Fireball sailors Tom Gillard of England and Andy Thompson of East Antrim Boat Club in Northern Ireland have been crowned World Champions at the 2024 Fireball Worlds in Geelong, Australia.
The duo sailed a near-perfect regatta, rarely falling outside the top three and winning with a race to spare.
The achievement is a remarkable result and a record for an Irish sailor, as the Antrim man has noe acheived three world dinghy titles. As Afloat reported previously, Thompson won his world title in 2002 when sailing to GP14 victory with the late Richard Estaugh. He claimed his Fireball gold medal on Lough Derg in 2022 and retained it this week in Geelong.
Gillard said he was proud of the achievement, especially given the fact the British container didn't arrive on time.
Tom Gillard of England (left) and Andy Thompson of East Antrim Boat Club in Northern Ireland celebrate ashore after their fireball Worlds victory in Geelong, Australia Photos: Alex Dare, Down Under Sail and below by Frank Miller
“In the build-up to the event, we knew that we weren't going to have our boat, so we had to spend a lot of time working on the boat we borrowed,” he said.
“At pre-worlds we basically did one race a day, found out what was wrong with it, came back in, mended it and made sure it was good for the World Championships.”
His crew, Andy Thompson, said the regatta win was a special one for the pair, considering they had not planned to attend the event initially.
“We shouldn't really be here to be honest because we weren’t in the container to start off with, so we’re really lucky to be here."
Second overall at the 2024 Fireball Worlds, DJ Edwards and Vyv Townend Photo: Alex Dare, Down Under Sail
Gillard thanked the Australian Fireball Association and the committee members, who worked hard to ensure those left without a boat from overseas were able to sail borrowed Australian boats to get them through the regatta.
In second place was fellow British sailors DJ Edwards and Vyv Townend, who also sailed an extremely consistent regatta, but ended up just short of the regatta leaders in most races.
Third place, and first Australians at the 2024 Fireball Worlds were Brendan Garner and Ben O’Brien Photo: Alex Dare, Down Under Sail
Third place, and first Australians, were local heroes Brendan Garner and Ben O’Brien who hail from the Royal Geelong Yacht Club and had a really good start to their event to set up a successful result.
The Irish Fireball crews in Geelong: Frank Miller and Ed Butler of the DMYC and Adrian Lee and Ossian Geraghty of SYC
The event was incredibly well run by the Royal Geelong Yacht Club with ten races across a mix of conditions that threw up a few challenges for the race committee.
