Ireland's Headcase crew, skippered by Cillian Dickson, led the J24 World championships after a hectic day one in big Winds and big Waves in Plymouth, UK.
The Irish crew, who are three-time J24 European Champions, scored 8, 1, 1 to be on the same ten points as Ignazio Bonanno's La Superba from Italy.
The Irish boat, one of nine competing, is crewed by Marcus Ryan of Mayo Sailing Club, Ryan Glynn Ryan of Ballyholme Yacht Club, Sam O'Byrne of Howth Yacht Club and Louis Mulloy of Mayo Sailing Club
Nearly 50 J/24s from 12 countries (Argentina, Australia, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden, USA and the UK) descended upon Plymouth, UK for their 5-day World Championship.
After champagne sailing conditions for the practice race south of Plymouth breakwater, day 1 of racing proper found a stark difference in weather, forcing the management team to postpone ashore in the hope of finding a moderating weather window.
The conditions were bleak with 4m waves, gusts in excess of 30 knots, rain, and to complicate the management team further, they had to contend with a number of shipping movements. The wind clocked further East and a weather window finally opened, with a start line set and located at the Western entrance to Plymouth Sound in the vicinity of Cawsand Bay and a windward leg South of the breakwater. There was still lots of wind, rain and big waves but Race Officer, Sean Semmens and his team did a great job of setting a course.
Starting one race on a black flag, the fleet sensibly took a conservative approach to the start to avoid a general recall. First round, the windward mark was Bow 40 from Argentina “Tata Patagonia” helmed by Ramir Clemente Diaz, closely followed by Michael Goldfarb’s “War Canoe” from the USA, which also has reigning J24 world champion Travis Odenback on board. The race went to form with the top 8 finishing boats all pre-event favourites, highlighted by the J24 class.
“War Canoe” and “Tata Patagonia” fought hard right across the track, but it was “War Canoe” who took the win after a tight downwind battle. Very close behind in 3rd place was local boat “Majic”, who are the UK National champions and helmed by James Torr, who held off the hard-charging Italian boat “La Superba” helmed by Ignazio Bonanno.
The race management team plans to run three races on day two to catch up on the schedule.
