205 sailors have registered for the Irish National Optimist and Open Championship at Lough Derg Yacht Club, Dromineer, Co.Tipperary from Monday 15th to Friday 19th August 2016. One hundred and fifty five (155) will sail in the Main Fleet and fifty (50) in the Regatta Fleet.

The main fleet comprises sailors with enough experience to compete for the Junior and Senior Optimist Championships. Competitors aged under 12 on 1st January 2016 will compete for the Junior prizes and those aged over 12 but under 15 on 1st January 2016 will compete for Senior Prizes. Both of these categories will be further divided into Gold, Silver and Bronze fleets in accordance with sailors' results in the regional championships held earlier this season. The regatta fleet will combine coaching and racing for sailors from eight years and upwards who are relatively new to racing.

On Sunday 14th August 2016 at 17:00 the event will be opened by Dr. Phyll Bugler, elected representative for Nenagh on Tipperary County Council. A Pipe Band will lead a parade of sailors, their families and supporters, and event volunteers through the village of Dromineer to the Lough Derg Yacht Club (LDYC) club house. After a formal welcome from LDYC Commodore David Meredith and speeches by Cllr. Bugler and President of the Optimist Association of Ireland (IODAI) Aidan Staunton, hospitality will be provided for all.

It is hoped that competitors will sail ten races during the five-day event. Weather conditions will determine this outcome. However, the event organisers have scheduled two races for Monday 15th and Friday 19th August. Three races have been scheduled for Tuesday 16th and Thursday 18th August and Wednesday 17th is designated a lay day. In the event of unsuitable weather on the Monday or Tuesday, the Race Officer may decide to use Wednesday to catch up on missed races.

The main prizegiving will occur at the clubhouse on Friday 19th after the last race. Daily prizegiving will be held at the clubhouse at 09:00 from Tuesday 16th to Friday 19th inclusive.

Lough Derg Yacht Club is proud to host the National Optimist Championships again. Event organiser Niamh McCutcheon has rallied a volunteer crew of over one hundred and twenty persons to run the event both on the water and ashore. LDYC has honed its hospitality over many years of hosting national and regional championships for the Optimist, Mirror, Topper and Laser classes and we love to welcome new and returning sailors as they make progress in the sport, and their families who enjoy watching their young sailors become more skilled and autonomous.

This year we will welcome over forty sailors from England and Wales, sailing under the GBR burgee. Greece and Spain are each sending two sailors, as is Bermuda. One sailor is visiting us from Australia.

At present, there is representation from the following Irish sailing clubs:

Baltimore Sailing Club………..One sailor (1)
Crookhaven Sailing Club……..Two sailors (2)
Dingle Sailing Club……………….One sailor (1)
Foynes Yacht Club………………..Four sailors (4)
Galway Bay Sailing Club……….Two sailors (2)
Howth Yacht Club………………….Seventeen sailors (17)
Kinsale Yacht Club………………..Ten sailors (10)
Lough Derg Yacht Club………….Twelve sailors (12)
Lough Ree Yacht Club…………..Seven sailors (7)
Malahide Sailing Club…………..Two sailors (2)
Monkstown Bay Sailing Club..Four sailors (4)
National Yacht Club……………..Nineteen sailors (19)
Royal Cork Yacht Club………….Twenty-eight sailors (28)
Royal Irish Yacht Club…………..Five sailors (5)
Royal St.George Yacht Club…Thirty sailors (30)
Skerries Sailing Club…………….Four sailors (4)
Sutton Dinghy Club……………..One sailor (1)
Tralee Bay Sailing Club………..One sailor (1)

(The discrepancy in total numbers is due to the fact that some sailors are members of more than one yacht club or sailing club).

Racing at the Optimist European Championships in Crotone in Southern Italy was postponed this morning again after a long postponement yesterday after which one race was sailed in 25–knots and large seas. The event opened last Friday.

The conditions so far have not been to the liking of Ireland's very young team comprising mostly 12–year olds but all are having a fantastic time, according to team reports.

So far, four races have been sailed in both the girls and boys fleet.

The top Irish boy is Michael Crosbie in 68th out of 185 boys with Leah Rickard best of the Irish girls in 32nd from 120 following a fantastic second in race two.

After five races the fleets will be split into Gold, Silver and Bronze for Wednesday and the final day on Thursday.

The Irish Optimist Sailing team comprising of five Dublin sailors and two from Royal Cork Yacht Club pictured yesterday at Dublin Airport on their way to Crotone in Southern Italy for the Optimist European Championships.

The event starts on Friday and will run for a week. Up to 250 sailors from around the world are expected to participate.

Pictured from left to right are Mel McGinley team mum, Alana Coakley RstGYC, Fiona Ferguson NYC, Leah Rickard NYC, Moss Simmington RstGYC, David White Team Coach, Hugh Turvey NYC and HYC, Michael Crosbie RCYC, Harry Tuomey RCYC and (front row) Conor Gorman NYC.

Eleven teams of four sailors each took part in the IODAI–organised Optimist event on Friday 1st July at Malahide Yacht Club. Royal Cork Yacht Club and Monkstown Bay Sailing Club were well represented with five teams. The sailors completed 25 races in the group stages in very changeable but warm four knots to 30 knots, bright sunshine to heavy rain.

After two round robin flights, RCYC Pumas, Jaguars and Panthers teams were eliminated with MBSC Panthers being particularly unlucky, losing on count-back to a Royal St George team.

In the semi-final, RCYC Leopards were pitted against RCYC Cheetahs, ensuring one Cork team made it through to the final. The former won through and met the RStGYC counterparts who sailed well to even up the best of 5 series 1/1. In the third race, RCYC won narrowly in quite squally conditions but in the fourth race, with much less wind, Royal Cork proved quicker and comfortably won.

