Gal Zukerman who, aged 15, notched up 18 straight race wins last December in Oman to win the 2021 Youth Sailing World Championships presented by Hempel. There’s plenty of local support for Gisela Pulido, a 10-time world champion in Freestyle, who also holds the record for youngest athlete to win a world championship in kitesurfing.

iQFOiL - WINDSURFING ON FOILS

iQFoil is a foiling windsurfing class selected by World Sailing to replace the traditional planing board used for the past four Olympic cycles, the RS:X. For many of the RS:X sailors from the Tokyo cycle, the switch to the iQFoil couldn’t come soon enough. Now they have a piece of equipment capable of generating 30 knots of speed in as little as 5 knots true wind. Not only that, but many of the Tokyo athletes have gone from limiting their food intake to keep the weight down, to piling on the pounds as much as possible to cope with the power in the iQFOiL rig. The men use a 9.0 m2 sail, and the women an 8.0 m2 sail. It’s estimated that the optimum racing weight for the men could be as high as 100kg.

iQFOiL MEN

There’s a huge local entry of 26 Spanish competitors, with Angel Granda Roque among the best of the home-grown talent. A big squad from the Netherlands too, not least the RS:X Olympic Champion from Tokyo 2020, Kiran Badloe, who has bulked up by more than 15kg since the Tokyo Games. Other high-performers from the RS:X era now competing on the foiling board include Mattia Camboni (ITA), Louis Giard (FRA) and Tom Squires (GBR).

iQFOiL WOMEN

As with the men, there’s been a switch from the RS:X board to the iQFOiL in the women’s windsurfing division. Bronze medallist from Tokyo, Emma Wilson heads up the British squad, while Pilar Lamadrid is one to watch in the Spanish squad, currently ranked 2nd in the World Ranking.. Brazil’s Giovanna Prada follows in the Olympic footsteps of her father Bruno who took silver and bronze in the Star keelboat at the Beijing and London Games alongside helmsman Robert Scheidt.

iQFoil is a foiling windsurfing class selected by World Sailing to replace the traditional planing board used for the past four Olympic cycles, the RS:X. For many of the RS:X sailors from the Tokyo cycle, the switch to the iQFoil couldn’t come soon enough. Now they have a piece of equipment capable of generating 30 knots of speed in as little as 5 knots true wind. Not only that, but many of the Tokyo athletes have gone from limiting their food intake to keep the weight down, to piling on the pounds as much as possible to cope with the power in the iQFOiL rig. The men use a 9.0 m2 sail, and the women an 8.0 m2 sail. It’s estimated that the optimum racing weight for the men could be as high as 100kg.

iQFOiL MEN

There’s a huge local entry of 26 Spanish competitors, with Angel Granda Roque among the best of the home-grown talent. A big squad from the Netherlands too, not least the RS:X Olympic Champion from Tokyo 2020, Kiran Badloe, who has bulked up by more than 15kg since the Tokyo Games. Other high-performers from the RS:X era now competing on the foiling board include Mattia Camboni (ITA), Louis Giard (FRA) and Tom Squires (GBR).

iQFOiL WOMEN

As with the men, there’s been a switch from the RS:X board to the iQFOiL in the women’s windsurfing division. Bronze medallist from Tokyo, Emma Wilson heads up the British squad, while Pilar Lamadrid is one to watch in the Spanish squad, currently ranked 2nd in the World Ranking.. Brazil’s Giovanna Prada follows in the Olympic footsteps of her father Bruno who took silver and bronze in the Star keelboat at the Beijing and London Games alongside helmsman Robert Scheidt.

All three Olympic medallists from Tokyo 2020 are among the line-up in the Nacra 17 foiling catamaran. Respectively the gold, silver and bronze medallists will be hard to beat: Ruggero Tita/Caterina Banti (ITA); John Gimson/Anna Burnet (GBR); Paul Kohlhoff/Alica Stuhlemmer (GER). Then again, there are leading lights from the Rio 2016 Games here too, including the 60-year-old Olympic gold medallist Santi Lange (ARG), recently teamed up with Victoria Travascio, and the Rio silver medallists Jason Waterhouse & Lisa Darmanin (AUS). Waterhouse has just arrived in Palma straight off the back of winning Season 2 of SailGP as flight controller aboard the Australian boat in San Francisco last weekend. The four-time World Champion Billy Besson dominated the early years of the Nacra 17 class and the Frenchman is back with new crew Noa Ancian to see if he can rekindle the glory years.

470 MIXED

Previously men and women competed in separate doublehanded 470 dinghy events. For Paris 2024, the men and women sail together in 470 Mixed, and it’s caused quite a lot of musical chairs within national squads. As with the Nacra 17 catamaran, the technical question of whether to sail with male helm/female crew or vice versa is always on the teams’ minds. Spain’s bronze medallist from Tokyo 2020 and only just back from skippering the Spanish F50 catamaran in the SailGP event in San Francisco last weekend, Jordi Xammar, is now teamed up with Nora Brugman on the trapeze. Among France’s strong line-up is former men’s world champion Kevin Peponnet who now sails with Aloise Retornaz, bronze medal crew from Tokyo 2020. The Women’s Olympic Champion from Tokyo, Eilidh McIntyre, is back in the boat, now with fellow Briton Martin Wrigley on the helm.

