Straight wins for Anthony O’Leary’s Antix from the Royal Cork Yacht Club in yesterday’s opening day of the ICRA National Championships at Tralee Bay Sailing Club laid down a clear signal of a masterclass to come in Class Zero.
However, in a sign of recessionary times, just five boats are competing in this division and nearest contender Jump Juice had a man- overboard incident in the opening race and despite a second place in the afternoon, lies fourth overall behind Martin Breen’s Lynx Clipper in third, with ICRA Commodore Nobby Reilly on Crazy Horse in second.
Class One, however, offers a real prospect of a battle royale, at least amongst the top half-dozen boats in this 15-strong fleet.
No-discard series
Pat Kelly's J109 Storm from Rush leads after a second and first place from Paul O'Higgins Rockabill V by a single point.
But this no-discard series is still at an early stage and all the leading boats are closely spaced on the water before the IRC handicaps are applied.
The smaller boat classes are sailing on different courses to the bigger boats though confusion amongst some boats led to a split in yesterday’s afternoon race for the Class Two boats.
While the leader rounded the first mark and headed off to the assumed position of the next buoy, the following boats loyally lined up astern of the leader who had mistaken the buoys of the bigger boats as their next mark.
Just Nigel Biggs on Checkmate from the Royal St George YC and David Cullen on King One spotted the error and hoisted their spinnakers to sail off on a private match-race to the correct mark and the pair now top the division respectively.
Similar story
While Biggs enjoyed a pair of race wins yesterday, it was a similar story for Barry Cunningham's Quarter-Tonner Quest from the Royal Irish YC in the smallest boat class three who had back-to-back wins, though only by seconds, to lead his division overall.
Today’s racing looks set to be dominated by the weather forecast that appears to give fresh to strong southerly winds which will be challenging for race committee and competitors alike, depending on just how much wind strength actually arrives.
The series to determine the national champions in all four classes concludes tomorrow afternoon at Fenit.
