Having missed Paris 2024 Olympic qualification at the first opportunity at the Sailing World Championships in August, two Irish crews are vying for the one nation place on offer at the 49er European Championship in Vilamoura, Portugal.

Racing from this Wednesday, November 8th, until Monday, 13th, front runners Robert Dickson (Howth Yacht Club) and Sean Waddilove (Skerries Sailing Club) missed qualification by one place in The Hague but aim to close out the year with nation qualification in the bag.

It might be billed as a European Championships, but the great and the good of the 49er, 49erFX and Nacra 17 classes will be in Vilamoura. Sailors from any nation can enter – so expect to see some big names, including two-time 49erFX Olympic gold medallists Martine Grael and Kahena Kunze of Brazil in action. The full entry lists can be found here.

As Tokyo reps, Dickson and Waddilove are expected to make the standard, but it has been a bit of a snakes and ladders year for the north Dublin duo, who have struggled with starting but otherwise have great boat speed.

Carding

Seafra Guilfoyle (left) with Johnny Durcan  both of Royal Cork Yacht Club Photo: Clare Keogh

Ireland's second boat in Vilamoura will be the Cork Harbour pairing of Seafra Guilfoyle with Johnny Durcan (Royal Cork Yacht Club), who, at the very least, are seeking a top 20 result overall in the 90-strong event to meet Sport Ireland carding scheme criteria and regain a place on the Irish squad.

Royal Irish sailor Saskia Tidey has been selected by Team GB for Paris with helm Freya Black and will be in action in Portugal

Saskia Tidey

Royal Irish sailor Saskia Tidey will also be in action in Vilamoura. The Royal Irish sailor who sailed for Ireland in Rio but switched to GB for Tokyo and has been selected by Team GB for Paris with helm Freya Black. Without any internal selection battles going on, the GB sailors will be free to focus 100 per cent on their international adversaries.

A black flag disqualification may not have been the best start to Olympic qualification for Dublin 49er duo Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove at the Allianz Sailing World Championships at The Hague in the Netherlands on Friday, but the Howth-Skerries duo showed the depth of their ambition by bouncing back with a second in race two. 

As Afloat reported previously, six Irish boats will be in action for ten days, where places for Paris 2024 are up for grabs but conditions are tricky with fluctuating winds and strong tidal currents.

The skiff classes started the series, and the Irish Tokyo 2020 representatives appeared to have nailed their first race start along with the Dutch training partners and defending world champions until the dreaded black flag was applied to the Irish hopes.

The Cork 49er crew Seafra Guilfoyle with Johnny Durcan of the Royal Cork Yacht Club delivered two top-half fleet results for their first day with up to six further races remaining to decide the crucial Gold, Silver and Bronze fleet splits where a top ten result will be required to take a Paris place.

Royal Cork 49er crew of Seafra Guilfoyle with Johnny Durcan of the Royal Cork Yacht Club are racing in The Hague Photo: World Sailing

After three races sailed, Dickson and Waddilove lie 24th and Guilfoyle and Johnny Durcan 59th in the 83-boat fleet.

Ten nations, excluding France, will qualify for Paris, and nations have a rooting interest in other nations from their continent as a quirk of the qualifying system. For example, if China and Korea were to finish in their current positions, they would not need to qualify at the next stage, the continental qualification, opening up greater opportunities for other Asian nations. The case is likewise in the Americas and Oceania, which will all have teams on the bubble of Olympic qualifying. The International 49er class has rated Dickson and Waddilove's chances of qualifying as 'on the bubble' as Afloat reports here.

American prowess

America's Nevin Snow and Mac Agnese (USA) won two of their three qualifying races to share the overall lead as their American teammates are also each in the top twelve, setting up the USA well for Olympic Qualifying.

America's Nevin Snow and Mac Agnese (USA) won two of their three qualifying races at the World Sailing Championships Photo: World Sailing

Snow is the US college sailor of the year and has had flashes of brilliance in the 49er but also an up-and-down career so far. In teaming up with Mac Agenese, a member of the 2019 America’s Cup American Magic Team, he’s formed a stable partnership and an upward trajectory on his Olympic sailing career.

Also winning two races were Diego Botin with Florian Tritell (ESP), fresh off their seminal Sail GP win, to sit tied with the Americans on two points overall.