49er

All-new black sails and a new mast give an updated look to the 49er skiff, and there’s a changing of the guard too now that the all-time greats Pete Burling and Blair Tuke (NZL) have moved on from Olympic competition. The Briton that beat the Kiwi legends to Olympic gold last year, Dylan Fletcher (GBR), has teamed up with new crew Rhos Hawes to see if he can establish himself as the dominant force in the Paris cycle. Now in his 40s, the 2008 Olympic Champion from Denmark, Jonas Warrer, is back with a new crew Marcus Langagergaard. Diego Botin (ESP) narrowly missed out on the Olympic podium last year but is back with Nacra 17 Olympic representative Florian Trittel pulling the ropes on the Spanish skiff.

49erFX

The 49erFX fleet is also sporting black sails for the first time. Clear favourites are the double Olympic Champions Martine Grael & Kahena Kunze (BRA). The 2016 silver medallist Alex Maloney (NZL) is sailing with new crew Olivia Hobbs. After a few years’ break from Olympic campaigning, Sarah Steyeart is back on the 49er with RS:X windsurfing Olympic gold medallist Charline Picon switching to crewing at the front of the skiff. GBR Olympic crew and runner-up at the 2020 Worlds, Saskia Tidey is now crewing for Freya Black. Perhaps the strongest of the new pairings are the Dutch crew, with recently crowned World Champion Odile van Aanholt teaming up with former rival, the double world champion and Tokyo bronze medallist Annette Duetz. To find out more about the skiff fleets, read here.

ILCA 7

Technically the only major change in the singlehanded dinghies is the change of name. The Laser Standard is now the ILCA 7, but it’s the same faces who are likely to dominate. The Olympic Champion from Tokyo, Matt Wearn (AUS), remains the man to beat, although there are plenty who believe they can do so. These include the Olympic silver medallist at the last two Games, Tonci Stipanovic (CRO), and his training partner Pavlos Kontides (CYP), double world champion and silver medallist from London 2012. The reigning world champion Tom Saunders (NZL) is coming on strong, and the 2021 Worlds runner-up Finn Lynch (IRL) will also be in contention.

ILCA 6

Formerly known as the Laser Radial, the women’s singlehanded dinghy is now the ILCA 6. While the Olympic medallists from Tokyo 2020 are absent, all three medallists from the 2021 World Championship are in Palma: Emma Plasschaert (BEL), Agata Barwinska (POL) and Viktorija Andrulyte (LTU). Mara Stransky (AUS) and Vasileia Karachaliou (POR) are also likely contenders for the front of the fleet.

The Mallorca Sailing Centre Training Regatta for the Olympic classes ended over the weekend with Howth Yacht Club's Ewan McMahon finishing 10th overall after eight races sailed in an ILCA 7/Laser fleet of 66 entries.

The National Yacht Club's Finn Lynch had an uneven scoresheet, despite scoring a three in race four he did not compete in three other races of the series.

Freya Black and the Royal Irish Yacht Club's Saskia Tidey were 13th in their new Team GB partnership for Paris.

The Mallorca Sailing Center Regatta reaffirmed the status of the Bay of Palma as one of the world’s benchmarks for Olympic class sailing competition. Nearly 280 sailors made the best of three intense days racing at this traditional training regatta to familiarise themselves with the scenario in which they will compete in the 51 Trofeo Princesa Sofía Mallorca.

Greece’s Vasileia Karachaliou (ILCA 6), Britain's Matt Beckett (ILCA 7), Spain's Jordi Xammar and Nora Brugman (470 Mixed), Poland's Domonik Buksak and Szymon Wierzbicki (49er), Brazil's Martine Grael and Kahena Kunze (FX), and Denmark's Natacha Saouma-Pedersen and Mathias Bruun (Nacra) sailed into the top spots in their respective classes at the Mallorca Sailing Center Regatta. The huge training regatta which is the warm up to Princesa Sofía Mallorca mustered 280 crews to race on the bay of Palma last weekend for three days of fine-tuning in full competition mode.

"It was an excellent exercise," explains Ferrán Muniesa, from the Club Nàutic S'Arenal. "We were able to hold many races and the bay offered us two days of typical southerly wind conditions and one, on Saturday, a rougher day, with westerlies and showers. It's true that it was a training regatta but there was a real competitive edge in each division, nobody likes to lose, especially the champions. It was especially interesting to see that several boats were using the new Olympic equipment for the first time, how the teams took advantage of this training session to measure speeds, and the presence of coaches on the course to record and take note of everything".

