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Fowler & Team Lazarus take Weir & Sons Match Race Open

14th June 2010
Fowler & Team Lazarus take Weir & Sons Match Race Open
Andrew Fowler and Team Lazarus won the Weir & Sons Leinster Match Racing Open held by the Royal Irish Yacht Club over the weekend, the second event win in a row for the Royal St George sailor.

Mixed weather conditions led to racing being held outside the harbor and by the end of day one Fowler had pulled out into what had turned out to be a decisive lead with six wins. Having missed the previous leg of the Tour 2009 Tour Champion John Sheehy got off to a difficult start and defeats to Fowler, Marty O'Leary and Laura Dillon left his Royal St George team on 4 wins. O'Leary and Sam Hunt filled joint second on 5 wins each.
As normal racing moved up a gear on the second day a strong come back from Sheehy, with 7 wins out of 7, was only enough to claw back into 2nd. With only 1 loss to John, Team Lazarus closed out the event to maintain their pole position in the tour rankings.
The Leinsters formed an unofficial indicator event for the Ireland vs The World event to be hosted by the Royal St George Yacht Club on the 24th and 25th of July. Mirsky Racing, the worlds no. 2 match racing team, will be in Dublin to captain a World team consisting of world top 100 ranked teams from Australia, New Zealand, England, the USA and Switzerland. These six teams will take on 6 Irish teams to be selected and captained by John Sheehy.
Check out Brian Carlin's fantastic images in the Afloat gallery HERE.
The Final Placing were as follows:

1st - Team Lazarus (Andrew Fowler, Tim Goodbody, Guy O'Leary and Rory Fitzpatrick) 12 wins
2nd - Royal St George Yacht Club (John Sheehy, Rory O'Sullivan, Paddy Kirwan and Nick Smith) 11 wins
3rd - Sam Hunt (Sam Hunt, Richie Murphy, Paddy Blackely and John Downey) 10 wins
4th - Marty O'Leary (Marty O'Leary, Richard Bruton, Nicholas O'Leary and Simon Doran) wins
5th - Aiden McLaverty (Aiden McLaverty, Ross Hamilton, Alister Kissane and Darragh Kinsella) wins
6th - Casey Racing (Conal Casey, Graham Elms, Simon Mitton and Ronan Hannon) 4 wins
7th - Team Dillon (Laura Dillon, Geraldine Eickhold, Kevin Johnson, Rebecca Killian and John White) 3 wins
8th Alex Barry (Alex Barry, Sandy Remmington, Patrick Good, and Cian Martin) 2 wins

Published in J80
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About J/80 Sailing

Easy to handle the J/80 is said to be less intimidating, safer and better suited for sailing offshore than other modern sport boats. 

It even has a full-length V-berth and 12-foot-long cockpit.

Thanks to its combination of stability, speed, durability, low maintenance and age-friendly deck layout, the J/80 has proved to be a great club boat around Irish yacht clubs with fleets popular in Dublin on both sides of the Bay at Howth and Dun Laoghaire. 

The key to a racing keelboat is that it holds the attention and interest of many types of sailors, young and old.  The J80 does it all, with thrilling 15-knot rides under spinnaker or relaxed sunset cruises with mainsail only. 

The Irish J/80 Class Association was formed in 2017 to represent owners, sailors, associated clubs and to help develop J/80 racing in Ireland.