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It's never easy stepping back in to a boat and finding your competitive edge again. It's even harder if it happens to be an Olympic class. On coming ashore after another windy Star race at the Skandia Sail for Gold regatta yesterday, Dun Laoghaire's Max Treacy concedes he 'never really expected to win the Irish Star keelboat trials this time around'. So far the Royal St. George pair have struggled to break in to the top half of the fleet.

Treacy and Peter O'Leary squared up for the right to represent Ireland next July at the Olympic Regatta in Weymouth but after winning the first trial in Holland ten days ago O'Leary has extended his lead this week.

Treacy, who has clocked up 12 years experience in the class and some impressive international results, says exam pressure kept him off the water this year. Together with his crew Anthony Shanks, the pair are now looking forward to the Star European championships on Dublin Bay in September, the 100th anniversary year for the class and the first time the Olympic keelboat has ever raced in Ireland.

 

Published in Olympics 2012

William M Nixon has been writing about sailing in Ireland and internationally for many years, with his work appearing in leading sailing publications on both sides of the Atlantic. He has been a regular sailing columnist for four decades with national newspapers in Dublin, and has had several sailing books published in Ireland, the UK, and the US. An active sailor, he has owned a number of boats ranging from a Mirror dinghy to a Contessa 35 cruiser-racer, and has been directly involved in building and campaigning two offshore racers. His cruising experience ranges from Iceland to Spain as well as the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, and he has raced three times in both the Fastnet and Round Ireland Races, in addition to sailing on two round Ireland records. A member for ten years of the Council of the Irish Yachting Association (now the Irish Sailing Association), he has been writing for, and at times editing, Ireland's national sailing magazine since its earliest version more than forty years ago