With a building breeze promising livelier conditions later in the day, you might have expected the slipper, smaller craft to set the pace in the opening salvo of Class 0's delayed series of the Monday.com ICRA National Championships at Howth Yacht Club. But it was the comfortably proportioned First 50 Checkmate (Dave Cullen & Nigel Biggs) of the host club which put down the bullet marker in the initial race of four completed, though times were close - sometimes very close.

The J122 Jelly Baby beats the J111 Ghost Raider to the line in the first race of the ICRA Nationals Championships at Howth Yacht Club Photo: Afloat

 John Treanor's J112E ValenTina from the National Yacht Club is lying second overall at the ICRA Nationals Championships at Howth Yacht Club Photo: Afloat

However, Brian Jones and family from the Royal Cork in Crosshaven with the J/122 Jelly Baby were clearly in the process of familiarising themselves with the mysterious waters of the Fingal coast, and after taking third in Race 1, they were never off the top three, carding a total of 3, 1,3,1 to total 8 points and have it overall by close of play to the 12 points from 2,5,1,4 of John Treanor's newer J Boat ValenTina (National YC).

The First 50 Checkmate (Dave Cullen & Nigel Biggs) was the first race winner in Class Zero of the ICRA Nationals Championships at Howth Yacht Club and lies third overall Photo: Afloat

Checkmate XX stayed in the hunt to finish the day on third OA with her opening win followed by 7,5,2, taking it on countback after tieing on 15 points with Pete Smyth's Sunfast 3600 Searcher (NYC & RIYC) which scored 5,2,2,6. As for Jelly Baby, she'd quite the day of it, as she won overall on ECHO too.