Royal Irish's J109 Joker II Takes Sovereign's Cup Class One IRC Title

24th June 2023

John Maybury and his Joker II crew from the Royal Irish Yacht Club were the 2023 Sovereign's Cup Class One IRC winners Credit: Bob Bateman

A first and a second scored in today's final races has given National J109 Champion John Maybury of the Royal Irish Yacht Club the overall Class One IRC title at the 2023 Simply Blue Sovereign's Cup off Kinsale.

Maybury's Joker II crew ended the six-race series with all their results in the top five, and with three race wins to boot, the RIYC crew were two points clear at the top.

Camelot in Kinsale is how Afloat's WM Nixon described the scene on the first two days of the regatta, but the 2023 Cup concluded with 100% cloud cover and drizzle on Saturday afternoon.

Five times J109 National Champion (and top ICRA yacht at Cork Week 2022), John Maybury and his Joker II crew won the Sovereign's Cup Class One IRC division Photo: Bob Bateman

Defending Sovereign's Cup Champion, Mike Evans's J99 Snapshot finished as runner-up by virtue of a final race win to be on 10 points overall.

The Howth J99 broke up a J109 stranglehold in IRC One, with five of the top six boats being 109s.

Maybury's clubmates, Richard and Timothy Goodbody, on' White Mischief', took a well-earned third overall with no race wins but six top-four results to finish on 15 points.

Mike Evans's J99 Snapshot from Howth has moved up to second place in IRC One of the 2023 Simply Blue Sovereign's Cup off Kinsale Photo: Bob Bateman Mike and Ritchie Evans's J99 Snapshot from Howth (above and prizegiving below) finished in second place in IRC One of the 2023 Simply Blue Sovereign's Cup off Kinsale Photo: Bob Bateman

Mike and Ritchie Evans's J99 Snapshot from Howth (above and prizegiving below) finished in second place in IRC One of the 2023 Simply Blue Sovereign's Cup off Kinsale

The 15th edition of the biennial regatta attracted 90 entries across all divisions and ran from 21st to 24th June and incorporated the 1720 European sportsboat Championships.

Results below

Read all Afloat's 2023 Sovereign's Cup Regatta coverage in one handy link here

Race Results

You may need to scroll vertically and horizontally within the box to view the full results

Published in Sovereign's Cup, J109

Published in Sovereign's Cup

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.