#fireball – The table above sets out the various combinations of hulls, sails and fittings, together with crew weights of the top six boats in the recently concluded Fireball Worlds in Thailand writes Cormac Bradley. It is a table (also downloadable below as an excel file) that details very few surprises except maybe the use of Irwin sails by Heather MacFarlane & Chris Payne – my recall of the race reports is that they flew a set of Irwin Dacron sails for part of the week.

In terms of all up crew weight is it significant how little variation there is in the 6 combinations, with the exception of Heather MacFarlane & Chris Payne at the light end and Ben Schulz & Doug Sheppard at the other end of the scale. The average "all-up" weight of the crew is 146.83 kgs which means that 3 of the crews were "on the money" weight wise and the range across the top six was only 30kg. This may have course have been a deliberate ploy as the regatta wasn't expected to have consistently heavy winds, but it is an indication of how a range of weights can be successful in the top echelons of a Worlds fleet.

Hull choice is consistent but really this isn't a surprise, nor is the choice of masts. It is however interesting to note the number of combinations who are using North Sails.

Shoe manufacturer Dubarry saw a 44 per cent increase in overseas sales last year, The Irish Times reports.

The firm, which is a long-time supporter of sailing in Ireland, reported pretax profits of €1.95 million on revenue that topped the €20 million mark, an increase of more than €4 million on the previous year.

Though shoe sales are on the decline in Ireland, growth in export markets - and the success of Dubarry's new clothing range – has more than offset any domestic losses, said marketing director Michael Walsh.

Dubarry was recently title sponsor of the Fireball World Championships at Sligo Yacht Club last month.

The Irish Times has more on the story HERE.