Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Royal Cork's Guilfoyle is Top Irish At Laser Europa Cup, Marseille

16th April 2014
Royal Cork's Guilfoyle is Top Irish At Laser Europa Cup, Marseille

#laser – The complete absence of any Irish Laser Radial presence at Weymouth for the RYA youth nationals this week is explained by the eight Irish sailors competing at the Laser Europa Cup in Marseille, France. Royal Cork's Seafra Guilfoyle produced a significant 15th overall and top Irish result in the 158–boat fleet. A total of 346 sailors with ages ranging from 15 to 79 competed in this edition of the 2014 series.

Other Irish results were 21 Cian Byrne, 36 Ross O'Sullivan, 48 Dara O'Shea, 66 Ryan Glynn, 71 Liam Glynn, 84 Sarah Eames and 93 Sorcha Ni Shuilleabhan.

French sailor Romain Simonnot (FRA) took the title in the Radial fleet finishing on 21 points followed by another tie between second and third place. Marie Bolou (FRA) and William De Smet (BEL) were tied on 25 points with the French sailor breaking the tie having recorded more third place finishes.

There was a bit of everything wind wise including shifty light to around 15 knots at times.

Racing which concluded today got off most days at around noon except for the third day when the first start was at about five and sailors docking as the sun went down.

First place on the podium for the Standard fleet went to Maxim Nikolaev (RUS) who after 8 races and one discard finished on 17 points.

There was a tie of 19 points for second and third place. Antony Munos (FRA) with two bullets on the final day grabbed second overall and Thorbjorn Schierup (DEN) took third.

The largest fleet of all with a total of 119 competitors was the Laser 4.7. Racing was dominated by Federico Fornasari (ITA) who finished on 10 points from 7 races including one discard. Second place went to Seref Unlu (TUR) on 33 points and Aurelien Pierroz (FRA) with 35 points wrapped up the podium.

Results here.

Published in Laser
Afloat.ie Team

About The Author

Afloat.ie Team

Email The Author

Afloat.ie is Ireland's dedicated marine journalism team.

Have you got a story for our reporters? Email us here.

We've got a favour to ask

More people are reading Afloat.ie than ever thanks to the power of the internet but we're in stormy seas because advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news sites, we haven’t put up a paywall because we want to keep our marine journalism open.

Afloat.ie is Ireland's only full–time marine journalism team and it takes time, money and hard work to produce our content.

So you can see why we need to ask for your help.

If everyone chipped in, we can enhance our coverage and our future would be more secure. You can help us through a small donation. Thank you.

Direct Donation to Afloat button

About the ILCA/Laser Dinghy

The ILCA, formerly known as the Laser, is the most produced boat in the world, with 220,000 units built since 1971.

It's easy to see why the single-handed dinghy has won the title of the most widely distributed boat of all time.

The Laser is a one-design dinghy, the hulls being identical but three rigs that can be used according to the size and weight of the sailor.

The class is international, with sailors from 120 countries. The boat has also been an Olympic class since 1996, being both the men's and women's singlehanded dinghy.

Three rigs are recognised by the International Laser Class Association (ILCA):

  • ILCA 4: sail of 4.70m2
  • ILCA 6: sail of 5.76 m2
  • ILCA 7: sail of 7.06 m2