1720 Success For Ireland at Italy's Centomiglia race

11th September 2015

The 1720 WOW team (minus photographer Kate) on Lake Garda

Italy's Centomiglia race was held over last weekend and the green sail numbers IRL 1759 of Conor Clarke's 1720 "WOW" were leading the fleet in this iconic race on beautiful Lake Garda.

Conor has kept the boat in Garda since the 2005 Europeans. She derived her name from her original owner, Afloat July Sailor Of The Month George Sisk, who Conor bought her from in the late 90's.

The 45–nautical mile course started at 8.30am with a somewhat chaotic gate start off the town of Blogliaco on the western shore of the lake. The race consisted of a two and a half hour upwind leg, a three hours downwind sleigh ride "blast" and then a 2hr 40m final upwind.

Running repairs – David Hughes up the rig of the Irish 1720 in Malcesine harbour

"WOW" won her class and was second overall to the Open 7.50 "Cool Runnings" (GBR) helmed by the "speed doctor" Jochem Visser.

Onboard "WOW" for the day were Michael Browne (bow), Kate Sheahan (pit), Conor Clarke (skipper, kite and jib trim), David Hughes (mainsheet and tactics) and North Sails Ireland's Maurice 'Prof' O'Connell (helm).

Published in 1720

Tagged under

About The Author

Afloat.ie Team

Email The Author

Afloat.ie is Ireland's dedicated marine journalism team.

Have you got a story for our reporters? Email us here.

We've got a favour to ask

More people are reading Afloat.ie than ever thanks to the power of the internet but we're in stormy seas because advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news sites, we haven’t put up a paywall because we want to keep our marine journalism open.

Afloat.ie is Ireland's only full–time marine journalism team and it takes time, money and hard work to produce our content.

So you can see why we need to ask for your help.

If everyone chipped in, we can enhance our coverage and our future would be more secure. You can help us through a small donation. Thank you.