Welsh team display winning ways at Celtic Cup 2025
What an adventure! The Celtic Cup 2025 saw youth and junior sailors from Wales putting their racing skills to the test against teams from Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The latest edition of this annual event was hosted by RYA Northern Ireland at Killyleagh Outdoor Education Centre in County Down, on the western shore of Strangford Lough (1-2 February), with each Home Nation putting forward a team of 12 comprising their best ILCA6 and Topper sailors.
For the Welsh sailors, the journey began as early as mid-afternoon on the Thursday for those travelling from south and west Wales, with the team convening at Plas Menai that evening to load boats for a three vehicle convoy with six ILCAs, six Toppers and a RIB.
Triple stacker trailers - funded as part of Welsh Sailing’s new ILCA fleet thanks to a Sport Wales grant supported by Welsh Government funding – meant that all 12 sailors along with three coaches could get to Northern Ireland using as few vehicles as possible.
The ferry from Holyhead was planned for 10am on Friday morning but a technical glitch saw it cancelled and bumped the team onto the 1:15pm ferry instead. The three-hour ferry crossing was then followed by a two-hour drive north to the venue.
The sailors were great company in the cars and kept the drivers/coaches Will Willett, Alan Williams and Sarah McGovern entertained along the way, with the team arriving to unload in the dark, fingers crossed and hoping the kit was in the right place.
Killyleagh Outdoor Education Centre proved to be a great facility with bunk rooms and a big lounge and dining room allowing plenty of space and time to socialise with the other Home Countries.
Team building
With a breezy but not unsailable forecast, the race team was quickly on the water to set a course on the Saturday morning. However, Strangford Lough is known for its tide and unfortunately this combined with the strong winds to make launching unsafe.
A few hardy ILCA sailors managed to launch two boats and rotate sailors to have a blast but there was no racing. Instead, sailors rotated around three carousels hosted by the coaches for topics covering rules, race flag scenarios and psychology.
The day concluded with an evening of fun team building and competitive games at the centre. Outdoor orienteering with mixed Home Country teams saw the sailors forging and strengthening friendships while running around the grounds locating landmarks.
Home Country v Home Country games then saw the sailors tackling a blindfold assault course and trying to win a ‘tallest tower’ competition using spaghetti and marshmallows!
Challenging conditions
With a better forecast for Sunday, an early launch saw five races completed for the ILCAs and four for the Toppers. A breezy 18 knots moderated to 7 knots by the last race to provide a mixed bag of conditions which saw the most well-rounded sailors making it to the top.
Although the overall points difference between the Home Nations was small, Northern Ireland claimed the Celtic Cup after impressive team victories in both the Topper and ILCA 6 fleets.
RYA Northern Ireland Performance Manager, Andrew Baker, said: “A clean sweep is fantastic but I don’t think the scores reflect just how close the racing really was. The other nations were definitely pushing hard.”
Wales finished second overall out of the three Home Nations, with notable individual results in the ILCA 6 class for Freddie MacLaverty, third boy overall, and Flo Tovey, who was first girl.
Summing up her weekend, Flo said: “It was ‘snakes and ladders’ racing out there really, especially with the tide, waves and pressure coming from all over. It was quite hard to pick out your priorities for the upwinds but I think I managed to do that pretty well in some of the races.
“I’ve been training with the Welsh Squad and GB Youth Squad and was out in Valencia recently with some of the Irish and Scottish ILCA sailors so it’s nice to come together for some racing with your friends."
More than racing
Sarah McGovern, Performance Manager Wales, said: “I was enormously proud of all the Welsh sailors. Team camaraderie was at all time high with everyone supporting each other and showing the skills they had been working on all winter.
“The Celtic Cup for me is much more than just the racing. Taking sailors away for three days, with no parents, helps to develop their independence, time keeping and teamwork. The sailors also support the coaches with logistics and problem solving along the way. Combine that with making new friends across the Home Countries and the Celtic Cup is always a huge success no matter what the outcome.
“A big thank you to the coaches Will and Alan and the Welsh parents for their support, and of course to our hosts RYA Northern Ireland and all those from the Home Nations who made it a great event!”
The team made it back to bed at Plas Menai at 3am on Monday morning and with a quick re-shuffle of boats, the sailors were back on the road again to south/west and outer north Wales.
Up next
Youth and junior sailors - get set for a spectacular summer of events in Wales! Make sure you have these 2025 dates planned into your calendar:
- 12-18 April: RYA Youth Nationals, Pwllheli
- 21-22 June: Welsh Regional Junior Championships, Dale
- 30-31 August: Welsh OnBoard Festival, Bala
- 13-14 Sept: Welsh Youth & Junior Championships, Pwllheli
Enter now for the RYA Youth Nationals 2025.
