SAILING SOVEREIGN'S CUP AND NEWS: DÚN LAOGHAIRE'S Tiamat led class zero after the third race in yesterday's second day of competition at the Sovereign's Cup.
Force-four winds, lumpy seas and a combination of windward-leeward and coastal courses led to a number of boats retiring in classes two and three as these fleets made a run from the Daunt rock to Sandycove off Kinsale.
The regatta – the first this year to operate a waiting list – has a fleet of 138 boats.
Tiamat, a Mills 43, sailed by Tim Costello, led another Mills design, Crazy Horse (Reilly/Chambers), after three races. Third was Blondie IV (Eamon Rohan).
Racing continues this morning.
The National Yacht Club’s Mick Liddy was the winning navigator on the Swan 45 Fever at last weekend’s Rolex Giraglia Cup in St Tropez. The win comes only two weeks after a similar role for Liddy on Mick Cotter’s Whisper and its line honours record run in the Dún Laoghaire to Dingle race.
Dingle race-winner Cathal Drohan and Paul Egan’s X-41 Legally Brunette continues winning ways, too, with victory last Saturday in the second race of the Lee Overlay offshore series from Dún Laoghaire to Rockabill. The Dún Laoghaire-Dingle overall race winner beat Liam Coyne’s Lula Belle. Third was Adelie (Peter Hall/Kevin Byrne).
Last weekend’s Lambay Race probably ranks among the best in recent memory from the perspective that competitors – 145 boats in 13 classes – enjoyed strong wind conditions for the duration of the Howth YC race. Although the forecast was for the wind to drop as the day went on, fresh north-westerlies up to 20 knots were experienced all day.
Outstanding performance of the day went to Emmet Dalton and Chris Howard, whose win in the Squibs in Klipbok was so impressive they were also awarded the Lambay Lady Trophy for the biggest winning margin of any class.
Several trophies left Howth for the year as visitors from Dún Laoghaire plundered prizes in class one, class three and the 31.7s.
There were no surprises in class zero, with Rosie heading Tiger on both handicap systems, and the favourites also came through in the Howth 17s (Peter Courtney’s Oona), SB3s (Ben Duncan’s Sharkbait) and Etchells (Dan O’Grady’s Crop Duster) who held off the challenge of the new Etchells European champion Jay Bourke from Dún Laoghaire.
Sailors in Wicklow took advantage of the long evenings to run the second edition of the Bray Sailing Club Midsummer Twilight Regatta from last Thursday to Saturday. With boats finishing the last race on Saturday just as the sun set, this regatta lived up to its name.
In Skerries, Andrew Pearce and Hugh Butler triumphed at the 28-boat Fireball Leinster Championships beating Derian Scott and Séamus Moore by one point with Phil Lawton and Francis Rowan in third. The news this week that the Irish class will host the world championships in Sligo in two years’ time will be a boost to the high-performance sailors.
