Defending champion Michael O'Connor has a four point lead after six races sailed at the Royal St. George Yacht Club hosted SB20 National Championships 2024.
Starting the day on the same six points as Royal Irish's consistent Jerry Dowling on Bád/Kilcullen, the pair are set for a Sunday showdown where up to four races are still possible.
O'Connor took 1.0, 2.0, 1.0 in Saturday's three races to be on seven overall, where Dowling scored 2.0, 3.0 and 3.0 to count 11 in the 10-15 knot north-easterly conditions and choppy sea state.
Lying third in the 20-boat fleet on 17 points is Royal Cork's Mel Collins in Goldigger.
Day two's fresh NE brought perfect surfing conditions for the fleet. After a few general recalls, the RO, Barry O'Neill had to resort to the U flag once more with a couple of boats being caught out.
The fleet enjoyed three challenging races in a tricky sea state, with place changes commonplace throughout. Ted (O'Connor, Davy Taylor and Ed Cook) took two wins out of three, and were brilliantly pipped into second place by a spinnaker pole's length by Golddigger (Collins, Aidan McSweeney and Harry Pritchard) in race 2. Golddigger added a 2nd and 3rd place to their win for a good day's haul. Rounding out the top three in each race, scoring 2,3,3 was Bad (Stefan Hyde, Jerry Dowling and Jimmy Dowling).
The silver fleet has really tightened up. The Big Smoke (Paddy McGrath, Owen Laverty, and Charlie Quigley) is still leading, but their overnight lead has been cut to 5 points. Provident CRM (John Malone, Colm Cunningham et al.) is in second place, with Bango (Ben Graf, Kevin Fenton, and John McGonigle) only 2 points back.
Racing continues on Sunday when the fleet shares the Dublin Bay race track with the Flying Fifteen East Coast Championships and a Melges 15 Demo day, as WM Nixon describes here.
Race Officer Barry O'Neill aims to run three races on Sunday to give a nine-race series.
