After Mallorca delivered more than two weeks of great winds and the weather perfect for pre-regatta training, the 1259 athletes from 66 nations at the 52 Trofeo Princesa Sofia Olympic classes regatta had to endure an ultimately frustrating opening day of unsettled, changeable winds which badly affected the scheduled programme.
Racing was scheduled for the ILCA 6 and 7 fleets, the 470 Mixed and the Men’s and Women’s iQFOiL fleets. But only one part of the Men’s iQFOiL fleet managed to complete two races, and the Men's ILCA 7 Yellow fleet finished one qualifying heat. The second race for the iQFOiLers was badly affected as the wind dropped away. Other races for the dinghy fleets had to be abandoned as the breeze faltered and shifted in direction when a big rain cloud drifted over the arena.
After an initial delay in the morning, waiting until the offshore gradient breeze dissipated, the southerly winds did come in, puffing up to more than 12kts at times. It all looked very promising. But the thermal breeze could not sustain itself and the foiling windsurfers suffered a long, slow, semi-sunken drift back to Can Pastilla.
A period of rain during the mid-afternoon did all it could to dampen the enthusiasm at this huge 2023 curtain-up gathering of all ten Olympic classes which will compete at the 2024 Olympic regatta in Marseille.
In their ILCA7 Men's flight, Ireland's Finn Lynch of the National Yacht Club and Ewan McMahon of Howth Yacht Club both had started their races well and after two legs were both holding top ten positions when the wind died, and the race was abandoned.
Jamie McMahon's flight was the only race completed where he finished 51st on provisional results and is considering a redress application for a mark rounding incident in which he was infringed.
Rule 42
In the women's ILCA6 event, Eve McMahon (Howth Yacht Club) saw her race abandoned, but not before she picked up a Rule 42 penalty for illegal propulsion just before the race was stopped due to lack of wind that had dropped to 1.2 knots.
Three races are now scheduled for Tuesday for those fleets that didn't get racing, but the forecast again suggests further challenging weather until later in the week.
49er skiff
The 49er skiff event is scheduled to begin racing on Tuesday with two Irish boats entered.
Tokyo Olympians Robert Dickson (Howth Yacht Club) and Séan Waddilove (Skerries Sailing Club) will be racing against Seáfra Guilfoyle and Johnny Durcan (Royal Cork Yacht Club) in the Blue flight of their class, which is expected to have three races - weather permitting