Dun Laoghaire has opened its harbour for the second big ILCA championship in as many weeks, with the 2026 ILCA 6 Women's World Championship now under way, and the return of a Rio 2016 medallist eight months into motherhood giving the fortnight its sharpest storyline yet.
Racing starts tomorrow. After two days of registration and equipment inspection, 108 sailors from 44 countries will line up on Dublin Bay, with the fleet whittled down to a world champion by Saturday 12 September.
The format mirrors last week's ILCA 7 Men's Worlds: five days of Qualifying Series races for everyone, then a final day featuring two Final Series races for the Top 10 and one last Qualifying race for the rest of the fleet. This is a class decision rather than the standard World Sailing format.
The entry list reads like a genuine cross-section of the sport. Sailors from Asia, Central and South America, Europe, North America, Oceania and the Rest of the World are all represented, a sign of how universal the ILCA 6 has become.
Reigning World Champion Louise Cervera of France heads the fleet. She's joined by fellow 2025 medallists Agata Barwińska of Poland, silver in Qingdao and also silver back in 2021, and Ireland's Eve McMahon, whose bronze last year was Ireland's first-ever senior World Championship medal in the class.
Two Olympic medallists add further depth. Norway's Line Flem Høst took bronze in Paris 2024, her country's first Olympic medal in the class, and in one of the fortnight's bigger storylines, Rio 2016 silver medallist Annalise Murphy is back racing on the waters where she learned to sail, eight months after becoming a mother.
Murphy's return has been as much about logistics as sailing form.
"I just went out and did the practice race, so the first upwind of that race was actually my first time taking the boat out and trying to get it all organised," she said. "Minding my nine-month-old has been a bit of a challenge too, she wasn't that interested in me doing all my ropes yesterday. The first few minutes she was like, 'This is fun,' and then she was like, 'Okay, I'm over this.' But yeah, I'm just really looking forward to getting racing."
She hasn't sailed an ILCA at this level since a difficult finish to her Olympic career. "The Tokyo Olympics were my last Olympics, and the last time I was in an ILCA it went really badly for me, I finished 18th. I kind of knew it was going to be my final Olympics, and I thought I'd try to finish on a high, and instead I finished on a massive low. I was probably just so disappointed that I didn't really want to go sailing for a while. This summer I was out watching some of the lads training in the ILCA 7, and I thought, 'That looks really nice, maybe I should hop back in my boat,' not really thinking the Worlds would be a possibility. Two months later, here I am about to start."
Her ambitions are modest, deliberately so. "I'm very aware of the standard of the fleet, everyone's full-time, at such a high level. All these girls are aiming for the LA Olympics, and that's not on my horizon. I know I'm probably not quite going to be on the pace, but I'm hoping I get some good starts, and if it's shifty, I know the bay really well. My goal is to try and have a few good races, if I can make it into the Gold Fleet, I'd be delighted. But I won't really know until I actually line up at the start and see how I'm going against the best in the world."
The championship runs through to 12 September off the National Yacht Club and Royal St George Yacht Club, capping an historic month of Olympic-class sailing on Dublin Bay.
