The second event of the Irish University Sailing Associaton (IUSA) calendar saw 28 teams head to Schull for the IUSA Southerns on the 14th and 15th of November. The event was hosted by the Fastnet Marine Outdoor Education Centre , and the college entries were handled by DITSC. After a quick briefing on Saturday morning, 4 flights of boats were launched, although there was a swell slowing things down, the watchful eye of Dave Harte ensured the safe launch of the boats and a swift start to racing.
74 races were started and finished on Saturday, as light and wind began to fade at 4pm. The remaining 10 races were completed on Sunday morning before the knock out stages. These last few races turned out to be very important, as they decided the top seed in the Gold fleet. UCD1 beat UL1 in the last race of the round robin to clinch the top seeded spot for the Gold fleet quarter finals.
After a quick break from racing the flight sheet for the finals of all 3 fleets was produced, with a further 52 races scheduled for the day. The Gold fleet saw UCD1 take on UL2 in the first best of 3 quarter final. This was followed by the all Dublin match up of DIT1 and DCU1. Current Varsity champions UL1 took on Schull Community College, who after receiving an invite to the event, ended up topping the Gold “B” group after the first day. UCC1 and TCD1 made of the final pairing of the quarter finals.
DIT1 were up against TCD1 in the first semi final of the day and won in two races to make it to the final. UL1 and UCD1 battled it out in the other semi final, going down to an umpire decision on the line of the third and final race. UL1 were victorious in the end and were to compete against DIT1 in the best-of-five final.
The first race was comfortably won DIT1 in a steady 1, 2, combination. Race 2 was much more closely contested with DIT1 taking a 1, 4,5 combination on the last beat. As race 3 came to a close DIT1 were looking to be overall winner in 3 races with a 2, 3, 4 combination but Simon Rattigan was flagged as he crossed the finish line giving UL1 a race win and a chance to stay alive in the competition.
Race 4 saw a 1,3 ,6 combination in favour of DIT at the leeward mark. The race wasn’t decided until DIT converted their 1,3 to a 1, 2 allowing them to cross the line securing the IUSA Southerns 2009/2010 with a score line of 3-1.
DIT1 were Marty O’Leary/Tomás Duke, Simon Rattigan/Aoife English, Conor Byrne/Rachel Guy
UL1 were Daragh O’Connor/Katie Tingle, Kevin Stallard/Rachel O’Brien, Pa Hegarty/Peadar O’Sullivan
The event couldn’t have happened with out the use of the Schull Sailing centre and the logistics carried out by Dave Harte. His team of volunteers were Mark McCarthy and Kevin Murray who drove the changeover ribs, Dennis Quinlan on the committee boat and Shane McSweeney taking results on the finish boat. Dave and his team made the event run as smoothly as possible and the event has left a lot of sailors look forwards to the Team Racing Worlds to be held in Schull in 2011. IUSA were also very excited about being the first event in Schull since the announcement of Schull 2011
Keeping the sailors in check were the team of Umpires provided by ITRA. These were Gordon Davies, Richard Morris, Jim Devlin and Gavin Lynch.
