SAILING: Last June's Round Ireland race performance by a group of dinghy sailors, who grabbed overall victory at the first attempt, was rewarded yesterday when their skipper, Eamon Crosbie, became the Cork Dry Gin Sailor Of The Year at a Boat Show ceremony at the RDS.
The awards ceremony, which recognised 12-monthly achievements in Irish sailing exploits, highlighted the plucky performance of the eight-man National Yacht Club crew. Crosbie's achievement in his 32-foot Voodoo Chile was saluted by a large gathering at the ceremony.
The boat was crewed by Crosbie's sons, David and Alan, dinghy sailors Stefan Hyde, Johnny Coat, Fergus Kelly and Ross Nolan and navigated by a former Cork Dry Gin sailor of the month Ian Moore of Carrickfergus.
While the current trend towards professionalism was reflected in the high-calibre line-up attending the Ballsbridge event, amateur sailors still featured prominently from the pick of Ireland's yachting elite and it was an amateur yachtsman - with an amateur crew - who scooped the top prize. Crosbie (52) and his crew competed the gruelling race in the smallest boat to finish the course - the renamed for the race Ker 32 Calyx Voice and Data from Dún Laoghaire. Fifty boats met conditions that varied from frustratingly calm to winds of more than 40 knots and it was expected to be a big boat's race.
In another highlight for offshore sailors, although ambitious plans to mount an Irish Admiral's Cup (AC) campaign - the first in over 10 years - have been in circulation since before Christmas, the official launch of Team Ireland will be made tonight at the Boat Show.
David Nixon's 40-man squad will be lining out on the main stage in Simmonscourt tonight safe in the knowledge that the three AC boats have been secured for next July's event. The ceremony is less about on the water tactics and more about PR opportunities as plans hang on a financial knife-edge as a sponsorship deadline to find 500,000 looms.
The three AC boats secured are the Mumm 30 yacht, to be skippered by Athens Olympic dinghy helmsman Tom Fitzpatrick, a Swan 45, owned by England's Charles Swingland but to be skippered by Nixon, and the large IRC rated Transpac 52, nearing completion in Lymington for Galway sailor Eamonn Conneelly. Nixon (26) continues to talk up the prospect of a title sponsor for the team and he maintains negotiations are continuing with some key contacts, but admits no one is yet signed up.
The team website www.irishacchallenge.com gives full details of the sponsorship packages available and how Nixon is going about recruiting a crew panel that includes professional sailors.
Also tonight the Dún Laoghaire regatta championship, as it is to be formally known - but has already been dubbed 'Dún Laoghaire Week' - will also be launched at the show. Dún Laoghaire's four yacht clubs are to replace individual club regatta dates this summer in favour of a combined regatta series.
The National Yacht Club, The Royal St George Yacht Club, the Royal Irish Yacht Club and the Dún Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club have given up their summer regatta dates - a traditional social highlight of the club year - and are contributing instead to the first year costs of staging what one official has described as Cork Week on the east coast from Thursday, July 7th to Sunday, July 10th, 2005.
If the trial regatta is successful, the plan is to stage the event in alternate years to the Crosshaven event that could ultimately attract as many as 1,000 boats for the harbour-based event that now has the added facility of a purpose built marina.
Given the working title of Dún Laoghaire regatta championship the proposers are working on the basis that, over time, the event could become an international fixture and an event of suitable stature for the east coast venue, which is itself the biggest boating centre in these islands outside of the Solent.
If the idea gets the go ahead, it marks the start of a return to Dún Laoghaire week, a week-long regatta that flourished as a post-war format before petering out in the late 1960s. The latest idea is being put forward to boost sailing in the capital and it's not the first time a Cork Week copy has been mooted for Dublin.
Preceding the Dún Laoghaire event, from June 22nd to 25th, the Sovereign's Cup at Kinsale Yacht Club has attracted two new builds as part of its fleet. Tom Brennan's miniature Corby 29 and Conneely's Transpac 52 have indicated they will compete in the event that doubles as the cruiser-racer national championships.
Also signed up are Colm Barrington's Ker 39 Flying Glove, Peter Beamish's Aztec 2, Anthony O'Leary's Corby 35 Antix and Eamonn Crosbie in Voodoo Chile.
