After a week of strong winds and demanding races Ireland can be in the medals at the Melges 24 World Championships in Corpus Christi, Texas today. Here, Spi trimmer on the sole Irish entry, Maurice O'Connell, give an insight into one of the longest, toughest sailing events events he has ever done.
Another great start for Ireland
"We have just finished races 9 & 10 and there are more tomorrow which will concludes this mammoth 2011 Melges 24 worlds.
It's going to go right down to the wire for places 2,3,4,5 & 6 overall. Here is the points status after 10 races...............
1. ITA817 - Uka Uka Racing - Lorenzo Bressani - (6),2,1,2,1,1,1,1,1,5 - 15
2. USA749 - Full Throttle - Brian Porter - (16),9,2,1,7,4,6,4,4,4 - 41
3. BER655 - hedgehog - Alec Cutler 9,8,3,7,4,5,4,2,(11),1 - 43
4. IRL607 - Embarr - Conor Clarke - 2,5,5,11,9,2,8,3,5,(26) - 50
5. USA812 - Brick House 812 - Kristen Lane - 8,1,10,3,3,7,5,7,(14),7 - 51
6. SUI596 - Blu Moon - Flavio Favini - 3,6,8,5,5,3,10,(11),8,3 - 51
Our day today was once again one of missed opportunities. On the positive side, we climbed from 5th to 4th overall after a steady 5th in Race 9, but we had been as high as 2nd in that race at one point.
On the minus side, in Race 10, we again won the start line pin but at a price. We were possibly a little close to the pin boat, and that combined some spectator boat wash, slammed our bow to leeward and we hooked the anchor line of the pin boat. There is only 20 feet depth of water here and the boat had 150 feet of anchor line out. This led to a messy entanglement which by the time we had unhooked ourselves, done our 360 degree turn, we were a long long way behind.
The resulting 26th place is our discard (for now!) but some of our competitors had really good results in that race.
So, two more breezy races tomorrow - we can get into the medals but we will require a spectacular day and will need a little good fortune - wish us luck folks.
To view all our coverage of Ireland at the Melges 24 Worlds Click here.
