SAILING Annalise Murphy Wins Hoorn Europa Cup 2009

20 May 2009


This year's Dutch Europa Cup was sailed from Hoorn 40km North of Amsterdam on the Ijsselmeer, Dutch inland sea edged by the dikes Holland is so famous for over the long weekend of 15th -17th May. Eight races were scheduled making it tough as usually only two races are sailed per day and three were expected on Friday and Saturday with two on the final day Sunday.

Competitors arrived in 3 classes with 32 '4.7s', 77 'Radials' and 55 'Standards' from around the world. Irish sailors were entered in the Radial class along with representation from 14 other nations including the best Dutch local sailors.

Saturday began with a short delay before launching to allow sailors to finish registration and deal with the small venue before a 40 minute sail out to the race course. The first attempt at racing in good wind speeds of 12 knots had to be abandoned as the wind decreased to nothing and the wind made a long shift to the right. Finally after a long delay afloat the wind was stable enough to sail and competitors were able to sail one race in a difficult decreasing gradient breeze before being towed home to end the day as the conditions glassed off and it became obvious to the race committee that the sailing day was over.

Competitors were well looked after by the hosting club making post sailing pasta and allowing the sailors, coaches and families alike to socialise with the many teams and spectators.

Sunday ran to schedule with good gradient breeze of speeds of 16-18 knots for most of the day. An aggressive chop had been kicked up by the shallow Ijsselmeer and the competitors had to work hard to race the championship size courses with the windward legs taking nearly 20 minutes and races lasting over an hour.

Annalise Murphy started her day well and sailed consistently to secure a top 10 position going into the final day. Points were very close ahead and she had opportunity to climb on the final day in the results, but also needed to defend her strong opening to the event.

With many races recalled through the event and boats getting disqualified for being over the line at start time Annalise was able to start close to the pin end of the line on Sunday and capitalise on knowing she was behind the line and prioritise on knowing the beat had a long port tack in it and achieve her best day so far scoring 1 and 3 in the final two races. Having already climbed to the top of the leader board after race 5 her consistent 3rd in the final race gave Annalise her first Europa Cup Win and 1st Female overall.

Aiden Mclaverty finished in 14th and is coming back after time off with his sights clearly set on the Japan World Championships later this summer.

At the prize giving ceremony the locals joked that maybe next year they would produce Male prizes with this year's event having been dominated by Females with local hero Marit Bouwmeester finishing 2nd in the Radials. Marit has already had success wining in Hyeres at the French Europa Cup earlier this year and good results at the World Cup event in Hyeres in April.

Annalise will along with a number of young Irish Radial sailors be looking to develop over the coming years into the World Cup events and Olympic circuit.

 

 

Radial Results Below:

Position, Name, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

  • 1st IRE Annalise Murphy (32) 4 5 7 1 3
  • 2nd NED Marit Bouwmeester 3 5 6 5 4 (bfd)
  • 3rd NED Maarten Max Moerman (25) 1 10 4 12 2
  • 4th SUI Guillaume Girod (42) 10 3 3 10 5
  • 5th NED Yuri Hummel 1 7 (21) bfd 9 1
  • 6th GBR Jon Emmett 32 14 2 6 6 (bfd)
  • 7th SWE Robin Axelsson (19) 3 4 2 19 9
  • 8th NED Claire Blom 7 (16) 14 13 2 8
  • 9th GBR Oscar Mcveigh, 13 13 8 (28) 3 10
  • 10th NED Sierk Jan ter Haar (33) 2 13 22 7 4
  • 11th NED Olivier Vink, (16) 6 12 16 16 11
  • 12th GBR Hannah Snellgrove (24) 20 7 11 8 16
  • 13th SUI Lauri Kalkkinen, 11 18 17 12 (25) 6
  • 14th IRE Aidan Mclaverty, male (bfd) 12 18 15 14 7
  • 15th NED Tobias Kirschbam, 21 9 9 1 27 (bfd)


Event Website: http://www.laserklasse.nl/ile/