SAILING ROUND-UP:WITH STRONG performances recorded at last weekend's Red Funnel Easter regatta in Cowes, prospects remain good for Irish interest at the Rolex Commodore's Cup at the same venue. Ireland has been a pre-event favourite but has consistently ended in runner-up slot.
So far, one team has been confirmed, but from a country that has fielded three teams for the past decade, what are the chances of even a second this summer?
Last weekend Anthony O’Leary of the Royal Cork YC was second in Class Zero, but his Ker 39-footer Antix Dubh was the only confirmed Cup team member competing and is returning home to join Dave Dwyer’s marinerscove.ie for the first two races of the Kinsale April League this weekend.
The team’s third boat, the brand new Corby 36 Roxy 6 for Rob Davies of the RCYC, launches in Wales this week and, after 10 days of builders’ trials, will also join the action in Kinsale.
But last weekend also saw two other potential Irish Commodore’s Cup team boats in action. Conor Phelan’s Jump Juice won Class One at Cowes in an impressive return to racing for the Cork owner, while Tim Costelloe’s Tiamat placed fourth in Class Zero and just missed a podium result.
Phelan won’t personally campaign Jump Juice for the cup, but the boat is available for charter and would pair neatly with Tiamat and a small boat that has so far not materialised.
The lack of progress towards forming a second reveals the behind-the-scenes complexities that go into a Commodore’s Cup project.
Aside from money, finding three suitable boats with high-performance potential, matched with owners who can manage the logistics of crewing each, then applying a training programme in the build-up to the competition itself is vastly complex.
And that’s before other factors such as sail programme, shoreside support and crew facilities are factored into an event that remains primarily amateur in the profile of each team.
Though the temptation for the ICRA committee might be simply to field one team when the June entry deadline arrives, in June, a second team is almost a necessity.
"It would be great if there was a second team," O'Leary told The Irish Timesyesterday. "Picking up a small boat should be possible – there are boats here in that zone that are in Ireland and it's only a question of getting the right people on board."
The ICRA group has been trying to facilitate contact between owners for more than a year, according to commodore Barry Rose.
“Our role has probably been the most constructive its ever been,” he said. “Our problems at the moment (in forming a second team) are a combination of many different complicating factors.”
The association still holds out hope a second team will emerge.
branigan@indigo.ie
