Irish Optimist Sailor Wins Top Bermudan Trophy

7th October 2012

#optimist – It all came down to the last race for Royal Cork's Douglas Elmes at Bermuda's Renaissance Junior Gold Cup but the young Irish champion who had already won the Irish title in August in Kinsale survived a strong Argentinian challenge today to win the 39 boat event, the first time Ireland has competed in the prestigious Optimist 11 race event. Full results here.

Hamilton harbor set the stage for the final race of the Renaissance Re Junior Gold Cup today. Swiss sailor Damian Suri besting the fleet of 38 international and Bermuda sailors to win the 10th anniversary Renaissance Re trophy for his first place finish today.

Suri had a fantastic race in front of a huge spectator fleet. The race also featured sailors like American Audrey Giblin and Bermudian Chase Cooper very much in the hunt finishing in the top five today.

The Renaissance Re Junior Gold Cup, the overall top prize, went to Douglas Elmes of Ireland who won it after 11 races with 50 points. Second place finisher Tomas di Luciano of Argentina had 54 points.

As this was the 10th anniversary of the Renaissance Re Junior Gold Cup it seemed most fitting that a former junior Opti sailor who attended this event in 2003 won the Argo Group Gold Cup today. Taylor Canfield, who is from the US Virgin Islands and is in his early 20s, was brought here by Peter Holmberg when he was 14.

There is no doubt that the event stays in the minds of both the young sailors from overseas but it also raises the level of sailing for Bermuda's youth sailors who would not normally get to meet world's best. The support for youth sailing here has always been important to people like the late Dick Kempe and in his honor Chase Cooper was given the inaugural Dick Kempe award for being the top Bermuda sailor in this event. Cooper finished in seventh place overall.

The Renaissance Re Junior Gold Cup has had the kind of support that enables sailors to dream of their own futures as sailors and for event chairman Somers Cooper they could not have done it without sponsorship support like this.

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