Robert Dickson & Sean Waddilove
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420 ISAF Youth Championships
An Irish team of 8 sailors Robbie Gilmore, Robert Dickson, Seán Waddilove, Sarah Eames, Seán Donnelly, Tadgh Donnelly, Cliodhna Ní Shuilleabhain and Jil McGinley travelled to Cyprus with coaches Ross Killian, Matt Ryan, Milan Vujasinovic to compete in the 2013 ISAF Youth World Championships with 60 other nations.
Robert Dickson and Seán Waddilove represented HYC and Ireland in the 420 class. There were 31 nations in the 420 fleet.
The boats launched from the beach and raced in sea breezes that clocked right every day. The boys and girls shared a 420 and alternated morning and afternoon racing. Sometimes coming off the water at 8 o’clock in the evening.
The Howth crew were 15th overall after 11 races including 5 top ten results and one OCS.
The temperatures ranged from 35 to 40 degrees before the wind came in. They couldn’t stand on the sand it was so hot and had to go for swims with the British sailors to cool off. They got a bus to the club and back every day and if you missed it you had to wait 30mins for the next one. The sailors were in 3 different hotels, some better than others.
It was a great event to compete with the world’s best.
The lads met sailors from all over the world including Ryan Robinson from South Africa.
Robert met up with him again in Lough Derg Yacht Club. Sailing is a small world! Ryan sailing with his sister Michaela won the Mirror Worlds in LDYC last week.
Robert came down to watch and support the HYC and SDC sailors who were competing in the Mirror Worlds. These included Sinéad Dickson, Eve McMahon, Shane McLoughlin, Ben Jennings, Conor Twohig, Matthew Cotter, David Johnston and Rory McElroy. Sinéad and Eve received a prize for 5th silver.
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Results >>
Photos >>
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420 Worlds
After a day home Robert and Seán went straight back out to Valencia to join the 6 other 420 crews to compete in the 2013 420 World Championships.
Ewan McMahon and Colin O‘ Sullivan from Howth also joined the team from France where they had competed in the French Nationals.
There were 110 boat in the 420 boys fleet and 70 in the girls. There were 3 flights for the boys and 2 for the girls.
The first few days were lighter then the wind built up to the end of the week to a strong sea breeze of 15 to 20 knots.
The Brazilians were winning the event the whole way through to the last race when they got a 28th and finished 2nd . They had won the ISAFs the week before!
Ross Killian had to return to Dublin and James O’ Callaghan coached the lads instead. He was great on the tactics, wind etc.
Robert and Sean finished 55th overall and 3rd under 16. Due to bad sunburn Colin was unable to sail and Ewan and Colin had to sit it out.
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