The Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron’s own Mara Stransky has put up a stunning performance on the world sailing stage.  During this season’s Grand Slam World Cups, she has always been fighting in the top 10, but never quite cementing her place at the very top.

So at the 2025 European Championships, which are 2^nd only to the Worlds in terms of prestige, she had her final chance to claim her place in Australian Sailing Team top tire, lead the charge to the LA28 and bolster up her confidence. It being held in Marstand Sweden, boded well with her nickname Mar Stran.

Mara started the qualifying series solidly with top ten finishes, although a 42^nd in the final qualifying race meant she made good use of her first drop. It was blowing hard on the first day of finals, a condition people thought Mara had a weakness in being smaller. She started the 3 race day with a dreaded Black flag disqualification (bfd) for being fractionally over the start line early and looked to be very much on the back foot. Yet she fought back swinging and posted two 2^nd places in the gold fleet. Even so, the bfd still saw her in 8^th overall going into the final day.

Things didn’t start well with Mara scoring a 19^th in the 47-boat gold fleet, dropping her back to 10^th. Then, with the pressure mounting, she was able to pull off a bullet, a race win in the penultimate race! So competitive is the racing amongst these best female sailors in the world that even the highest ranked can end up at the back of the fleet. Mara posted a 13^th in the final race, but because she was now able to discard her other bad race score, the bfd, she shot up into the silver medal podium position.

So while this may not be pure gold, it remains the best ever performance by an Australian female sailor at the Europeans!

By Andrew Stransky