#optimist – After a serious hiccup in the first of today's (Sunday's) senior fleet races when he finished way down the fleet, Skerries' own Peter Fagan redeemed himself with a top ten finish in the final race of the Leaseplan Irish Optimist National Championship to secure the Irish crown of under-16 sailing.
The event concluded today (Sunday) after four days of keen racing by 181 competitors at Skerries Sailing Club. They competed in single-handed Optimist sailing dinghies which have been the starter boat of choice for many of sailings' World champions and most Olympic medallists.
Fagan (15) is no stranger to the winner's podium and proudly represented his country at last year's European Optimist Championship.
Clare Gorman (14) of the National Yacht Club finished second overall. Gorman proved a formidable opponent and won two races outright while the Royal St George YC's Tom Higgins (13) who finished third overall, also notched up a race win, a feat which had eluded the new champion. However Fagan's better consistency in finishing in the top of the fleet paid off.
Malahide YC's Gemma McDowell (15) led the fleet in the contest's early stages but finished fourth yet, such was the determination with this contest was waged, that she had equal points to both Gorman and Higgins and a complex formula was required to decide their runner-up places.
The 2015 Junior Champion in the Leaseplan Irish Optimist National Championships is the National Yacht Club's Conor Gorman (age 12) who persisted in a fleet where the lead changed several times over the four days. In second place in the Leaseplan Junior Fleet is Royal Cork's Rory O'Sullivan (age 12) followed by former leaders Hugh Turvey (12) of Howth YC in third, and Harry Twomey (12) of Royal Cork in fourth place.
Meanwhile, in the Regatta Fleet, young Royal Cork Yacht Club sailors maintained their winning ways and continued to dominate the top end. Jamie Venner (age 11) who has led this fleet from the start, clinched the regatta championship by doing well in today's (Sunday's) final two races of the 12 race event in which Venner scored five firsts and four seconds.
Howth YC's Johnny Flynn (age 10) finished second in the Regatta Fleet. In third place was Royal Cork's Anna Keal (age 10) followed by her clubmate Lucy Bateman (age 10) in fourth. Malahide Yacht Club's Harry Shackleton (12) surged into fifth place following a second place in a splendid last race, displacing Royal Cork sailor, Max Coveney into sixth place.
The Leaseplan Irish Optimist Open Championship was run parallel to the National Championship and here Spanish and British visitors reigned supreme. Spaniard Arnau Gelp (13) scored an impressive six firsts in the Senior fleet to copper-fasten his dominance and carry off the Leaseplan Open Trophy. National Trophy winner Fagan came third in the Open.
Meanwhile the Juniors watched helplessly as Britain's Archie Leckie swiped the Leaseplan Junior Trophy with eight top five wins, including three firsts. His final score was five times better than the best of the Irish.
Correction:
Our earlier coverage of the Leaseplan Irish Optimist National and Open Championship erred in giving fifth place in the Regatta fleet to Royal Cork's Max Coveney instead of Harry Shackleton of Malahide Yacht Club. This was because Shackleton's result in the 12th Regatta Fleet was mistakenly omitted. In fact he had done extremely well in the last race by finishing second.