Three teams are tied for third at this early stage, with Wang/Qi (CHN), Fantela brothers (CRO), and Przbytek/Piasecki (POL) each on four points. 19 nations sit within the 25-place cutoff for gold fleet, showing the increasing depth of 49er racing globally. Asia has had its best-ever day in the 49er, with China, Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, and India all making the gold fleet standard. Asia has been purchasing 40% of the world’s 49ers since 2012, and as the depth and focus have improved, now the results are too.

Meanwhile, a female Irish 49erFX debuted on the women's course with Erin McIlwaine (Ballyhome Yacht Club) with Ellie Cunnane (Tralee Bay Sailing Club), completing their first three races at senior level.

Irish interest continues with the skiff events on Saturday.

Results are here

Ireland's 49er skiff crew of Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove, from Howth and Skerries, respectively, have withdrawn from French Olympic Sailing Week after failing to make the Gold fleet on Wednesday.

The duo, who represented Ireland at Tokyo 2020, will concentrate on Dickson's recovery due to a viral infection from which he had earlier been declared 'cleared to sail'.

Ireland's second 49er crew of Seáfra Guilfoyle and Johnny Durcan of Royal Cork Yacht Club ended a light airs day four in Hyeres, counting a double and a seventh.

None of the fleets saw quite such a change at the top of the leaderboard as the men’s 49er, as the top two boats fell down the ladder as Spain’s Diego Bottin & Florian Trittel enjoyed a golden finish to the start of gold fleet, winning the last two of the day’s four races. The Dutch world champions Bart Lambriex & Floris van der Werken are all that is left of Wednesday’s podium after they finished 8, 5, 2, 5.

Meanwhile New Zealand’s Logan Dunning Beck & Oscar Gunn, winners in Palma at the beginning of April, and leaders overnight, had a day to forget, finishing 10, 19, 12, 17 in the 24-boat gold fleet and slipped to 5th overall. Likewise, USA’s Ian Barrows & Hans Henken slipped from second to seventh with 16, 4, 19, and 22 finishes.

More races are scheduled for Friday.

Results are here

Howth's Robert Dickson goes into French Olympic Week (24-29th April 2023) in Hyerés recovering from a viral infection over the past week but it is not the only issue confronting the Howth Yacht Club ace and Tokyo 2020 crew-mate Seán Waddilove in the build-up to Paris 2024.

It's not clear just how much practice was achieved in the past fortnight but following the giant Princess Sofia Trophy regatta in Palma, Mallorca, extra practice for light air conditions was on the cards for the Irish 49er sailors, as their performance in windier conditions when they leapt into the lead was clearly linked to their overall result.

It seems like only yesterday that the Olympic debutantes packed up from Tokyo, but the sprint is on for Paris 2024, and the just-finished Princess Sofia Trophy 2023 was the first chance to see the new characters and who is returning.

For all the talk of Olympic sailing falling apart, Palma showed otherwise with a full bay and a very healthy-looking Olympic slate.

There's been no news from Dickson and Waddilove themselves, but 49er coach Matt McGovern has given forth on Palma's positives and negatives. "There were some really good positives, like having good days and leading the regatta," said McGovern. "The crux is executing the starts well and boat speed in the light stuff - if we don't start well, then we don't have the boat speed to recover and get back on plan," he added.

But what is equally frustrating for the Irish duo, (who were on target for a debut medal in Tokyo until an overweight trapeze harness got in their way) is the fact that the 49er Class has had the biggest shake-up with all of the medalists retiring post-Tokyo but were unable to capitalise on it.

As analysis from the 49er class reveals, the changing of the guard runs deeper than the medalists, with only nine of the 20 sailors from the top 10 in Tokyo still sailing and only two in-tact partnerships. That's a lot of open real estate for a fleet in the queue behind the dominant forces of Australia's Outteridge and New Zealand's Burling for a decade.

It seems likely a return now to the sort of racing that was expected in the 2000s, where winners changed on a regatta-to-regatta basis. With all their Tokyo experience, this must be an opportunity for Dickson and Waddilove.

