SAILING NEWS ROUND-UP: ANY DOUBTS about the potency of an Olympic sailing squad in three years' time were extinguished this week when Annalise Murphy was crowned Laser Radial (under-21) World champion in Japan, while in Sweden the London squad has also been boosted by solid performances from both Irish boats at the Star World Championships which conclude today.
Murphy (19) produced Ireland’s first top-10 result at an Olympic Class World Championships in six years, and in her first year in senior competition.
The eighth-place result at the 87-boat women’s Laser Radial World Championships in Japan was secured in a fleet that included US Olympic gold medallist Anna Tunnicliffe and Chinese bronze medallist Lijia Xu. The championship was won by Finland’s Sari Multala, who had five race wins in her scores, allowing her to sit out the final race.
The National Yacht Club sailor improved throughout the 12-race series, where individual scores included a second placing, moving the UCD mathematics student from 15th to 10th in the penultimate day’s sailing in Karatsu.
Meanwhile, after the discard came into play after race five yesterday, there was very little to separate the two Irish crews in Varberg, Sweden, at the Star Class World Championships. With one race left to sail today, Max Treacy and Anthony Shanks are in 17th overall, five places ahead of the Eastern European champions Peter O’Leary and Tim Goodbody, who crashed out of the top 10 after three races when they counted a 53rd in race four.
At least one of the Irish entries has backed out of Sunday’s Fastnet Race but hopes remain high that one of the other six in a fleet of 300 can match Ger O’Rourke’s overall win achieved in 2007. The race starts off Cowes on the Isle of Wight in England, rounds the Fastnet Rock off the southwest coast of Ireland, and then finishes at Plymouth.
This year’s race marks the 30th anniversary of one of sailing’s biggest catastrophes when storms during the 1979 race wreaked havoc on over 306 yachts taking part, resulting in 15 fatalities.
Irish entries include Blackjack (Darren Nicholson) Pocock 38, Caper (Fergus Ryan) Seafarer 48, Galileo (Anthony M Tennyson), First 47.7, Whisper (Mark Dicker) Southern Wind 78, Legally Brunette (Cathal Drohan) X-41, and Cavatina (Ian Hickey) Granada 38, second in class in the 2005 race.
Royal Cork’s Cian McCarthy will not start in this weekend’s Fastnet race as planned because his new Class-40 yacht, Cinnamon Girl, has yet to hit the water. The solo sailor is focused instead on October 18th, the date for the Route de Chocolat, a transatlantic race from France to Mexico.
An improvement in the weather since the Bank Holiday weekend has helped the remaining Calves Week competitors stranded along the south coast ports to reach Schull for the remainder of the regatta. Scheduled for today is the SchullFastnet–RockCrookhaven race.
The oldest one-design racing keelboat class in the world hosts its championship today at Howth YC. The Howth Seventeens will compete in one race this evening from the East Pier followed by four windward/leeward races tomorrow. Last year’s winning boat, the 100-year-old Oona, is showing the best form this season, and owner Peter Courtney will attempt an unprecedented four in a row.
