SAILING: In A long-awaited and hard-earned victory, Bob and Bairbre Stewart's Dubois 40-footer Azure won the annual Bank of Scotland (Ireland) Cruiser Challenge on Dublin Bay yesterday. The class zero fleet included arch-rivals Gloves Off as the pace boat to beat in the Irish Sea region.
The Stewarts' win is their third in this event that also included success in 1995 and 1996 on their previous boats, Paddington and Little Bear. This elusive win comes in Azure's second season and has been greeted with acclaim. Earlier in the season, the Stewarts won both the Bell Lawrie Scottish Series and the BMW Championship. However, although beating all other contenders, Colm Barrington's Corby 38 was out of action due to a dis-masting on the first day of racing on the Clyde.
"At long last!", commented Bairbre Stewart amid the celebrations at the National YC last night. "Our crew work was great and we made more of the right calls more of the time. Boat for boat we were getting away from them (Gloves Off), especially today during the long beats."
Azure was best scoring boat overall, won her class and also took the team prize along with Errislannan (Paul Kirwan), Blue Berret Pi (Terry Madigan) and War Dance (Neil Love).
IMX38-footers Exclaimation (Maurice Mitton) and Kind of Magic (Tony Fox and Vincent Farrell) were to the fore. Roy Dickson's Cracklin's Rosie sailed short-handed on Saturday as key crew-members were attending the naming ceremony of their new Lifeboat in Howth. The big-red boat was back on the pace yesterday, however, but was unable to feature on the podium.
The event was successful for Paul O'Higgins's new Beneteau 36.7 Rockabill who won Class One on IRC handicap. In the Sigma 33 one-designs, former J24 ace helm Tim Goodbody won convincingly in spite of a daring port tack start from Love in yesterday's second race.
