Ireland Not Racing at SSL Gold Cup Final in Gran Canaria

17th November 2023

Ireland's Green Armada Team racing in Switzerland in May. The team qualified for the SSL Gold Cup Finals in Lanzarote this month Credit: Martina Orsini

The SSL Gold Cup, sailing's much-hyped equivalent of the "Football World Cup," taking place in Gran Canaria from November 10th to December 3rd, 2023, is without the qualified Irish team for its final due to crew commitments elsewhere.

As regular Afloat readers will recall, after a successful outing in May in Switzerland, Nicholas O'Leary's 'Green Armada Team' was scheduled to race in Bahrain's SSL Gold Cup 2022 Final in October, but that event did not materialise. Instead, the finals were moved to Lanzarote this November, but it proved difficult to muster an Irish crew that had included Olympians Annalise Murphy, Robert Dickson and 44 Cup sailors in its lineup.

Officially, SSL Gold Cup organisers say the Irish team fixtures are still in a 'to be determined' status, but Afloat sources say, "the IRL team that qualified the country had event overlaps and could not commit to the competition, as it was all organised at the 11th hour".

Meanwhile, the Lanzarote event is living up to its pre-event billing as a "thrilling showcase of sailing talent, featuring 40 nations and 25 Olympic medalists". More here.

Published in SSL Gold Cup

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SSL Gold Cup

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About the Star Sailors League Gold Cup

In 2022, Sailing finally got its own World Cup, according to the promoters of the SSL (STAR SAILORS LEAGUE) Gold Cup.

Like football in 1930 and rugby in 1987, the SSL Gold Cup is designed to crown the best sailing nation of all! The World's Top 56 countries, selected on their SSL Nation ranking, will battle their way through to raise the coveted and only Sailing World Cup trophy.

The SSL is the global inshore sailing circuit launched by Olympic athletes in 2012, by sailors for sailors. Its main philosophy considers the athletes (not the boats) as the “Stars” and it aims to showcase the annual global sailing championship with its over 15’000 regattas; it determines and celebrates the world leaders in sailing promoting the inshore regattas to the global audience.

The three main components of the SSL Circuit are the SSL Ranking published every Tuesday, updating the position of over 100,000 leading athletes, thus highlighting the world’s top inshore sailors. The SSL Finals taking place every year around November-December, it’s the annual final of the SSL Circuit among the 20/25 best athletes of the ranking, to crown the champion of the season. And the SSL Gold Cup, the ‘ultimate’ championship of the circuit with 56 nations among World Sailing members, to crown the best sailing nation.

In a mechanical sport where the race for technology sometimes gets in the way of the race for glory, the SSL aims for equal competition where the talent of the sailors is at the forefront and the champions become heroes that inspire new generations of sailors.

The SSL is a World Sailing Special Event since 2017.