Youth World ILCA 6/Laser Radial Champion Eve McMahon from Howth Yacht Club is a clear favourite for success at this Thursday's youth sailing championships hosted by Royal Cork Yacht Club and sponsored by Investwise.

Former Irish youth champion McMahon, who earned more international stripes this month with a senior world championship race win in Bulgaria, is embarked on a campaign to represent Ireland at Paris 2024, so there's no doubt the U18 sailor will be putting her impressive boat speed on show in Cork Harbour. 

This month, laser sailors have been training on the Royal Cork race track with Tokyo trialist Aisling Keller as a coach in advance of the championships.

Tralee Bay's Ellie Cunnane (right) Photo: Bob Bateman

The closest guide to form is the 2021 Laser National Championships held in Royal Cork back in August. At that event – in which McMahon did not compete – Tralee Bay's Ellie Cunnane was third overall and top Girl in the 46-boat national championship fleet.

Cunnane will be racing on Cork waters again next week, but there will be no doubting McMahon's speed advantage, especially in breeze. The sixth-year student demonstrated that with a consistent scoreline on Lake Garda in August to take the Girl's worlds crown, as Afloat reported here.

Laser 4.7 sailing in Cork Harbour

Next week, four-course areas will operate for the youth championships in Cork Habour; Aghada, Curlane Bank, Cuskinny and Roches Point with an 11-race schedule for the ILCA 6/Laser class.

Racing begins on Thursday, October 28th, and as well as deciding national honours, the event serves as the second part of a qualifications system to determine Ireland's representative at the Youth World Sailing Championships in Oman this December.

With seven results from ten races sailed in the top third of her 66-boat fleet – including a race win – Radial youth sailor Eve McMahon of Howth Yacht Club launched her campaign for Paris 2024 in style today finishing in fifteenth overall at the ILCA6/Radial Europeans in Varna, Bulgaria.

McMahon's clubmate and rival for Paris, Aoife Hopkins was 25th.

Agata Barwinska of Poland was the overall winner. 

Results are here 

Aoife Hopkins

Irish youth sailor Eve McMahon from Howth took a well-earned win in a breezy race eight of the 2021 Women's ILCA 6 (Laser Radial) Senior European Championships & Open European Trophy in Varna, Bulgaria today.

After nine races sailed, McMahon, who won the Radial Youth world title in August, stays 15th overall, but within eight points of 11th overall on 136 points in the 66-boat fleet.

McMahon's clubmate Aoife Hopkins is in 25th place on 220 points.

Strong wind and a big swell (plus cold and rain) made the Irish girls feel right at home on the Bulgarian Black Sea.

The Women’s championship changed hands for a second consecutive day today, with the Polish sailor Agata Barwinska POL (3-1) heading the competition on 38 points.

22 points behind is now the overnight first Basileia Carahaliou GRE (18-15) with 60. Third place for the previous days leader Line Flem Host NOR (27-4) with 70.

Maxime Jonker NED (13-2) is fourth, only one point behind Line. French sailor Louise Cervera FRA (5-14) is fifth with 81. Ascending Hannah Anderssohn GER (6-3) is sixth with 98.

Daisy Collingridge GBR, Elena Borobeva CRO, Anna Munch DEN and Marie Barrue FRA complete the provisional European Top 10.

Two last races are planned for tomorrow.

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.

It's almost a month since the last sailing race of the Tokyo Olympics. In most sports, the end of each Olympic Quad (in this case a Quinq) is the traditional time for reflection on the previous campaign and consideration of the one (or more) ahead. It is also, traditionally, a time of changing personnel, both ashore and afloat. 

Deep thought is given by sports National Governing Bodies to current and future resources, both human and otherwise. This time around, the changes to the Olympic Sailing programme must be taken into the mix. During the Tokyo competition itself, Irish team management was acknowledging the need for a full debrief in order to"strengthen processes" in "every aspect of its preparations".

A key factor in the consideration is that, typically, not many of the Olympic Classes, have ever developed fleets with meaningful depth in Ireland, or, for that matter, in the UK. Think, Flying Dutchman, Soling, Star, Tempest, Europe, even 470. Except for the ILCA (Laser) fleets, aspiring Olympians in Ireland have to travel to get the competitive experience necessary to advance along the Olympic pathway.

Sailing talent

This raises the question of how to identify the talent worthy of support if they are not currently sailing the boat that they might aspire to.

The (hopefully temporary) rejection of an Offshore event in Paris in favour of kites, means that only three of the ten Olympic disciplines have Irish sailors anywhere on the world ranking lists.

As regular Afloat readers will know, Ireland targeted qualification in four Olympic classes for Tokyo but despite full-on campaigns ended up qualifying in only two.

While Annalise Murphy uses well-earned downtime to contemplate the future, Ireland's pool of sailors with proven talent is perhaps limited to Rob Dickson and Sean Waddilove in the 49er, Aisling Keller, Aoife Hopkins and Eve McMahon in the ILCA 6, and perhaps Finn Lynch in the ILCA7. Of course, there could be, and probably are, many others out there, but which of these would make it to the start line in Marseille in under three years time?

Annalise Murphy – well-earned downtime to contemplate the future Photo: Sailing Energy

Paris prospects - Rob Dickson and Sean Waddilove in the 49er Photo: Sailing Energy

Another uncertainty is the investment Sport Ireland are prepared to put into Irish High-Performance Sailing over the next three years.

No medal race finish

On average, just over €750,000 was granted to Irish Sailing every year since 2017. Will Sport Ireland be prepared to cough up the same, given the fairly meagre return of two classes qualified with results in the mid-teens and no medal race result?

