Sailing Column: With the tail end of Hurricane Charley expected on top of this week's deluge of rain, afloat is clearly the place to be and indeed will be the place for many of Ireland's top classes. The rush of international championship titles reaches its climax this week.
At the Royal Cork YC, Nick and Sheena Craig from Frensham Pond Sailing Club are locked in a private duel for the Enterprise World Championship title with Jeff Dyer and Simon Cooke from Penarth YC at the head of an 80-boat fleet from six countries.
Ireland features three boats in the top 10, the potential contenders for the bronze medal when racing concludes this afternoon being Seán Craig and Michelle Rowley from the Royal St George YC, Roy and Neil Van Maanen from Greystones SC and Lough Derg brothers Stephen and John O'Driscoll.
Meanwhile at Howth YC, over 150 Optimist sailors have descended on the North Dublin club for the Musto Irish Championship, which has drawn entries from Britain, the Netherlands, Zimbabwe and the United States.
Irish sailor Conor O'Brien, representing Lough Derg and Howth, recently returned from the Optimist Worlds in Ecuador having finished 29th out of nearly 300 entries. This was the best Irish result in 12 years, since Nicky Smith finished 12th in 1992.
Other experienced Irish entries include Katie Tingle (RCYC), who was 113th at the Worlds, Maeve Leonard (RCYC), who was 52nd at the European Championships in Sweden last week, and Seán Collins (Skerries SC), who placed 112th in the boys' fleet, also in Sweden.
After two days of racing, the results at the halfway stage are dominated by Dutch sailors Gijs Pelt and Rolph Oudshoorn in first and second places respectively.
Tingle holds third overall after taking a fourth place yesterday while the full schedule was not sailed as the fleet of under-16s was exhausted from the constant downpour and fresh winds.
Turning to this weekend, two of Ireland's best-known keelboat classes decide their national titles as the season reaches its peak.
This follows the Ruffian 23-footers, who saw Ruffles, helmed by Michael Cutliffe from the Dún Laoghaire Motor YC, emerge overall winner last Sunday, winning four of the five races. Stuart Musgrave on Bandit from Baltimore SC took the runner-up place.
Naturally, both of this weekend's classes claim supremacy - only to be expected, of course. But there can be little doubt about the uniqueness of each.
The Irish class acknowledges that among overseas Dragon fleets Ireland has one of the strongest fleets in depth in the world. Therefore, the pressure will be on the former national champion Simon Brien, who will be crewed by multiple Olympic and world champion Poul-Richard Hoj-Jensen, to deliver by Sunday's conclusion to the four-day series at the Royal Irish YC.
Meanwhile, this year the J24 Irish National Championship Silver anniversary event for the world's largest, most numerous and most widespread international keelboat class will be staged at the Royal St George YC.
Some 16 visiting Js will be towed by road from various parts of Ireland to join 13 based in Dún Laoghaire.
Another two are due from Yorkshire and Hamble fleets in Britain.
