Northern Ireland Youth and Junior Sailors round of the 2021 season at the Irish Youth Nationals

After a gap of over two years due to the COVID pandemic, Ireland’s biggest youth regatta was back with over 100 young competing across four different classes of boat at the Youth Nationals: 420, Topper, ILCA 4 (Laser 4.7) and ILCA 6 (Laser Radial). These are the classes that have been identified as the best to facilitate progression through the Irish Sailing Performance Pathway. These classes were joined by the 29er class who are in discussions with Irish Sailing about becoming a full Performance Pathway class.

Racing took place over four days for the youth classes and three days for the Junior. Ultimately Sunday was blown out as the winters storms start to present themselves but with good race management, most classes only missed one race from their series so I don’t think many were annoyed by this decision. 
Top performers in the junior classes were Bobby Driscoll, RNIYC/BYC achieving 3rd in the Topper class and Daniel Palmer, BYC with a 4th in the ILCA 4 (Laser 4.7). Both with a race win or two on their scorecard. 
A race win also for Tom Coulter, EABC helped keep him in the hunt for the ILCA 6 (Laser Radial) accolade but with the stiff competition including the reigning Youth World Champion Eve McMahon, Tom settled for a 5th overall. Fellow RYANI Academy sailor Ellen Barbour, CAYC/EABC was further back in 12th after a technical mistake in race 5 and an OCS in the final race racked up costly points on what was otherwise a very respectable series of results. 
The high-performance 29er class were enjoying the conditions blasting around the racecourse and with several teams just having returned from the class’ Europeans European Championships in Italy only days before the competition was very tight. Lauren McDowell, RNIYC and Erin McIlwaine, NYC showed competitive boat handling and speed but with a lack of boats in the north and fewer fleet racing opportunities came up short with 6th despite actually sailing very well. 

‘’I am very pleased so many of our sailors and their families used the half term to make the journey south and support the event. Events like these form key milestones in all sailor’s pathways, for some it may be their biggest event to date and that experience is invaluable, for others it is their opportunity to showcase their current talent in the hope of furthering their sailing journey. I hope all take the lesson that constancy across all conditions is key, with only one discard it was more important to avoid the big scores than to try and win each race.’’
‘’We will be assisting Irish Sailing in hosting the 2022 edition of this even in the North Next year at Ballyholme Yacht Club. This creates a unique offseason training opportunity for the sailors to work on their sailing skills and access their progress directly for the same event next spring.’’
Andrew Baker – Performance Manager RYA NI 

Youth Performance Pathway sailors will now enter into the winter training phase with our first weekends this month November. Hosted by Holywood Yacht Club.

Results