#sb20 – Jerry Dowling's Bad Kilcullen from the Royal Irish Yacht Club emerged the winner of a breezy 17–boat Leinster Championships off Dun Laoghaire at the weekend by a two point margin. Second was Cork based Corona Extra with Howth's Dinghy Supplies third. Full results for the Royal St. George Yacht Club hosted event are downloadable below. The event was sponsored by O'Connor Intellectual Property.

The fleet were delighted to welcome back SB20 stalwarts Peter Kennedy, Dave Cheyne and Stephen Kane on Ridgefence, Colin Galavan helming Bad Kilcullen (on Saturday), Rick Morris crewing on Ruby Blue and Marco Sorgassi and his new crew on Lupi d'Irlanda. The fleet were also delighted to welcome new young guns Tim O'Laoire, George Kenefic, Rob Bearla and Aoife English on SacreBleu. After some years of steady numbers, the fleet is once again showing promising signs of growth with several boats changing hands in the last few months and it was encouraging to see the returning stalwarts and new converts competing at the sharp end of the fleet.

17 boats took to the start line on Saturday in a fresh to strong westerly wind. With the gusts topping off at 28knts in a short chop, conditions were perfect to showcase SB20 racing at its very best and the fleet certainly didn't disappoint. OOD Barry O'Neill and his team had their work cut out for them with the westerly breeze shifting through 50 degrees throughout the course of the day but they did an exceptional job providing three excellent races on Saturday in such testing conditions.

Race 1 saw Davy Taylor, Marty O'Leary and Rachel Willamson on Yachtsman.ie take an early jump on the fleet closely pursued by Dinghy Supplies (Daragh Sheridan, Shane Murphy and John Phelan), Ruby Blue (Aidan O'Connell, Rick Morris and Johnny Horgan) and Sin Bin (Michael O'Connor, Owen Laverty and Kevin Johnson). With the wind shifting about and gusting so frequently, there were plenty of passing opportunities and in the end Sin Bin snuck into the lead to finish ahead of Dinghy Supplies with Ruby Blue in third and Corona Extra (Graeme Grant, Ronan Downing and Breffni Jones) recovering well to finish in fourth. Race 2 again saw the fleet tussling for position but by the second weather mark Ruby Blue had built up a commanding lead over the chasing pack of Sin Bin, Ridgefence, Yachtsman.ie and Bad Kilcullen (Colin Galanvan, Gerry Dowling and Jimmy Dowling). Tragedy struck Ruby Blue as they snagged the weather mark anchor line on their way to what surely would have been an unassailable lead down the final run. Second around Sin Bin were unable to take full advantage as they broached three quarters way down the run putting an end to their hopes of race victory. The crew of Yachtsman.ie showed sublime boat handling skills to keep the boat under the rig and took a well deserved victory from Dinghy Supplies in second, Corona Extra in third followed by Bad Kilcullen in fourth. Ridgefence were getting into the swing of things with a creditable fifth. In Race 3, Ruby Blue again got off to a flyer but this time there was to be no repeat of their error in Race 2 and they won convincingly from a chasing pack of Bad in second, Corona Extra in third, Dinghy Supplies in fourth and Ridgefence once more in fifth.

At the end of day one, Dinghy Supplies were leading on 8 points (2,2,4) from Corona Extra (4,3,3) and Yachtsman.ie (6, 1, 7) in third however a protest between Corona Extra and Yachtsman.ie saw Yachtsman disqualified from race 1 and relegated down the leaderboard. Venuesworld (Ger Dempsey, Chris Nolan and Rory Groves) were promoted to fifth in race 1. The exhausted but very happy crews convened to the bar of the Royal St. George for some well-earned apres sail pints followed by a magnificent meal in the club room of the George. There were plenty of tales of high speed escapades with many recording speeds in the high teens on the downwind sleigh-rides. SacreBleu reported a speed of 22.6 knts which was put down by everyone else to a malfunctioning speedo until we saw the photographic evidence and eye-witness reports from the committee boat of a blue blur passing them by very, very quickly!

Sunday dawned with a slightly, although not significantly, lighter breeze (F4 gusting F6 at times) and the competitors ventured out onto Dublin Bay once more in the expectation of more thrills and spills. Race 4 saw new boat to the fleet Bango (James Gorman, Philip Lawton and Keith Staunton) showing some impressive upwind speed to lead at mark one but they were unlucky to be swallowed up by the chasing pack who caught the gusts fractionally earlier on the downwind leg. By the end of race 4, Ruby Blue was back to the fore showing impressive speed and tactics to take their second race win of the series, giving them a (3,1,1) to count with the discard coming in. They were followed by Bad Kilcullen in second (now with regular helm Stefan Hyde in place of super sub Colin Galavan), Corona Extra in third continuing to put in a very consistent series, new boys (and girl) SacreBleu in fourth and Lia (Dave Barry, John Malone and Ger Bythell) in fifth. In Race 5, Ridgefence were fully into the swing of things and won from SacreBleu in a commendable second place followed by Corona Extra in their now customery third place, Bad Kilcullen in fourth and Yachtsman in fifth.

After five races, things were very close at the top with Bad and Corona Extra tied on 12 points followed by Ruby Blue on 14 points, Dinghy Supplies a further two points back on 16 points and Ridgefence on 17 points not entirely out of the reckoning. In Race 6, Sin Bin led at mark 1 and were being followed closely by Dinghy Supplies, Bad Kilcullen and Corona Extra. These boats tussled it out over the following legs with the three lead boats overlapped going into the final gate! In the end, Sin Bin took the race win, their second of the championship, from Bad in second and Dinghy Supplies in third. Corona Extra took fourth and Venuesworld.com showed a return to form with a fifth in the final race of the day. At the end of the series, Bad Kilcullen were worthy winners of the 2015 SB20 Leinster Championship with Corona Extra in second, Dinghy Supplies in third, Ruby Blue in fourth and Ridgefence in fifth. The silver fleet was won by SacreBleu who came in eighth overall. Interestingly, none of the top three boats managed a race win showing that in this fleet, mistakes are severly punished and there is a high standard throughout with anyone capable of winning a race. Prizes were awarded to the competitors by new RStGYC commodore Justin McKenna and the Royal St. George Yacht Club and race committee were highly praised by the competitors at the prizegiving for a thoroughly enjoyable event. Next up is the Southern Championships in RCYC in early June where another good turnout is expected.