With gusts above 30 knots and spinning rain squalls, the 2022 49er and FX European Championships kicked off in Aarhus with all the top teams taking lessons from some new crews; including Ireland.
In an exciting start, both the Irish boats, who are each aiming to represent Ireland in the single place at the Paris 2024 Olympics, led their opening races in their respective flights.
Seafra Guilfoyle and Johnny Durcan (Royal Cork YC) went on to win the first race of the championship but Tokyo 2020 reps Robert Dickson (Howth YC) and Sean Waddilove (Skerries Sailing Club) counted a UFD score for a premature start.
Overall after three races, the Royal Cork Pair are lying 24th in the 88-boat fleet counting 1, 14, and 11 from the first three races. Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove counted UFD, 11 and 13 to be 53rd.
2021 World Champions, Bart Lambriex with Floris van der Werken (NED), set the standard with a 3, 2, 1 including a comeback from a bad start, and a comeback from a mid-pack first lap to show they can move through the fleet when necessary. Each of their comebacks came by jumping into shifts to pass packs and they had enough speed to make the boat-on-boat encounters fall in their favour.
Two further days of qualification racing will decide the split for Gold fleet racing that begins on Friday ahead of a medal race on Sunday afternoon for the best ten crews.
Results here