World and European challenges await GBR Nacra and Finn sailors
Written by RYA | 19 July 2013
Racing starts at the inaugural Nacra 17 World Championship and the Finn Europeans on Monday (22 July)
British sailors in the newest Olympic class will face their first major test next week when racing at the inaugural Nacra 17 World Championship gets underway in The Hague, Netherlands (22-27 July).
Four British Sailing Team crews will be in action in the new mixed multihull event, introduced for the Rio 2016 cycle, including 2012 Olympian Lucy Macgregor who transferred into the new class after her Women’s Match Racing event was dropped from the Games programme, and 2008 gold medallist Pippa Wilson who’s returned to Olympic Classes sailing this season after a break from the sport.
Some 66 crews, compulsorily male and female in this new class, will contest the six-day, 15-race series off Scheveningen, with the medals set to be decided on Saturday 27 July.
Macgregor and her crew, the two-time ISAF Youth Worlds multihull champion Tom Phipps, are currently ranked second in the ISAF world rankings in this inaugural season, and are looking forward to testing their progress against the rest of the world’s Nacra 17 talents next week.
“It’s a big event for us, for sure. It’s our biggest event of the year and one that we really want to perform in and to sail the best we can,” the 26-year-old Poole sailor explained.
“In terms of where that will be overall in the fleet, it’s impossible to tell in some ways – half of the fleet that will be there we won’t have seen before. But that doesn’t mean to say they won’t be any good!
“It’s very hard to say in advance that we want to be top five or top ten, or top twenty or whatever, because we don’t really know what to expect!
“Within our team we know how we can sail, and so I think although it sounds a bit clichéd, Tom and I have really just got to focus on that, do the best we can do and see where that puts us overall ultimately!”
Also competing for the British Sailing Team will be Sail for Gold Regatta winners Ben Saxton and Hannah Diamond, Pippa Wilson and John Gimson, and Podium Potential squad members and former Youth World Champion Rupert White competing with Youth Worlds bronze medallist Nikki Boniface.
Meanwhile, Britain’s Finn sailors will look to continue their season’s dominance at the Finn European Championship in Warnemunde, Germany, where racing also gets underway on Monday (22 July)
The 27-year-old Largs sailor Mark Andrews has the momentum heading into the event, having won the past three EUROSAF Champions Sailing Cup regattas in Holland, Kiel, and on home waters in Weymouth and Portland at the Sail for Gold Regatta, while Hyeres World Cup winner Andrew Mills and former World and European Champion Ed Wright, winner of the EUROSAF Champions Cup event in Garda, will also be pushing for further British podium glory.
After his most recent victory in Kiel, Andrews said he was encouraged by his run of form in time for the peak regattas of the season:
“I’m definitely getting better and better as the year goes on and it’s nice to be peaking just time in time for the two key events of the year - the Europeans and Worlds,” he explained.
“There have been a few people missing from the events so I wouldn’t count my chickens too much, but you can only beat the people who turn up to the regattas and to have won three golds in a row is pretty good.”
Although hopes are high for British success in Germany, the challenge for the Europeans title will be a strong one – of the 116 boats entered, the fleet boasts 17 sailors with Olympic experience and five who are past World Champions or Olympic medallists.
A ten-race series is scheduled at the Finn Europeans from Monday 22-Friday 26 July, with the final medal decider for the top ten boats thereafter scheduled for Saturday 27 July.
For news and results from both the Nacra 17 World Championship and the Finn European Championship, follow us at
www.britishsailingteam.com, on
Facebook or on Twitter @BritishSailing
For further event information, visit
www.nacra17class.com/worldhome/ or
www.finneuropeans.org/ec2013