Irish 420 dinghy sailors will be celebrating Gerbil Owens' 21st birthday this week following his successful challenge as their class national title holder at the Eagle Star Champion of Champions event at Howth on Saturday.
Having barely ended his birthday party from the previous evening, the Athens 2004 hopeful went straight into action against the major class champions in the annual sail-off to find Ireland's best sailor.
Appropriately enough, Owens will be campaigning a 470 double-hander, the bigger sister to the 420 for the next Olympics. But this win will provide a welcome boost for the smaller boat that has undergone a renewal of interest in the last three years.
For the new champion, the win will be a launching pad for his own campaign, adding a valuable credibility bonus when it comes to the hunt for financial support. Defeating reigning champion and three-time Olympic veteran Mark Mansfield into third also helps his case.
But Owens' win was by no means comfortable, and came thanks to the single discard in the four-race final series. Although he held a six-point lead before the discard, a second place added to an earlier first for GP14 Irish Champion Ruan O'Tiarnaigh threatened the leader as the Sutton Dinghy Club helm came to within a point of the title.
A widely inconsistent set of results for Mansfield saw the defending champion discard a ninth, but he still counted a seventh place in spite of winning the penultimate race and scoring third in the final.
Other champions to feature in the final 12 selection from the 24-boat line-up included Seoul Olympian Cathy MacAleavey, the Multihull national champion who ended eighth. Both the Shannon One-design and Mermaid classes also secured places in the final.
Meanwhile, following his controversial selection by the Irish Sailing Association (ISA) last week, Sydney 2000 Paralympian John Twomey was one of two sailors in line for the best newcomer trophy, along with Noel Butler, the Laser II national champion. It is understood that an administrative error may have confused the outcome for this sought-after trophy.
There was a storm of protest last week when the ISA issued a wild-card nomination to Twomey, having previously refused to nominate the Irish Disabled Sailing champion. It has since emerged that the ISA briefed the nominated sailors that no further invitations would be issued, regardless of the take-up for the rescheduled event.
There was additional criticism of the national authority from within the Ruffian 23 fleet, which failed to secure an invitation to the champions series. Only classes that have a turnout of 20 boats or more at their national championships were eligible.
The Ruffian class is a wholly-Irish fleet and is split between Dublin Bay and the South Coast, with little opportunity or appetite for travel for a combined national championship. However, the class remains one of the largest one-design fleets in the country and the critics cite the closeness in size of the Ruffian to the Puppeteer, thereby offering their candidate a better than usual chance of performing well at the event.
