A win in race 11 for The Irish team TED secured an impressive third place in a fiercely competitive field on day four of the SB20 Europeans 2025 in Belgium.
Skipper Michael O'Connor reflected on the day with enthusiasm, highlighting the excitement and challenges presented by Ostend's conditions. "A fantastic day’s sailing in Ostend, really challenging conditions with place changes on every leg," O'Connor remarked.
He praised his crew, saying, "My crew Davy Taylor and Ben O'Donoghue did an exceptional job trimming, calling the breeze, and keeping the boat trucking. True legends!" As the championship heads into its final day, O'Connor expressed optimism about their performance, adding, "The race committee team did a fantastic job with the courses today; great races in really tough conditions. We're delighted with the results so far and looking forward to the final showdown tomorrow."
Royal St.George's Ted sailed by Michael O'Connor, Davy Taylor, and Ben O'Donoghue Photo: Anna Zyk
Day 4 in Ostend brought even rougher conditions than the day before with the tide building quickly against the strong northerly breeze. This created steeper waves, making it tough for the small SB20s to drive through the chop.
The racing itself mirrored the conditions: unpredictable and unforgiving. John Pollard's Xcellent opened the day with a win, but the momentum shifted in Race 2, where Pollard slipped down, allowing his rivals to claw back valuable points. The scoreboard now has Pollard and Witzmann tied on points with everything still to play for as the championship enters its final day.
Desert Eagle's Will Sargent's experience in tidal venues like Scheveningen, where he won his World title, may yet prove decisive. "John knows tides too," - pointed out Simon de Gendt, prominent Ostend sailor and Laser world champion. – "At this level, everyone does. That's what makes it so close. One mistake - and you lose ten boats. One good shift - and you're back in the game." Simon stepped in this week to replace a crew member for a French team.
"The first upwind of Race 1 was relatively open with gains possible on both sides of the course, - commented Simon. "But as the tide increased the left-hand side became dominant again, offering stronger current for those who could get there. We started off with not too much current, but during the first upwind it just kept coming even more than yesterday as we're getting closer to spring tides."
On the second upwind of the first race it started to be a one-sided course again, where you wanted to go out as much as possible for more current. On the downwind roundings things got pretty tight and messy - some teams misjudged the conditions and tried coming up a little too early, which resulted in tangles around the mark. One of those delayed the start of the second race for a good half an hour.
"These are typical Ostend conditions. Lots of current, big waves and lots of breeze. If you don't like this, you don't like Ostend." - added Simon with a smile.
By the second race things shifted briefly - a big right-hand shift opened the course early on, but the breeze soon returned to its gradient, re-establishing the left-hand advantage. Then it was same story - you had to go to the left to catch more current. So no big differences than previous days, only much more current.
"I think keeping the speed in these difficult conditions was key. Being able to get out to that left-hand side and catching up to that current, that is so much stronger on the left, was most advantageous. If you had good speed to get out there, you were able to control the fleet."
This is what the Irish team TED manged to do, getting early lead at the first rounding. After the first downwind TED and The Incident managed to get away from the fleet and had a race between themselves: "It was nip and tuck all the way around" – recalls Michael O'Connor, skipper of TED.
Racing concludes on Friday (August 22).
Top 5 after 11 races:
1 GBR 3834 John POLLARD 1 1 1 5 1 1 6 7 (43) BFD 1 6 (73) 30
2 UAE 3843 Hendrik WITZMANN 4 6 2 2 (7) 3 1 5 2 2 3 (37) 30
3 IRL 3809 Michael O'CONNOR 5 3 6 1 2 (43) BFD 8 4 4 5 1 (82) 39
4 FRA 3580 Paul LOISEAU 3 2 7 7 6 (8) 4 1 3 3 5 (49) 41
5 FRA 3653 Ian GARRETA 7 8 3 (12) 4 7 2 6 7 6 7 (69) 57
