A silver medal at last week's 29er UK National Championships in Weymouth for recently crowned Irish national champions Ben O'Shaughnessy (RCYC) and Ethan Spain (NYC) set the Cork-Dublin duo up nicely for this week's world championships at the same venue.
410 sailors making 205 entries from 25 countries, including eight Irish teams, have made their way to the 2012 British Olympic venue to sail out of the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy.
After one race sailed on Sunday, brother and sister pairing Clementine and Nathan Van Steenberge of Dun Laoghaire's National Yacht Club are lying in joint second place, but half of the fleet – including the rest of the Irish – have yet to complete their first race.
'Full on, fruity, but steady conditions' was the word from David Campbell-James, the Race Officer leading the racing in Portland Harbour. With consistent direction and average wind speeds of 20-23 knots, the yellow and blue fleets launched, managing a single race on the Harbour course before increasing gusts sent all fleets home for a quiet Sunday afternoon to rest and recover for this morning.
'More fresh than frightening' was the sentiment from the Australian team of Ben Craaford and Jakob Marks, who was very happy to get their first race win in the Yellow fleet under their belts in the challenging conditions' good fresh conditions, we like this stuff from back home in Australia, so we really feel at home today'.
Zeb Van Dorst and Yannick Van Den Akker from the Netherlands also enjoyed the conditions in Blue fleet, 'we won because it was good wind, perfect wind for us - so a good start with good first upwind, some mistakes, but in the end, we came out on top'. At 64 and 73 kilos, they enjoy the windy conditions, sharing their top tips for the 29er in windy weather 'Keep it simple, don't gybe and tack too much', and with only two gybes the whole day, they led by example.
2022 Men's World Champion Maximo Videla (Argentina) with new partner Juan Cruz Albamonte took second place in the Yellow fleet, with Irish siblings Clementine and Nathan Van Steenberge taking second place in Blue and currently sitting in the top spot for the Open fleet prize.
Clementine from IRL 22, said after racing, 'difficult conditions, today was all about speed, we had a good start and did our thing', 'there was quite a nasty chop so on the downwind you had to watch out not to get your bow in'. Offering their top tips for the day, Nathan shared, 'The most important thing was keeping the boat upright as much as possible, get around the course, and you'll do well – gybes are probably the trickiest bit today, just focus on getting the boom across and worry about the kite after.'
The championships consist of a Qualifying Series with a maximum of nine races and a Final Series with a maximum of nine. Two fleets race on each race course. Racing continues until Friday.
Meanwhile, entries are open for the 29er Northern Ireland Championships that will take place this September 9-10 at Ballyholme Yacht Club. The 29er class will be one of the fleets competing in the RYANI Youth Championships.