Australian ILCA Squad Ready to take on European Championship in Croatia

Australian ILCA Squad Ready to take on European Championship in Croatia
by Lisa Darmanin / Australian Sailing Team 15 May 21:54 PDT
17-22 May 2026

The ILCA European Championship gets under way this week in Kastela, Croatia, with Australia’s top sailors primed for action on the Adriatic Sea following an intensive preparation period.

The Australian ILCA6 Squad has been making the most of the Australian Institute of Sport European Training Centre in Varese, Italy, following the first two Sailing Grand Slam events of the season. The team completed a comprehensive fitness block and mental reset before relocating to Croatia for final preparations.

Tokyo 2020 Olympian Mara Stransky enters the championships ready to put it all together, following an eighth place finish at the Trofeo Princesa Sofia. “My season so far has shown promise but has been a little messy on the execution front, so the goal for this week is to tidy up and allow the processes to do their thing,” Stransky said.

The Queenslander expects challenging and varied conditions throughout the regatta. “The conditions here truly could be anything from very light onshore with swell outside, to howling down off the mountains in flat water on the inshore racecourses so theoretically it will be a great test of a well rounded sailor.”

Stransky will be joined by a strong Australian ILCA 6 contingent as they take on a fleet of 123 sailors.

While Olympic champion Matt Wearn will not be competing in the ILCA7 fleet, fellow Australian Sailing Team members Ethan McAullay and Zac Littlewood will spearhead the Australian challenge. McAullay brings strong recent form to Croatia, having placed 13th at the Trofeo Princesa Sofia and seventh at French Olympic Week.

McAullay is also targeting a breakthrough result as the season builds towards its major events. “I’m not too disappointed with how the season’s been panning out so far,” said McAullay. “But the goal is to try and podium sometime this season, so aiming to do it at a peak event like the Europeans this week or Worlds later this year.”

He is also bracing for anything conditions wise, “It’s really hard to know what to expect exactly. I think the forecast is for some seabreezes most days, but it’s a little bit undetermined of what race course we’re going to be racing on.

“We’ve got the standard seabreeze course offshore in Split and then we’ve also got the course right in front of the club here in Kaštela, so we’ll see where we race, and that will determine a lot of what we expect for the week.”

The Championship will feature 12 races across six days of competition, running from May 17-22.

Full list of entries can be found here.

Australian Sailing Team (AST), Australian Sailing Squad (AS Squad), Australian Sailing Futures (ASF), State Sailing Performance Program (SSPP) and other Australian (AUS) entries at the ILCA European Championship:

ILCA 6 (123 entries)

Elyse Ainsworth (AST)

Mara Stransky (AST)

Zoe Thomson (AST)

Evie Saunders (AS Squad)

Casey Imeneo (ASF)

Sylvie Stannage (AUS)

Frances Beebe (AUS)

ILCA 7 (179 entries)

Ethan McAullay (AST)

Zac Littlewood (AST)

Michael Compton (AS Squad)

Lawson McAullay (AS Squad)

Isaac Schotte (AS Squad)

Alexander Bijkerk (SSPP)

Patrick Scally (AUS)