Two short inshore courses on The Solent saw Ireland take the overnight lead of the Brewin Dolphin Commodores' Cup at Cowes.
Team captain Anthony O’Leary on Antix, who earlier this year won the British national championships outright, took first place in both of yesterday’s windward-leeward courses despite light winds.
“It was a good first – on Christmas morning you’d take that as a start,” O’Leary remarked as ICRA team-members were advising caution against over-optimism in the long series ahead.
American Marc Glimcher with his Catapult on loan to the Irish squad delivered a seventh and a fourth in the 27-boat fleet.
Michael Boyd and Niall Dowlings’s chartered Quokka 8 was deep in the fleet on the start of race one and could only manage 23rd place.
However, a fifth place in race two belied the crew’s performance having led for much of the 100-minute race but the result was still enough to secure the overall lead for Ireland after day one.
The competition switches into a critical phase this morning when the fleet begins a long offshore course that is not expected to end before tomorrow afternoon.
Counting for 2.5 times points, this race had in previous events been staged at the end of the regatta and is renown for making or breaking individual team’s chances of outright victory.