It was certainly looking like that prior to Palma when they appeared to reap the rewards of sixth place at Mallorca Sailing Centre Regatta 2023. And there was no doubting their regatta potency either when they posted two wins on Palma's windy Wednesday, but their inability to hold on to that overall lead and not even make the top ten for the medal race is a head-scratching moment. 

Beck and Gunn

The duo will now deal with some formidable new competition, such as Palma winners Logan Dunning Beck and Oscar Gunn (NZL), who took second in the medal race to cruise and a nine-point victory. This Kinwi pair started out gold fleet brilliantly, winning the first two races and only had three races out of the top 10 all week. The team is in its eighth year on the international circuit and its fifth at the front end of the fleet. They won Kiel week 2019 and came third at the Oceania Championship in Auckland immediately prior to the 2019 Worlds, but couldn't wrestle the New Zealand entry from Burling and Tuke for Tokyo and have all the tools to be contenders in Paris.

The 49er story in Palma is a down-under tale, with four of the top five places going two each to New Zealand and Australia. With Max Paul (AUS), Tom Burton came second despite an over early in the first regatta race. Tom is the 2016 Laser gold medalist and 2019 Laser World Champion, and this second-place finish would be the best finish for a laser convert to 49er ever. Many have tried, most noticeably Robert Scheidt (BRA), but none have scored medals at top regattas until now. There were a few jokes in the boat park about 20-knot gybes being on the to-do list still, as the regatta was a light affair, but credit is due after three years of dedicated training allowing his elite sailing talent to show. 

McHardie and McKenzie (NZL) finished third after a stellar opening series had them in the lead after qualifying. They sailed a consistent final series and could have won, but a ninth in the medal race let them down a bit to close it out. 

The European fleet claimed half of the top 10, with the usual contenders having ups and downs. Wen and Liu from China came eighth, repeating their performance from ninth at the 2023 Worlds in Nova Scotia. One theme to keep an eye on could be the diversity of fleets top performances have been coming from. European, New Zealand, Australian and Chinese fleets each delivered top 10 performances after six months sailing apart. At this late stage of a quadrennial, it's been more common for the top teams to have segregated into elite groupings. Perhaps with covid forcing everyone home, teams have found a more local way to develop. 

Guilfoyle and Durcan

New rivals for the Irish Paris slot are Séafra Guilfoyle and Johnny Durcan (Royal Cork Yacht Club), who claim to have made significant gains over the winter training season. They will be looking for a gold fleet finish to Hyeres after posting 40th overall in Palma.

With just over three months remaining until the World Sailing Championships at The Hague (Netherlands), where the first nation places will be decided for Paris 2024, it will be all to play for.

Five Irish sailors will be looking to make a big impression at the 49er Worlds 2022 in the frigid waters of Nova Scotia, which get under way this coming Wednesday 31 August.

In the 49er division, the experienced skiff duo of Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove (Howth Yacht Club/Skerries Sailing Club) will be up against the new Royal Cork pairing of Séafra Guilfoyle and Johnny Durcan within a challenging field.

Séafra Guilfoyle (left) and Johnny Durcan

Meanwhile, in the 49erFX, Dun Laoghaire’s Saskia Tidey and new Team GB skiff partner Freya Black will be looking to improve upon their 24th-place finish in last month’s Europeans and make a bigger splash at Hubbards on St Margaret’s Bay, some 50km west of Halifax.

Robert Dickson (left) and Sean Waddilove

The village’s community waterfront on the site of a former fish processing plant has been completely transformed in preparation for the championships hosting the cream of 49er, 49erFX and Nacra 17 racers the world over.

Racing at the 2022 World Championship runs from Wednesday 31 August to Monday 5 September with daily live streams from Day 3 (Friday 2 September). 

Ireland's Olympic skiff campaigners finished off the 49er European Championship on Sunday (10th July 2022) making the best of their silver fleet series in Aarhus, Denmark.

Tokyo Olympians Robert Dickson (Howth Yacht Club) and Sean Waddilove (Skerries Sailing Club) closed the gap on the silver fleet leaders but ultimately had to accept a second place at the end of their 16-race championship.

The pair had been leading their final race when the light breeze filled in from behind bringing the chasing pack up to them and they placed ninth.

Séafra Guilfoyle with Jonny Durcan of the Royal Cork Yacht Club had the best performance of the day in the Silver fleet when they scored back to back third places and held on to their eighth place in that division and 33rd overall.

