Highs and lows for Irish sailors on second day of world championships in Sardinia
The second day of the qualification series for the 49er World Championships in Cagliari brought highs and lows for the Irish crews with Day 3 set to be nail-biting marathon.
After winning the opening race of the event on Tuesday, Olympic veterans Robert Dickson (Howth Yacht Club) and Sean Waddilove (Skerries Sailing Club) were unable to hold their winning form, a trend that continued into Day 2.
Wednesday saw the Dublin pair deliver very strong race starts, clear evidence that the memories of the Paris 2024 medal race that saw them miss the podium has been driving their training over the past year.
However, Dickson and Waddilove were unable to capitalise on their strong starts and, even with good boat speed took the wrong options with wind shifts in the light winds that have been expected for the venue.
"I'm feeling a little bit frustrated because we had good starts and good speed but we couldn't convert that into good results today," admitted Dickson. "It was quite hard to read - there was good wind on the right but sometimes went left and we seemed to find ourselves on the other side; it was all going the wrong way for us."
"We're doing a lot of really good things and we're just going to continue doing those things and improve on what we aren't doing well at."
Their score for the day was a 14th, an eighth and a very weighty 22nd place. Had even that last race been a win then their standing would have been transformed. Instead, they go into the last three qualification races in 41st overall and some 20 points off a place in the Gold fleet.
More promising results came from an unexpected quarter on Day 2 with the Cork/Dublin pairing of Ben O'Shaughnessy (Royal Cork Yacht Club) and Ethan Spain (National Yacht Club) on their senior world championships debut.
While individual highlights such as strong starts or other learning points would have been fair goals for their first major competition, the young crew delivered a race win plus a second and a 12th for the day, far exceeding any expectations.
"We had a rough first day so we didn't know what to expect but we're delighted with the outcome," said Spain. "I expected that we'd be more mid-fleet; we're here for the experience and to get used to the fleet."
The crew was pleased with their boat settings and were planning to match these for the third day.
"We had a tough day yesterday and we knew what we had to improve on so we're pleased that we did that," said O'Shaughnessy. "We have to take every day as it comes and while we're happy with the result we still have a lot more learning to do."
Getting good starts, keeping up boat speed and staying relaxed while enjoying the racing were O'Shaughnessy's takeaways from their successful day.
The up and coming crew are ahead of Dickson and Waddilove in 33rd place and if they can repeat their performance on Thursday, could achieve a place in the Gold fleet series that begins on Friday though that was similarly not a goal for this event.
The conditions for Day 3 seem likely to continue the trend of light winds to start the day, gradually freshening to moderate conditions. However, the 49er men's event will race first so will face the light and tricky conditions once again.