Royal Cork Yacht Club's National 18 champions Colin Chapman, Ewen O'Keeffe and Dave Lane capped a remarkable month on Cork Harbour by adding the club's July League title to the UK & Ireland National Championship they won on the same waters just days later.
The crew of sail number 431 topped the 14-boat July League after eight races across three Wednesday evenings, finishing with a nett score of 20 points after one discard.
Sharp-eyed National 18 followers will notice one small difference between the two victories. The July League results list sail number 431 as Aquabatics, while the same boat competed as Aquadisiacs when lifting the UK & Ireland National Championship later in July. Whatever the name on the entry list, Chapman and his crew were the benchmark throughout the month.
Consistency Delivers the Title
The July League success was founded on consistency.
Aquabatics opened the series with victories in two of the first three races and never finished lower than sixth in any race they completed. Their only major blemish, an OCS in Race Six, was discarded, leaving an impressive scoreline that proved enough to secure the overall title.
The victory confirmed the excellent form that carried the Royal Cork crew through the National Championship, where they again emerged on top against the strongest fleet in the class.
Nacho Boat Keeps the Pressure On
Charles Dwyer's Nacho Boat produced the closest challenge.
The Royal Cork crew posted six top-five finishes from eight races to finish second overall on 25 points, just five behind the winners. While they never quite managed to overturn Aquabatics' early advantage, their consistency kept the championship battle alive until the closing races.
Third place went to Nick Walsh's Peaky Blinders on 33 points.
The series included a race victory, but missing the opening two races on the final evening proved costly. Without those two DNCs, Walsh's crew would almost certainly have been fighting for second overall.
Final Night Changes the Order
The final evening reshaped much of the leaderboard.
Alex Barry's Howlin' Mad recovered from three consecutive DNCs on the middle evening to win both races on the final night, climbing to fourth overall. The two victories demonstrated the pace the crew possessed throughout the series, even if earlier absences had already taken their toll.
Andrew Woodward's Slingshot, the previous July League winner, also rallied strongly after missing the opening evening. Consistent top-seven finishes over the remaining races lifted the Royal Cork crew to fifth overall.
Further down the fleet, Colin Barry's Herbie enjoyed a memorable final evening by winning both middle-night races, while several crews showed flashes of race-winning speed despite disrupted campaigns caused by retirements, OCS penalties and missed evenings.
Strong Fleet Ahead of the Autumn
Fourteen boats contested the July League, underlining the continued strength of the National 18 fleet at Royal Cork Yacht Club.
The series also provided an early indication of the form that would unfold at the UK & Ireland National Championship, with the July League winners going on to claim the class's premier title on the same waters.
For Chapman, O'Keeffe and Lane, July will be remembered as a month in which sail number 431—whether entered as Aquabatics or Aquadisiacs—established itself as the boat everyone else was trying to catch.
