Royal Cork's Johnny Durcan Second at UK Laser Nationals in Weymouth

15th August 2016

Thomas Hall

Johnny Durcan finished second in Weymouth Credit: Afloat.ie

Second, third and fourth place finishers were all Irish at last week's UK Laser Nationals in Weymouth. Royal Cork's Johnny Durcan is now UK Open Champion to follow on from his seventh placing at the Youth Radial Worlds in Dun Laoghaire last month. Fionn Conway and Ronan Walsh took third and fourth respectively. There were 65 entries, 12 races sailed and two discards.

In a busy period for Laser Youth sailing, Irish sailors have also been competing at the Radial Youth Euros in Tallinn, the U21 Worlds in Kiel. All of this before Thursday's Irish national championships at Galway Bay Sailing Club. The Irish Nationals, which run til Sunday, are a decider for World Sailing's Youth World Championships in New Zealand this Christmas.

Laser UK report: Hannah Snellgrove won the Laser Radial National Championships with a day to spare after an exciting fifth day of competition on the waters of Portland Harbour, and is now discarding only a second and a first from ten races. With a 15 to18–knot gradient wind from the WNW being slightly to the right of the breeze seen on previous days, the conditions were the most gusty and shifty but with plenty of opportunities for gains and losses to be made. In the first race of the day, Snellgrove started at the pin and played the shifts up the middle left of the first beat to lead at the top mark and plane away on the downwind from Ireland’s Johnny Durcan and Fionn Conway. Snellgrove kept a loose cover on Durcan up the second beat to take the win. The second race saw a large left-hand shift just prior to the start which Snellgrove capitalized on, tacking straight onto port at the pin end at the starting gun and crossing the fleet. Piecing together the pressure and shifts proved to be tricky, at times feeling like there were two conflicting winds coming down in pressure bands from both sides of the course. Snellgrove managed to play the shifts well and defend both sides of the course to lead at the windward mark by an unassailable margin. Australia’s Jeff Loosemore played the shifts to great effect up the second beat to get up amongst the front runners, but Conway pulled away on the final run to take second from Loosemore in third. Standings after day five: 1st Hannah Snellgrove, 8pts 2nd Johnny Durcan, 22pts 3rd Fionn Conway, 41pts

Overall results are here.

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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):