The focus will now shift to the full-on Trofeo Princesa Sofia from 1 to 9 April, the first scoring event for the 2022 Hempel World Cup Series with an entry of 700 boats expected.

ILCA 6 – Final leaders after 6 races (73 entries)
1st POR 218913 Vasileia KARACHALIOU – – 17 pts
2nd NED 213474 Mirthe AKKERMAN – – 22 pts
3rd NED 211391 Maxime JONKER – – 23 pts

ILCA 7 – Final leaders after 6 races (66 entries)
1st GBR 7 Matt BECKETT – – 36 pts
2nd ITA 21 Lorenzo CHIAVARINI – – 38 pts
3rd BEL 217953 Wannes VAN LAER – – 44 pts

470 Mixed – Final leaders after 6 races (43 entries)
1st ESP 44 Jordi XAMMAR and Nora BRUGMAN – – 19 pts
2nd AUT 1 Lara VADLAU and Lukas MAEHR – – 36 pts
3rd ITA 5 Marco GRADONI and Alessandra DUBBINI – – 47

49er Men – Final leaders after 6 races (53 entries)
1st POL 19 Dominik BUKSAK and Szymon WIERZBICKI – – 23 pts
2nd DEN 3 Frederik RASK and Skovshoved sejlklub – – 24 pts
3rd FRA 16 Erwan FISCHER and Clément PEQUIN – – 30 pts

49erFX Women – Final leaders after 6 races (39 entries)
1st BRA 12 Martine Soffiatti Grael GRAEL and Kahena KUNZE – – 28 pts
2nd ITA 10 Jana GERMANI and Giorgia BERTUZZI – – 44 pts
3rd SWE 77 Vilma BOBECK and Rebecca NETZLER – – 57 pts

Nacra17 Mixed – Final leaders after 6 races (12 entries)
1st DEN 31 Natacha Violet SAOUMA-PEDERSEN and Mathias Bruun BORRESKOV – – 9 pts
2nd FRA 51 Billy BESSON and Noa ANCIAN – – 16 pts
3rd SWE 439 Emil JÄRUDD and Hanna JONSSON – – 17 pts

Full results here

Ireland's 2021 Laser World Championships runner up Finn Lynch is back on Spanish waters this weekend at the  Mallorca Sailing Centre Regatta, a dress rehearsal for April's 51st Trofeo Princesa Sofia Mallorca.

Lynch is joined by Paris 2024 rival Ewan McMahon in Mallorca for the weekend competition.

Also racing on the Bay of Palma is Royal Irish's Saskia Tidey who has embarked on a new GBR Campaign in the 49erFX.

Over 260 boats of 34 nationalities to race in six classes on the Bay of Palma for a regatta event which will be the real dress rehearsal for the 51st Trofeo Princesa Sofia Mallorca.

Ewan McMahon

Club Nàutic S’Arenal

Six of the ten Olympic classes that will compete in the 51 Trofeo Princesa Sofía Mallorca will compete in this eagerly awaited Mallorca Sailing Center Regatta the traditional training regatta prior to the Sofia, from the 10th to the 13th of March.

"It is a warm-up regatta with a real training spirit so the boats are allowed to test material. There are not the usual controls of the Olympic class competitions," says Javier Zaynoun, director of the Trofeo Princesa Sofía and co-organiser of this event. "It is a regatta that the sailors like very much, as they can take advantage of it to test material, fine tune their starts for example and compete on the race course with rivals that they will meet in the Sofia, but without the pressure of the Sofia."

Around 400 sailors

The Mallorca Sailing Center Regatta 2022 brings together six Olympic classes with a fleet of over 260 boats and close to 400 sailors of 34 nationalities. The list of entries shows the participation of 72 boats in ILCA 6, 59 in ILCA 7, 37 in 49er, 35 in 470 Mixed, 30 in FX and 10 in Nacra. "This participation shows the good health of the Sofia," says Zaynoun, "Despite its status as a training regatta, the number and quality of participants could well be considered an international event. For the teams, it is another good reason to extend their visit to Mallorca and take advantage of the excellent biking and to visit other parts of the island,... Discover Mallorca."

It is worth highlighting the participation of several national federations, which take advantage of the exceptional conditions in Mallorca in March to hold concentrations of their Olympic teams and compete in the Mallorca Sailing Center Regatta as part of their preparation. This is the case of the Royal Spanish Sailing Federation and the German Sailing Federation, who have been training in the Bay of Palma for several days. For the Spanish sailors in the ILCA 6, FX, 470 and Nacra classes, this is the first race that counts towards the new Iberdrola Women's Sailing Cup of the RFEV.

The Mallorca Sailing Center Regatta officially begins on the 10th of March with the registration of participants at the Club Nàutic S'Arenal and the Club Marítimo San Antonio de la Playa, the two organising clubs. The competition takes place from Friday, 11th March until Sunday, 13th March, on three regatta courses set up between Can Pastilla and El Arenal.

More here