it was DIT that eked out a round robin victory in this year's IUSA Match Racing Nationals, and over the fold we have the full writeup of an event that saw Marty O'Leary and his crew take a major scalp in the 28-race series.
The Irish University Match Racing Championship was only decided after a last match win by DIT enabled them to win the round robin on a tie break. With no time to sail semi and finals they were declared this year's Champions.
The sun was blazing, but the winds were light for this event, sailed out of Howth Yacht Club. Derek Bothwell, PRO, and his team coped magnificently with the shifting and fitful breeze to sail the full 28 races.
The first stage of the Championship was a round robin, in which each team sails once against all the other teams. By the halfway stage three teams - DIT, TCD and UL - had come through, all on three wins. These three teams would all meet in the next three races. Racing was very close, as crews came to terms with the finer points of sailing keel-boats in light winds. By the start of the last flight of races, it was obvious that there would be no time to sail semi-finals and finals. Two teams were very close.
In the final flight Simon Rattigan, TCD, won thier last leaving them having lost only one race, against DIT. DIT needed to beat UCD to take the title. Aidan Mclaverty, UCD, lead by a short distance at the windward mark, but lost out to Marty O'Leary and his DIT team on the run. Marty gained an overlap on the inside at the leeward mark. A meagre advantage but enough. DIT stayed ahead. They also had only one race loss, but were declared the winner as they had beaten TCD when they sailed against each other.
The event was a huge success, and IUSA would like to thank Howth Yacht Club and especially Brian Turvey and Brida Dylan, who helped to pull the whole event together.
The Ladies team was supported by the ISA Women on the Water initiative and Match Racing Ireland supported the event, to help college sailors transfer their skills from team racing. Chief Umpire Mike O'Connor lead the umpire team, a mixture of experienced umpires and college sailors been initiated into the dark arts. The SailFleet J80s were used for the event.
Final results:
1st:DIT (Marty O'Leary, Richard Bruton, Simon Doran, Bryan Byrne) 6 wins
2nd:TCD (Simon Rattigan, Davie Carr, Jamie Carton, Alister Kissane) 6 wins
3rd: UL (Darragh O'Connor, Pa Hegarty, John Downey, Billy Clarke) 5 wins
4th: UCD (Aidan McLaverty) 4 wins
5th: UCC (Rob O' Leary) 3 wins
6th: DCU (Ronan Cull) 3 wins
7th: NUIG (Ben Scallon) 2 wins
8th: IUSA (Lynn Reilly) 0 wins