The Leopards, captained by Harry Twomey, with Diego and Alexandra Peletiero and Michael Crosbie, successfully defended the V-P trophy they won last year.

The Optimist Ulster Championships, hosted by Malahide Yacht Club, saw 120 young sailors compete on the Broadmeadow Water in mixed conditions over two days, with the honours in the Gold Fleets at both Senior and Junior levels going to Royal Cork YC entries.

The event, sponsored by the Grand Hotel, saw Harry Pritchard of RCYC sail consistently throughout to beat clubmate Harry Twomey by just 3 points in the Senior Gold fleet while two other Cork sailors, Michael Crosbie and Justin Lucas, headed up the Junior Gold fleet.

National Yacht’s Club’s Nathan van Steenberge and Jacque Murphy (RStGYC) won the Senior and Junior Silver fleets respectively.

The first day’s racing was notable for fresh westerly and south-westerly winds, with several heavy gusts which severely tested the sailors’ abilities. Conditions improved on the second day and PRO Neil Murphy was able to complete a full 6-race schedule.

After three races sailed, Royal St. George's Tom Higgins is best of a five boat Irish team at this week's 2016 Optimist World Championships in Vilamoura, Portugal. A massive fleet of 255–boats are competing.

Provisional results put Higgins (who is interviewed in the video below) in 52nd overall. 

The team representing Ireland is: Cathal O’Regan, Harry Bell, Micheal O’Suilleabhain and Rory O’Sullivan

Day 2 of the Optimist Connaught Championships at Foynes Yacht Club saw much better wind and the Main Fleet getting 3 Championship races successfully completed. The day’s racing kicked off at 11.05am with suitable conditions but a fairly light breeze of 6-10 knots. By race 2 the breeze had picked up with 10-15 knots of breeze filling in making for ideal conditions. A strong tide, occasional squalls, general recalls and a very competitive fleet made for very enjoyable and close racing. The Regatta fleet got another 5 races in today giving them a total 9 races for their division.

The second day of the Connacht Optimist event at Foynes Yacht Club started with light winds and heavy showers. The fleet launched at 0930 with the Main Fleet proceeded to the race area west of Foynes Island while the Regatta Fleet raced in the harbour just in front of the clubhouse.

The Main Fleet had yet to get a race in due to the lack of wind on day one but thankfully wind picked up to 12-15 knots westerly and OOD Geoff O’Donoghue got in three races to complete the series. Racing was very close with positions changing throughout each leg and different winners in each race across the fleets. In the Senior Main Fleet the consistency of Rory O’Sullivan from the

Royal Cork Yacht Club gave him first place overall in the Gold Fleet while Nathan G. Van Steenberge from the National Yacht Club took first in the Silver Fleet. In the Junior Main Fleet Michael Crosbie from the Royal Cork Yacht Club took first place overall in the Gold Fleet and Archie Daly from the Royal St. George led the Silver Fleet.

The Regatta Fleet under the auspices of OOD Raymond McGibney had a further four races to add to the five on Day One getting in the full race card. Again it was tight at the top and after discards applied one point separated winner Sam Ledoux from the National Yacht Club from Jessica Riordan from the Royal St. George. To the delight of the home club Killian Reidy took third place while Tadgh Shanahan had his first win at an Optimist event, both of whom only started Optimist sailing this year.

This was the largest dinghy event Foynes Yacht Club have held in a number of years spearheaded by James McCormack who took over as Commodore two years ago. It has been a huge undertaking and massive collective effort by the members who hope to build on this renewed enthusiasm for dinghy sailing on the lower Shannon.

A prize giving was held at the club at 4:30pm. Full results can be downloaded below. 

Following an onshore briefing at 11am, a fleet of 118 Optimists headed on to the water for Day 1 of the Optimist Connaught Championships 2016 at Foynes Yacht Club. Lack of wind and very poor visibility due to constant heavy drizzle caused a postponement as the race committee monitored conditions for a pick-up in the wind to counteract the 3 knots of tide on the course.

Prevailing light winds of between 1.5 – 3.5 knots which were no match for the strong ebbing tide led to a long postponement with hopes of getting at least one race in. At 4.20pm, having consulted the Coaches, Safety team and other on the water team members, the Race Committee made a final decision to abandon racing for the day. A more promising forecast for tomorrow should mean at least 3 races for the Main Fleet, first gun is scheduled for 10.25am.

The Regatta fleet of 26 boats managed to successfully complete 4 races as their racing zone was well in out of the tide. Full results can be found on the Iodai website: http://iodai.com/results-files/core16os.html. Here’s to a great day of racing tomorrow for the 2nd and final day of the 2016 Connaughts.

The Cois Sionna Credit Union Connachts are open for entries now. The event takes place in Foynes Yacht Club on June 11th and 12th.

Regular Entry Fee is €60 and the closing date is Friday 27th May. (Late Entry Fee: €120 & final closing date is Wednesday 1st June)

A combined fleet of 148 Optimist dinghies racing in Senior, Junior and Regatta fleets competed for Leinster Championships honours at the Royal St. George Yacht Club at the weekend. Senior honours in a 48–boat fleet went to 15–year–old Harry Bell of Howth Yacht Club who was four points clear of Micheal O'Suilleabhain of Kinsale Yacht Club. Third was Alfonso Moreno Perez of Royal Cork Yacht Club. Six races were sailed with one discard. In the junior fleet, 12–year–old Michael Crosbie of Royal Cork Yacht Club was the winner in the 43–boat fleet. Local sailor Jessica Riordan of the host club was the regatta winner in her 41–boat fleet.