#1720 – Anthony O'Leary celebrated his 1720 National title win on his home waters of Cork Harbour at the weekend, beating his two sons Nicholas and Peter for the overall prize in the 12–boat fleet. The racing took place from Cork Harbour Marina at Monkstown Bay.
In what turned out to be an O'Leary fmaily battle for the sportsboat title, the points going into last day were: Anthony O'Leary (AOL) 10, Nicholas O'Leary (NOL) 11 and Peter O'Leary (POL) 11 with Mark Mansfield (MM) two further adfrift on 13 points.
Mansfield took a race win on the first race on Saturday morning in quite shifty eight to ten kont winds off the land, giving points as follows MM 1, AOL 2, NOL 3 and POL 4 in the penultimate race. So the final race had so many possibilities that it was there to be won by any one of the top four albeit, Anthony had a slight advantage.
With a stiffer breeze of 10 -12 knots, Anthony led all the way to get his only race win of the event - to add to six second places - and take the 1720 Irish title.
More photos from Bob Bateman here.
1720 National Championships:
1. ANTIX Anthony O'Leary 13
2. T Bone Nicholas O Leary/Tom Durcan and Clive O'Shea 17
3. Spiced Beef Peter O'Leary 17
4. Denis Murphy/Mark Mansfield 18
5. John Crotty and Peter O'Flynn. 35
6. Crash Test Dummies Paul Gibbons and Finbarr Jeffers 45
7. Dark Side Brian hassett 45
8. Ynot Chris Hahnel 60
9. Cosmic Dave Townend 61
10. Salve Marine Racing Weitse buwalda 64
11 Scholar CIT / R Harrington 66
12 Sovereign Sailing James Lyons 72.