Paris 2024

And how are we preparing for beyond Paris? Observers of this month's Laser 4.7 Youth Worlds on Dublin Bay pointed in frustration to the nationally supported squads of European sailors, where the Dutch, Italian, Spanish and Greek fleets seemed particularly well-organised and featured many sailors in the gold fleet. By contrast, the largest country by fleet numbers, Ireland, could only manage to get four out of 35 boys into the gold fleet and two of the 35 girls. If this is a pointer to future Olympic results, then Ireland will struggle to qualify.

Bold decisions

Irish Sailing should and probably will use the post-Olympic period to study clinically the quad just passed, apply the lessons learned to the next cycle, but perhaps most of all, consider a longer-term approach to developing talent considering ways to balance the investment in current and future talent. It may be time for bold decisions that may favour a bigger input of resources into youth sailing that may not pay off until Los Angeles 2028 or Brisbane 2032.

It says everything about Eve McMahon's big-fleet sailing skills that she emerged as the clear winner of the Laser Radial Youth Worlds Girls Division on Lake Garda on Saturday, July 31st with a generally consistent scoreline which would have done credit to a mature and seasoned campaigner in a senior event.

Yet it was difficult for Eve to keep the head down and work quietly but steadily towards gaining, maintaining, losing and then regaining the overall lead, as her every movement in a boat speaks eloquently of sailing genius. This inevitably made her the target helm for the rest of the remarkably international fleet, but in the end her star quality shone through in true champion's style.

Howth Yacht Club's Eve McMahon (17) has won the Laser Radial (ILCA 6) Youth World Championships in a stunning performance on Lake Garda this afternoon.

As Afloat reported yesterday, the Paris 2024 campaigner has been in a podium position at the Italian venue all week and more often than not on top of the 55-boat leaderboard.

The soon to be sixth-year student led by five points from Czech Republic's Alessia Palanti on 28 points going in to the final races. 

The Dubliner counted two sevens to win comfortably with a 13 point cushion in a consistent scoreline that counted three race wins. 

Her main rival Palanti was overhauled by Swiss girl Anja Von Allmen who had a strong 1,2 finish to claim the silver medal. The Czech girl rued a DSQ and finished fourth overall to Sara Savelli who pinched third on the final day.

McMahon adds the title to the fourth-place finish at U21 ILCA 6 European Championships scored in June in Montenegro plus the U19 title at the same venue and before that silver in the EURILCA Laser Radial Youth Championships in Croatia.

The ILCA 6 Youth World Championships are open to sailors who were 18 or younger on the registration day, July 23, but at least 15 years of age.

Download full results below

Howth Yacht Club's Eve McMahon took an early lead at Laser Radial Youth World Championships and stayed in a podium place all week

Classic Lake Garda conditions returned for the penultimate day of the 2021 ILCA 6 Youth Worlds that saw Howth's Eve McMahon back on top of the leaderboard. 

Results are tight and the forecast is good for the final day of the championship tomorrow.

McMahon now leads by five points from Czech Republic's Alessia Palanti on 28 points. 

The top two have a gap of 19 points on Anja Von Allmen in third on 47 points in the 55-boat gold fleet.

The Facebook video below shows the powerful form of McMahon at mark one of race 3 of the Girls Gold Fleet.

Download results pdf below

Howth’s Eve McMahon managed to stay in second overall after Thursday’s first two finals races in the Laser Youth Worlds on Lake Garda even with missing out on the first race with a DNC.

She came back with a third in race F2, and despite now having to carry her eighth in one of the qualifiers - which had been her discard going into the finals sequence - her net points of 17.0 put her 7 points ahead of third-placed Anja von Allmen of Switzerland, and 5 points astern of overall leader Alessua Palanti of the Czech Republic.

The pace and consistency at the top of the fleet of 54 helms in the Girls Gold Division is ferocious. Aside from McMahon’s DNC, the lowest race placing in the top five has been a 27th, and a significant majority of their results have been in single figures.

Howth Yacht Club's Eve McMahon has gone straight into the lead of the 2021 ILCA  6 Laser Radial  Youth World Championships in Arco, Italy. 

Morning thunderstorms held the fleets ashore for day one at the northern end of Lake Garda.

The typical south wind never developed, but a nice 10-12 knot northerly breeze allowed two races to be completed for all fleets.

McMahon and Robby Meek of the United States found the conditions to their liking, both posting perfect score lines in the girls and boys divisions respectively.

With a marginal forecast for tomorrow, the race committee has moved the start time forward three hours to try to get a full schedule of two races completed before the potential for bad weather in the afternoon.

McMahon is just one of a number of Irish sailors competing at the championships, click the link below for full results.

Provisional results after two races:

Girls Division

1. Eve McMahon (IRL) 2 Pts.
2. Alessia Palanti (CZE) 4 Pts.
3. Anja Von Allmen (SUI) 6 Pts.
4. Marissa Ijben (NED) 9 Pts.
5. Amaya Escudero (USA) 9 Pts.
6. Linda Hensel (GER) 12 Pts.
7. Maria Martinez (ESP) 13 Pts.
8. Gemma Llamas Vallespir (ESP) 13 Pts.
9. Pia Conradi (GER) 15 Pts.
10. Sophia Montgomery (THA) 15 Pts.

Boys Division

2. Yogev Alcalay (ISR) 3 Pts.
3. Oskar Madonich (UKR) 4 Pts.
4. Hidde Schraffordt (NED) 5 Pts.
5. Mattia Cesana (ITA) 5 Pts.
6. Sebastian Kempe (BER) 7.2 Pts.
7. Javier Segui (ESP) 9 Pts.
8. Erik Norlen (SWE) 10 Pts.
9. Martins Atilla (LAT) 11 Pts.
10. Marcos Altarriba (ESP) 11 Pts.

Full results here