As two world championships conclude on Irish waters this weekend, a third European and world championship begins on Dublin Bay tomorrow bringing with it a realistic chance of Irish success in both men and women's radial divisions of the Olympic Laser dinghy class European and world championships at the National Yacht Club (NYC).
It’s a 2013 summer season climax and the only Olympic class championship to be contested in Irish waters before the Rio Olympics in three years time.
Finn Lynch proved his ISAF silver medal status again last weekend fighting off a significant international challenge for the Irish Laser Radial title at Royal Cork Yacht Club.
The National Yacht Club youth sailor counted only one result outside the top 10, finishing seven points clear at the top of a 79boat fleet, the only Irish boat in the top five.
Second was Australian Tristan Brown. Britain’s Jon Emett from Weir Wood Sailing Club was third. Lynch’s victory comes after a summer of international competition including the Under 21 World Championships in Hungary. It’s a set of results that puts Lynch as a contender in next week’s men’s radial fleet.
A contender in the women’s division is Olympic campaigner Annalise Murphy who has just returned from a three week training stint at the Olympic venue in Rio de Janerio.
She finished seventh overall in Cork in the predominantly light conditions but Lynch’s club mate is keen to improve on that next week on home waters.
With a total entry of 160boats the Vodafone sponsored Royal Cork event served as an appropriate warm-up to this weekend’s Europeans.
Certainly it proved more of a warm up than any practicing on the Bay has proved this week. So far, the capital's waters have only offered up mixed conditions for up to 330 competitors and, according to several crews, remarkably like those forecast for the 2016 Olympic regatta itself very light.
Difficult week
It's been a difficult week too for race officers in Cork and Howth where both the IFDS Disabled sailing and J24 Worlds respectively lost days of the schedule due to lack of wind, both series conclude this weekend.
Thankfully fresher conditions are on the way for the biggest one design regatta of the year that has attracted some of world sailing’s biggest stars from 42 nations.
Five times Olympic medallist Robert Sheidt (40) from Brazil will make his Dun Laoghaire debut, returning to Ireland for the first time since the Laser Worlds in Cork Harbour in 2001. Sheidt has returned to the Laser where the average age of the competitor is 25.
Also arrived on the bay are Annalise Murphy's arch rivals, the two radial aces who pipped the National Yacht Club woman for silver and Bronze in Weymouth; Holland's Marit Boumeester and Evi Van Acker of Belgium, Dun Laoghaire marking the Belgian's first return to competition since London 2012.
