Gaya Datiashvili closed the ILCA 6 Youth European Championships in Thessaloniki on Saturday as the seventh-ranked European in an 89-boat girls' fleet, extending a run of top-ten continental finishes that has made the Hapoel Zvulun Acre sailor the most consistent presence in Israel's youth dinghy programme.
The official results place her eighth across the line overall. New Zealand's Chloe Turner, third, raced for the accompanying Open European Trophy rather than the championship itself, which left Datiashvili seventh in the European championship classification.
Her twelve-race series at the Nautical Club of Kalamaria was a study in recovery. She won the opening race outright, then slumped to 35th in the second and was disqualified under the U flag for a premature start in race four — a score she was able to discard.
From there she steadied through qualifying to make the gold fleet, then produced her best sailing of the week at the start of the final series with a third and a race win.
Two heavy scores of 35 and 21 followed before she closed with a tenth and a sixth, ending on 131 net points. In a format with no medal race, that consistency over a dozen starts is what the class rewards.
The championship, sailed from 10 to 18 July in light and moderate winds on the Thermaic Gulf, drew 314 sailors — 89 girls and 225 boys. The girls' title went to the home fleet through Greece's Hermionie Ghicas on 58 net points.
Datiashvili arrived as a genuine contender, having finished fourth at last year's European championship and fourth at the 2025 ILCA 6 Youth Worlds in Los Angeles. Her coaches' assessment after racing was candid: she competed at the front for most of the week, but the mid-series inconsistency and the start disqualification cost her a shot at a first international medal.
The boys' team delivered Israel's other headline result. Yahav Geva, also of Hapoel Zvulun Acre, finished 14th overall in the 225-boat male fleet — the best Israeli placing among the boys — winning two qualifying races and signing off with a second place in the final race of the regatta.
Gal Einav of Hapoel Tel Aviv followed in 18th. Both marks represent a clear step up from Israel's leading boys' finishes of 35th and 40th at the previous edition, in a fleet won by Lithuania's Erik Scheidt.
Rebecca Mantel, the second Israeli girl, took fourth place in the silver fleet, closing her week with a race win in the last start. The delegation of twelve — ten boys and two girls — returns directly to training, with the class youth world championship scheduled for mid-August.
For the Israel Sailing Association, Thessaloniki reinforces the ILCA 6 as the productive middle of its youth pathway. A sailor who has now gone fourth, fourth and seventh at major youth championships in successive seasons is knocking persistently on the door of a podium.
