O’Rourke won his class in a strong wind outing of the January 2006 Sydney-Hobart race in an innovative new boat with a canting keel that proved fast straight out of the box.
A dozen separate awards were presented at yesterday's who’s who gathering for Irish sailing at the RDS that included remarkable achievements on home and international waters.
Awards were made to hose short listed from sailors who had already earned monthly prizes in the national boating magazine Afloat.
O’Rourke and his Western Yacht club team from the Shannon estuary went on to produce further results as 2006 progressed picking up overall wins in August’s Round Britain and Ireland race and also victory in September’s Cowes to Cascais sprint.
A separate international award was made yesterday to Steve Mulkerrins and Tom Joyce for their adventure in a specially built 47 foot Galway hooker the Naomh Bairbre that sailed from Chicago in a transatlantic voyage to Connemara.
Also at the show Dun Laoghaire's plans to become the Cowes of the Irish sea got a shot in the arm this week with entries for July's regatta not only coming from the four coasts of Ireland but also from Lancashire the North Wales coastline but also an international line up from eight different countries.
The increase in entries from across the water were confirmed by event chairman Brian Craig who officially launches the four day event at the Allianz Boat show at the RDS tonight (Friday).
Craig has also been successful in attracting grand prix racers to the Bay with the early entry of the TP 52 Panthera Benny Kelly from England’s Royal Corinthian YC.
The Ecover Half Ton Classics Cup that races as part of Dun Laoghaire week has also been boosted by an 16 entries to date with five months to go.
Sailors from the Ribble, Mersey, the Menai Straits, Anglesey, Cardigan Bay and the Isle of Man have to travel three times the distance to the Solent as they do to Dublin bay and this, claims Craig, is one of the major selling points of the Irish event and the reason that entries from afar a field as Yorkshire’s Whitby YC to the Isle of Wight have already been taken.
Until now no other regatta – except May's Scottish series at Tarbert – could claim to have such a reach.
Already entries for the week that runs from July 12 to 15 are likely to top the 500 mark. Organisers admit this is only half the number that attend Cowes but the fact that there are 2,500 marina berth alone in North Wales gives an indication of the size of the ambitious plan.
Of course not all of the estimated Lancashire and the North Wales coastline boats are racing yachts but that does not appear to stop the interest in Dun Laoghaire. Already a motorboat cruise in company of 20 boats are bound for the Victorian port just to take in some of the festivities planned at the harbour's four waterfront yacht clubs.
