After missing out on Tokyo 2020, Ireland's three male Laser campaigners from that quadrennial are back on the water for the Paris 2024 Olympics at the Laser (ILCA 7) European Championships & Open European Trophy 2021 at Varna, Bulgaria this week.
A white-out and another six-hour day on the Black Sea meant race officials were only able to squeeze in one race each for the Laser and Radial classes yesterday.
After six races sailed in the gold fleet and one discard, Lynch, a veteran of Rio 2016, is lying 14th. The National Yacht Club sailor is five points off the top ten (download results sheet below).
If the Carlow native can maintain current form he's in with a chance of a top ten finish and eclipsing his owner personal best performance at a Euros. That, as Afloat reported here, is the 13th scored in Poland last year.
The fleet spent hours out on the water in rain-driven shifts, but after that lone race, the race committee were forced to abandon the day after one last strong squall passed through the course.
Howth's Ewan McMahon is 39th and Finn Lynch is 42nd in the 58-boat fleet. The trio are joined this week by Ewan's brother Jamie. This is his first senior event in a Standard rig and he is racing in the Silver fleet.
The contracted coach to the Irish sailors, Vasilji Zbogar said on social media "Finn has had a solid qualifying series. Ewan hasn’t performed as well as expected but has plenty of time to turn this around in the finals and move his ranking up overall, and Liam is improving race by race”.
Two more days of racing remain. As only six races have been completed for the Laser men and seven for the Radial fleet the race committee will be under pressure to fire off the three races scheduled today.
Eve McMahon 15th
In the 66-boat Women's Radial division, Eve McMahon is 15th (moving up from 22nd) and Aoife Hopkins is 27th. Both are from Howth Yacht Club.