Dun Laoghaire Harbour's Kenny Rumball and Pamela Lee of Greystones Harbour have restated their goal to represent Ireland at Paris 2024 in the new Olympic Mixed Offshores Double Class.
"We're absolutely focused and excited and working towards Paris 2024, but along the way we're absolutely enjoying the journey, we're really enjoying double-handed sailing anyway and this is just giving us a really nice focus goal to work towards," Lee has told World Sailing in an interview.
Their 'rough plan' next year is to keep competing in the Figaro 3 circuit in France, because they believe it's the toughest short-handed sailing arena in the world, and they say they'd also like to have a look at doing some double-handed IRC events.
After joining forces at the beginning of the year, the two skilled offshore sailors had their eyes on the 2020 Offshore World Championship, originally due to take place in Malta this October, and were working towards qualifying themselves to represent Ireland in the event.
But after the Worlds were cancelled, they reacted quickly to ensure they were able to continue training and improving their skills on the water, both with and without each other.
"We started training in the French Figaro 3 scene, as our first event to qualify and represent Ireland in Malta was supposed to be the Solo Concarneau, a double-handed offshore race out of Concarneau in France," explained Rumball.
Read more of the interview on the World Sailing website here which tells of Rumball's participation in the La Solitaire Du Figaro and Lee's World Speed Sailing record round Ireland set this October.
At least two other Irish campaigns have also declared to contest the single berth for Paris in the new Olympic class. Read the latest updates here.
