National Yacht Club's Fitzpatrick Best of Irish at Hayling Island Moth Worlds

29th July 2014

#moth – Five Irish sailors – including three Olympians – got a lesson in the complexities of International Moth sailing at the Hayling Island class world championships last week. In an event won convincingly by Australian Nathan Outteridge, the National Yacht Club's Rory Fitzpatrick was one of two Irish skippers to make the 70–boat gold fleet. Fitzpatrick finished mid fleet in 36th with London 2012 49er helmsman Ryan Seaton of Belfast lough in 45th.

Annalise Murphy was next best finisher taking 17th in the 63–boat silver fleett but significantly it was a result that also gave the Dubliner the woman's Moth world championship title. Alistair Kissane was 18th and the John Chambers steered new Irish built prototype 27th.

The forecast for the final day of racing was for no wind, but it turned out to be a sparkling day with the best breeze of the week. Four races were held in glorious Summer racing conditions, with 10-14 knot winds, leading to very tactical racing.

Gold fleet racing started at 9.30am.

There were a few white-caps on the waves at the start of the final race - fantastic conditions.

The final leg became really unstable with all the leaders dropping off their foils at times. In the end Outteridge knocked in 15 gybes in a band of breeze to win the race by a country mile.

Nathan said about the final race, "It had got a bit soft in that very last race and I actually fell off the foils at the top mark. Josh Mcknight and Chris Rashley gybed in a really good puff, and I managed to gybe, get foiling again and did about 15 gybes down in this one little puff, turned around half-way to see how I was going and no-one was foiling so it was a pretty nice way to finish, to have a really big lead."

On Australia retaining the #MothAshes Josh Mcknight said, "Well I mean that's really all we come to these events for - the Moth Ashes. It's a great trophy to have as it puts emphasis on a bit of team spirit among Australia and England... A-Mac's got a knack for pulling something out of the bag, whether it be new kit or just a stellar result.

Top five, Gold Fleet:
1. Nathan Outteridge, AUS, 23 points
2. Chris Rashley, GBR, 33
3. Josh Mcknight, AUS, 34
4. Scott Babbage, AUS, 51
5. Ben Paton, GBR, 60

Full results here

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