Superb results for team Ireland at the IODA European Championship

Congratulations to Team Ireland and coach Thomas Chaix and manager James O'Callaghan assisted by Pam O'Brien for the best European results for 10 years !

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Read Thomas's European Diary Below

DAY 5 and 6 flat calm. not a chance we could squeeze a race in, so the Europeans remained at 7 races and the best Irish result of the last 10 years.

Final Results :
Boys (146 entries)
7th Peter McCann, ocs, 4, 16, 19, 25, 1, 4
22nd Seafra Guilfoyle, 17, 23, 32, 11, 20, ocs, 7
30th Sean Donnelly, 11, 7, 15, 27, 37, 24, bfd
40th Patrick Crosbie, ocs, 3, 17, 39, 52, 20, 5
Girls (101 entries)
33rd Sophie Browne, 17, 15, 28, 32, 12, 8, 28
69th Jil McGinley, 11, 37, 44, 25, 27, 44, 22
87th Erica Ruigrok, 40, 20, 42, 27, 40, 47, 48

DAY 4: It was windy in the morning and very promising in order to get 3 races once more... However the wind dropped rapidely to 10-12 kts displaying gusts and shifts. The fleet was very nervous and X flags and black flags florished in the various starts of the day. In the boys, Peter was on fire and had a excellent race showing speed and the right amount of risk taking to eventually take the race gun. in the same race, Sean was 24th. in the other race, Seafra had a solid race taking 5th on the line unfortunately shattered by an OCS. Paddy was close behing in 20th. In the girls, Sophie had a smart race taking 8th on the line. The wind was getting lighter (8-12kts) when the second race eventually started. The boys were on fire but Sean had to let the other three doing the business as he was unfortunately caught BFD. Peter just missed 3rd on the line (4th) followed by Paddy (5th) whilst Seafra had a superb second beat jumping from gust to gust taking 7th at the end. The girls worked hard to recover from poor starts and jil manged to come back to 23rd. Overall, with the discard kicking in, Peter mooved up to 7th followed by Seafra (22nd), Sean (30th) and Paddy (40th). Sophie leads the girls in 34th ahead of Jil (69th) and Erica (87th). Two days to go (max 5 races)!

DAY 3 : the forecast was for breeze and we launched in 18-20 kts. All the Irish were happy enough to see the wind as it surely felt like home (just warmer!). We were set for another long day. The boys went off a good start with good results, Sean working very hard leading the charge in 15th (putting him 5th on provisional after 3 races!) followed by Peter (16th), Patrick (17th) and Seafra 32nd whose swamping on the the top reach surely costed him a top 10 finish. The girls were finding it difficult with Sophie best finisher in 28th. The second race saw the wind decreasing slightly but these difficult shifts still dictating the tactics. Seafra was once more on fire and stayed dry this time securing 11th on the line. Peter was upthere once again taking 19th ahead of Sean (27th) and Paddy (39th). Jil had a great race in 25th ahead of Erica (27th). The wind dropped a good bit on the final race and the wind was really shifting all over the place. Seafra was once more leading the boys in 20th followed by Peter in 25th. Sophie was well upthere and eventually took 12th on the line. Overall Sean leads the Irish in 15th just ahead of Seafra in 20th... Next race will allow a discard wich will change the ranking.

DAY 2...

We have now entered our championship in Poland... VERY slowly in 4-5 kts and only two races have been sailed so far, both sailed yesterday in very light breeze.

RACE 1 : So the boys were on first with Sean and Seafra on the start line. and it was to be a fine first beat for both sailors reaching the top mark just inside top 10. Seafra collected unfortunately a yellow flat ruining his race, but our positive attitude specialist made his way back to 17th a couple of places behind Sean (11th). the second start was seriously challenged by the fleet and the X flag came up. Peter was well up finishing 6th ahead of Paddy about 25th. unfortunately both were caught on the wrong side of the line and started their event with an OCS.
In the girls fleet, Jil was on fine form sailing in the top 5 most of the race before nerves caught up with her costing her a few places on the finish line (11th eventually). Sophie was solid in 17th whilst Erica struggled to find pace (42nd)required some sail adjustment before the second race.

Race two: Time for an irish firework in the dying breeze. Paddy and Sean led the charge in the first fleet taking 3rd and 7th on the line after over an hour racing. Peter was also sharp picking places up to the finish eventually clinching 4th. Seafra used his head and despite having to fend off with sailors way smaller than him in less than 5 kts managed once more a solid race in 23rd. Sophie was solid once more with a 15th whilst Erica progressed to 20th after a good first beat inside the top 10. Jil found that race harder and could only secure 37th.

Today looked promising but the wind rapidely died down and the days was called off at 5pm. tomorrow the forecast looks promising with 12-15kts. Lets hope they show up.

Thomas