Both crews are now focused on the 49er world championship scheduled for Halifax, Nova Scotia at the end of August where strong Irish performances are expected.

With the Paris Olympics just two years away, next Summer will see the first qualification opportunities at the combined Sailing World Championships scheduled for the 10th - 20th August 2023 in The Hague, Netherlands.

With three remaining qualification races planned both of Ireland's 49er crews will need to move up a gear to secure a top 25 place for the gold fleet in Denmark on Thursday.

Tokyo 2020 reps Robert Dickson (Howth YC) with Sean Waddilove (Skerries Sailing Club) looked to put a shaky start to the Aarhus Championships on Tuesday behind them when they were disqualified from the first race. The pair had a second and fifth place but a jammed cleat proved costly in Wednesday's opening race meant they lost 15 minutes from the race and again incurred maximum points and are 37th in the 89-boat fleet.

One place ahead, team-mates Seafra Guilfoyle and Johnny Durcan from the Royal Cork YC had a 17th and two 18th places for the day.

Mihovil Fantella of Croatia bolted the port wing back onto his 49er early this morning after a starting line crash in Tuesday’s last race wrecked his boat, sails and rig. After some late-night epoxy work and hours of rigging they hammered out a 1, 10, 2 today which dropped them in a group of six teams looking to break the stronghold on first held by Lambriex/Werken (NED) who are four points clear of the Croatians in second.

“Luckily the accident was the last race of the day,” said Mihovil as he and his brother pulled their mast down to re-calibrate settings after today’s racing. “Sime was in a protest to 10, I was there fixing and preparing for the new day. You can’t do much about that you just have to go straight on fixing and try to be as prepared as you can.”

The FX fleets were free of accidents and drama, and the consistency of the top four, six points separating them all, is a fine preview of the tension that will build when the gold fleet races begin Friday.

The Schmidt sisters of Denmark have been going from strength to strength this week, rounding the top mark of race 6 in second behind Maloney/Hobbs (NZL). They slipped to third in that race but still hold a two-point lead over Bobeck/Netzler (SWE) and Roble/Shea (USA) who is another one point behind in third.

Aleh/Meech (NZL) had a blinder of a day with a 5, 2, 1 and the pair is finally settling into a form they they both know from precious sailing in the Olympic Games, albeit with different partners.

“It’s just nice to go sailing again,” said Aleh this morning as she dropped shroud pins in new settings. Since her gold in London and silver in Rio, both in women’s 470, she has been a national coach and is a vice President at world Sailing. Meech was Maloney’s partner in Tokyo last summer.

A steady 15 knots was pressing down on the two FX fleets in the afternoon on the Bay of Aarhus, but the three 49er race circles saw solid white caps and gusts well into the 20s for their morning races.

While Lambriex/Werken (NED) had a hiccup in race six sailing their throwout (9th), standouts Colley/Connor (AUS) have been consistently stringing together a beautiful scoreline to leave them in a three-way tie for third that includes Peters/Sterritt (GBR) and McHardie/McKenzie (NZL). The latter’s teammates Dunning Beck/Gunn (NZL) have also been finding their wheels after a disastrous Kiel Week result of 47th.

“We just really had to go back to basics,” said Dunning Beck who came tantalizingly close to unseating Olympic gold medalists Burling/Tuke (NZL) for the Tokyo 49er berth. “We watched videos and just are slowly finding our way back.”

Gunn said the pair are humble, not thinking this week’s string of solid races means they are back in business. Dunning Beck added carefully, “We are putting it in our pocket, but it’s not all the way in yet.”

Results here

While the 49er World Champions may have grabbed an early gold at the Allianz Regatta in the Netherlands yesterday, Ireland's Tokyo 2020 reps Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove are very much in the fight for a silver medal in the medal race on Saturday.

Dutch 49er sailors Bart Lambriex and Floris van der Werken have secured the gold medal on day four of the Hempel World Cup Series at the Allianz Regatta.

As Afloat reported earlier, Dickson and Waddilove, from Howth Yacht Club and Skerries respectively and Lucas Rual/Emile Amoros (FRA) hold second and third currently, but many teams are breathing down their neck and ready to knock the Irish and French off the podium.

