Day one of the Bandon Co-op Squib National championships in Kinsale started in a strong 16kt northern breeze with significant gusts.
The Traditional Practice race gave visitors a good beat and run across the racecourse before Race 1 officially got underway.
The record will show that it was Kinsale locals Colm Dunne and Rob Gill won the ‘Practice’ race in Allegro.
They stayed out to the right side and came home ahead of Portsmouth’s Joe Henry and Roly Wilson in Bacchante VII. 3rd were last year’s UK national champions in Harry VI, Mike Budd and Mark Greaves.
After a short break things got serious and the fleet launched off the start line at the first attempt.
The wind had eased slightly to 14kts and Race officer Peter Crowley and his team set a 3-round windward /leeward course.
A three-round windward/leeward course was deployed for the first race of the Squib championships Photo: Bob Bateman
First to the windward mark was Lady Penelope, Malcolm Hutchings and Andy Carley who held the lead from start to finish and won Race 1 of this year’s Combined Championships, a number of the hot favourites were in their slipstream with a number of positional jockeying going on showing that the rest of the week is sure to be a hotly contested event.
The final run sorted the positions and it was the UK’s RCYC from Burnham that had the podium 1,2,3.
Following Lady Penelope was Lucky Counts, Jono Brown and Chris Agar whilst 3rd was Spoof helmed by Micky Wright and crewed by Alex Porteous.
The Irish Championship leader overnight is Allegro, followed By Outlaw with regatta Director Ian Travers and Keith O Riordan, and local Commodore Matthias Hellstern helmed Fifty Shades with Colm Daly crewing.
Results are here
