Displaying items by tag: Haf tonner

4th September 2021

King One Closes on Checkmate XVIII in Battle of the Half Tonners in ICRA Division Two

At the helm of David Kelly's King One, Jonny Swan has ruined the perfect scoresheet of Nigel Biggs and his Checkmate XVIII team after an intense second day of competition at the ICRA National Championships on Dublin Bay.

Checkmate continues to lead overall after five races sailed, but King One is now just three points off the top of the leaderboard with the final two races of the Championships left to sail tomorrow (Sunday).

Biggs added another win to his two opening day victories on Friday and looked invincible at lunchtime, but this afternoon, in races four and five, as the breeze went right to 145 degrees and strengthened, the King One crew took advantage and earned their first race win in the last race of the day.

With it all still to play for, a third Howth Half Tonner Mata (Darren Wright) is on 10 points in third place in the 17-boat IRC Two fleet, where HYC entries occupy the top seven places overall.

Howth Yacht Club's leading Half-Ton Trio

The Checkmate XVIII crew going like a train in the heavier conditions of day two: Dave Cullen, Nigel Biggs, Daragh Sheridan, Suzie Murphy, Andy Sargent, Mark Kenny and Niki Potterton

Jonny Swan steering and Ryan Glynn on mainsheet in the Half Tonner King One

Darren Wright's Half Tonner Mata, whose crew includes Athens Olympic sailor Killian Collins of Royal Cork

Results are here. Racing concludes on Sunday.

Published in ICRA

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About the 29er Skiff Dinghy

The 29er is a one-design double-handed, single trapeze skiff for youth sailors.

There is an active class in Ireland, just one of the 38-countries from across all continents now racing the high-performance skiff.

The 29er is one of the latest dinghy classes to arrive in Ireland and has a 50/50 split between boys and girls.

The class like to describe the boat as "The most popular skiff for sailors who want to go fast!".

Derived from the Olympic class 49er class and designed by Julian Bethwaite the 29er was first produced in 1998.

Two sailors sail the 29er, one on trapeze.

The 6.25-metre high rig features a fractional asymmetrical spinnaker; a self-tacking jib decreases the workload of the crew, making manoeuvres more efficient and freeing the crew to take the mainsheet upwind and on two-sail reaches.

The 15.00 m2 spinnaker rigging set-up challenges crews to be fit and coordinated, and manoeuvres in the boat require athleticism due to its lack of inherent stability and the high speed with which the fully battened mainsail and jib power up.

The 74kg weight hull is constructed of fibreglass-reinforced polyester in a foam sandwich layout.

The fully battened mainsail and jib are made from a transparent Mylar laminate with orange or red Dacron trimming, while the spinnaker is manufactured from ripstop Nylon.

The mast is in three parts - an aluminium bottom and middle section, with a polyester-fibreglass composite tip to increase mast bend and decrease both overall weights, and the capsizing moment a heavy mast tip can generate. Foils are aluminium or fibreglass.

About the ILCA/Laser Dinghy

The ILCA, formerly known as the Laser, is the most produced boat in the world, with 220,000 units built since 1971.

It's easy to see why the single-handed dinghy has won the title of the most widely distributed boat of all time.

The Laser is a one-design dinghy, the hulls being identical but three rigs that can be used according to the size and weight of the sailor.

The class is international, with sailors from 120 countries. The boat has also been an Olympic class since 1996, being both the men's and women's singlehanded dinghy.

Three rigs are recognised by the International Laser Class Association (ILCA):

ILCA 4: sail of 4.70m2

ILCA 6: sail of 5.76 m2

ILCA 7: sail of 7.06 m2