The Water Wag training weekend which was based out of Quigley’s Marina in Glasson, Co Westmeath last weekend was a huge success. As Afloat.ie reported earlier, the class had 15 Water Wags with a nearly perfect gender balance of 14/14! With 3 of the boats having all girl crews and 5 of the boats having lady helms. So as one of the oldest one design classes in the world the Wags are also one of the most progressive.
List of boats below:
Badger- Mary & John Cox
Swallow- David & Ann Clarke
Chloe- Kate and Amy O'Leary.
Freddie- Bairbre Stewart & Mandy Chambers.
Skee- Jonathan & Carol O'Rourke.
Penelope- Fergus Cullen & Alice Walsh
Vela - Philip Mayne - Brian Bond
Sara - Paul and Annel Smith.
Sprite- Adrian Masterson & Jeff Davys.
Polly- Henry Rook & Richard Mossop.
Scallywag- Dan O’Connor - Sue Westrup
Vega- Sonya Boyce & Stuart Creavin.
Mollie- Claudine Murphy & Niall Kelly
Mariposa- Cathy Mac Aleavey - Zoe Lengjak
Good Hope - Hal Sisk Thomas Jezequel (apprentice from Skol ar Mor who was over doing a 3 week internship with Doughal McMahon boatbuilder, this in itself is also a great story as this is the 3rd year we have had apprentices over since the building of Mademoiselle in Skol ar mor and more recently the Howth 17 Emelie)
Bairbre Stuart and Mandy Chambers in “Freddie"
Our coaches on the Saturday were Alistair Kissane assisted by Rory Fitzpatrick, on the Sunday Alistair Kissane did the coaching. Saturday was a perfect day with the wind conditions between 10 and 14knts with blue skies and sunshine. After a briefing on shore Alistair put us through our paces with lots of short races just to get back into the grove of sailing. We then had a long race down through the Inner lakes to the Wineport Lodge Hotel where we were stopping for a late lunch and also to watch the Leinster Match. After this were did several short races with exercises in boat handling infront of the Wineport Lodge Hotel which was a great spectacle, for the parties onshore.We then had a long race back to Quigleys finishing up at 7 in the evening so a great day on the Water.
Alistair had taken quite a bit of video footage this was shown at 9.30 on the Sunday morning where we had a de-brief and briefing for the day. Sunday was way more blustery than the Saturday and it also was forecast to build during the day. The beauty of Killinure is that it is pretty sheltered so there is always flat water so even when it get pretty windy which is did 25knts! It is sailable . But by lunchtime it was decided to call it a day as everyone was still intack with no breakages or capsizes.
The fleet was made of from a good mix of the top of the fleet sailors with the middle and back of the fleet over the 2 days the improvement was brilliant. I also have to say it is a brilliant venue as there is accommodation for everyone in the Killinure Chalets so it keeps everyone together for the weekend and makes the running of this event so much easier.