Sitting on 54 points Ireland has a five-point margin over the French but only 12 points separate second to fifth place overall in the 40-boat fleet.

With temperatures reaching to 25 degrees and winds picking up from 12 to 19 knots by the end of the balmy afternoon, the Markermeer waters between Amsterdam and Almere delivered stunning sailing conditions for all 10 fleets.

The perfect wind enabled race committees across all courses to make up most of the races lost to lighter and more fickle breezes earlier in the week.

In the 49er, Lambriex and van der Werken reminded their rivals why they won the world title in Oman at the end of last year. Winning five of the last six races, the Dutch go into Saturday’s Medal Race with an unassailable 29 point advantage. The gold medal is theirs.

Dutch 49er sailor Bart Lambriex and Floris van der Werk (NED) secured the gold medal Photo: Sailing Energy/Hempel World Cup Series Allianz Regatta

Floris van der Werken explained their winning approach: "It was quite a strong field. A few of the worlds best are missing, but not many. We didn't really focus on the results this week, though, we never do. The focus was on communication onboard. We try to sail as one brain but with the capacity of two. Four eyes see more than two, but we have to think the same. That went very well this week. If the communication is good, if we give each other the right information, then we make the right decisions and we win."

Results in all classes are here

No Irish representation in the medal races at the Semaine Olympique Francaise (French Olympic Classes Week) in Hyères is a disappointment for Irish Olympic sailing efforts but there is consolation in the two top 15 finishes achieved in what is the second biggest regatta since Tokyo.

Laser/ILCA7

Carlow sailor Finn Lynch finished 13th overall in the ILCA 7 (Laser) after coming fifth in both races yesterday demonstrating he has the speed even if nursing an arm injury, missing the medal race by just 12 points.

His 21-year-old rival for Paris 2024 Ewan McMahon (Howth YC) moved up again in the fleet to finish 23rd overall, a result that confirms he is an exciting prospect and Ireland's second most successful full rig sailor since Mark Lyttle, Ireland's inaugural Laser helmsman at Atlanta 1996. 

The pair are now in preparation for the World Championships, a highlight of the year where Lynch will defend his 2021 silver medal in Mexico in May.

49er

With less wind than on previous days, Robert Dickson and Seán Waddilove (Howth YC and Skerries SC) finished in 15th place in the 49er class after the day’s three races. Rivals Séafra Guilfoyle and Johnny Durcan (Royal Cork YC) finished in 30th place overall.

Full results here

The regatta concludes today Saturday 30 April.

Ireland's 49er team, Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove signed off their Olympic regatta in style, winning the final race of the qualifying series, but missing out on medal race qualification by 8 points.

Their day started well with a 3rd place in race 1, but came unstuck in the second race when a 17th place put paid to their chances of medal race qualification. As this resilient pair have shown, the way to combat disappointment is by working harder, sailing faster and sailing smarter, which they did to great effect, winning in a 10-knot southerly breeze by the relatively comfortable (in 49er terms) margin of 24 seconds.

NZL, GBR and ESP occupy the podium slots going into Monday's medal race. With only four points separating the top three, the stage is set for an epic contest.

The Irish had their disqualification case (from two races due to an overweight harness) reopened overnight but 'the decision of the original hearing stands'. The findings are downloadable below as a pdf file.

What might have been? The numbers suggest that if the Irish boat had not been disqualified in two races, they would have entered the medal race in 8th position. This would have been too far back to medal, some 26 points behind 3rd place, with a maximum gain of 18 points available.

Dickson and Waddilove will now be installed as one of the favourites for the 2024 Olympics, to be sailed in Marseille in just three years time. The lessons learnt here will stand to them, as will their speed and tactical nous.

Speaking afterwards, Dickson said: "I'm pretty proud of the way we sailed, it's really good to finish on a high with the last race, and pretty amazing that we got two race wins. We've learned a lot from these games and we're going to bring that forward to (Paris) 2024."

Waddilove added: "Overall, it was a very positive experience and we've learnt plenty from this Olympic experience that we can bring forward. My biggest takeaway from this week is that we were very much capable of competing against these guys that have done multiple Olympics and have medals and medals under their belts and there's no reason why we can't get to 2024 and be medal contenders."

Results and overall standings are here