Sailing Column: The Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club celebrate a world championship homecoming tonight for Mirror dinghy duo Ross Kearney (19) and Adam McCullough (11), who lifted the world title at Östersund, Sweden, last weekend.
It is Ireland's fourth successive win of the regatta, which is open to all but predominantly contested by youth crews.
Royal North crews have taken the last two titles and yesterday the new champion helmsman declared that the Swedish fixture was his last race in the Mirror fleet.
The Belfast youths follow in the wake of clubmates Chris Clayton and Craig Martin, who won the championship in Australia in 2003.
Ireland also won the biennial fixture in South Africa in 1999 and when it was hosted in Howth in 2001.
The 19-year-old helmsman is leaving for Australia with a world title under his belt, and the prospect of a job in the marine industry Down Under beckons.
After a one-year stint in Sydney he moves to campaign the RS200 dinghy and building the Royal North club fleet, a dinghy he reckons has a great future in Ireland.
The Irish title holders went to Östersund, a lake venue, having sailed only on fresh water at Lough Derg, but the fresh conditions they found there were very much like the choppy waters of Belfast Lough.
It was only a short way into the 10-race series before Kearney and McCullough emerged as contenders.
The pair, who put their success down to a gruelling winter training regime, counted five race wins and ended the event, against a fleet of 102 boats, on 24 points ahead of the Skerries duo Simon McGrotty and Melissa Daly, who posted 36 points.
Staying with Mirror dinghy news, Paddy Blaney, the man credited with building such a strong international Irish Mirror team, is retiring as chairman of the Irish class but has taken over as chairman of the world class.
In other youth sailing, at Blessington lakes, Welsh siblings Eifion (junior) and Bleddyn (under-15) Mon from Red Wharf bay in Anglesey lead the Anglo-Irish Topper European championships after eight races.
Ireland's Barry McCartin (youth) is best of the Irish in fifth place and Carrickfergus sailor Chris Penney (under-15) lies 13th.
The fresh-water championship finishes tomorrow.
Windward-leeward courses will be laid this morning by the National Yacht Club in the first of 10 races this weekend to decide the J24 Irish championships on Dublin Bay, home waters for the defending title-holders, Andrew Algeo and Ben Cooke, sailing Scandal from Dún Laoghaire's Royal St George YC.
The championships is the final domestic series before five J crews travel to next month's J/24 world championships in Weymouth, on the south coast of England.
FIXTURES
Today: Anglo Irish Topper European Champs, Blessington; SC Optimist Nationals, Royal North of Ireland YC; IDRA 14 Nationals, Galway Bay SC.
Saturday: Anglo Irish topper Europeans, Blessington; SC Optimist Nationals, Royal North of Ireland YC; IDRA 14 Nationals Champs, Galway Bay; SC Etchells National Champs, Howth YC; Cruiser 3 East Coast Champs, Dublin Bay; Windsurfing, freestyle, Rusheen Bay, Galway; Royal Cork Yacht Club, at home; ISORA ace, Holyhead to Abersoch.
Sunday: IDRA 14 Nationals Champs, Galway Bay; SC Etchells National Champs, Howth YC; Windsurfing, freestyle, Rusheen Bay, Galway; Cruiser 3 East Coast Champs, Dublin Bay; Sutton Dinghy regatta, Dublin Bay; Royal Cork Yacht Club, at home; ISORA race, Holyhead to Abersoch.
