SAILING: A local crew will defend its European title on home waters off Howth next week against a 45-fleet 1720 sportsboats, studded with British talent.
Last night Irish skipper Tom Murphy confirmed international match-racer Chris Law, who won the Swedish match cup last month, will steer the Irish 1720 After midnight.
But British Olympic gold medallist Ben Ainslie, initially down to sail the Dublin event, will sail instead at the Finn World championships in Cadiz in preparation for the Athens Olympics.
Des Faherty and the five-man Howth crew of Aquatack are counting down to next Wednesday's European championships but in the run-up to the event the 2002 champions have replaced helmsman Maurice O'Connell with Mel Collins, last year's mainsheet trimmer, for the defence of the keelboat crown.
O'Connell will be in Portugal as coach to Mark Mansfield and Killian Collins at the Star European championships.
The Fáilte Ireland-sponsored event will also star the London-based Australian, Glen Bourke, the chief executive of the Volvo Round the World race. The former Laser world champion will steer Yachts and Yachting, a sponsored UK entry.
British entries, over 30 boats, include other guest helmsmen sailmaker Kevin Sproul of Sobstad Sails, three-times Round the World sailor Tim Powell sails on Aidan Beggan's Hibernian and Mike Budd, a Melges 24 Champion. Back for a second attempt at the title is Mark Rushall, the former 1720 European Champion, who won in the largest ever fleet of the Irish built boat when it was held as part of Cork week 2000.
The 11-race one-discard series is preceded by a Royal Alfred Niobe weekend series at the same venue. Both events will run under the stewardship of race officer David Lovegrove.
More than one of last week's protagonists in the Dublin Bay cruiser challenge were suspended on cranes along the Dún Laoghaire waterfront this week attempting a variety of repairs following an incident-packed weekend cut short by sea fog.
But none as severe, perhaps as Xerxes (Peter Redden), now on the hard in the Royal Irish Yacht Club nursing a four-foot gash in her port side just aft of the shroud plate.
It was Dún Laoghaire crews that carrying the bulk of the silverware where both class zero and one national titles were decided as part of the 10th Cruiser Challenge.
After the abandonment of Sunday's racing it was the Dún Laoghaire Dubois 40 Azure (Bob and Bairbre Stewart) who retained her Cruisers zero IRC championship title.
Four contenders suffered disqualifications. Gloves off (Colm Barrington, Royal Irish YC) and Cracklin Rosie (Roy Dickson, Howth YC were disqualified from Friday evening's opener for being on course side (OCS). It was a case of sudden death for the veterans as they were required to count a disqualification as part of their points' tally, an advantage to the rest of the 15-boat fleet.
Similarly, John Killeen's Nimmo, a Dubois 36, the double class zero winner at Kinsale's Sovereign's Cup and Galway Bay week, also counted a disqualification after a protest in race three put paid to his bid.
There were further casualties in the big boat class when, in race two, favourite Voodoo Chile collided with Xerxes (Peter Redden). It forced Xerxes' immediate withdrawal from the regatta and led to the subsequent retiral of Voodoo Chile from Saturday morning's race.
By 3 p.m. on Sunday, with a fog cutting visibility to 200 metres, the final two races were abandoned leaving overnight leader Azure as winners by two points and national champions in class zero. National Yacht Club's Loose Change (Maurice Mitton) were runners-up and Peter Beamish's Aztec II third.
In class one, Dún Laoghaire's Frank Elmes sailing Marissa IX became IRC class one national champion beating the X-332 On-the-rox (Charlie and John Boyle) of Howth. Chris Power-Smith was third sailing Jostle.
In class two IRC handicap, the Byrnes took gold, silver and bronze. Mixed Feelings, sailed by Colin Byrne, beat the Elan 31 Rumdoodle (Declan Byrne) with Ian Byrne's Sunburn third.
The 15-boat one design Sigma 33 class was won by the class European champion Tim Goodbody. The overall DBSC cruiser challenge trophy was won by Azure.
Sandbanks, hefty tidal stream and a range of breezes between five and 20 knots combined to make Nieuwpoort, Belgium, a challenging venue for the Half Ton Cup where Dún Laoghaire's Shay Moran finished third. The winner was Philippe Pilate's local boat General Tapioca, followed closely by Didier Dardot's Sibelius (Joubert 1980) from La Rochelle.
