#sailorofthemonth – Current "Sailor of the Year" Anthony O'Leary of Royal Cork YC has started his 2015 season in winning style by book-ending April with a runaway overall victory in the RORC Easter Challenge in the Solent from April 3rd to 5th as the new month got under way, and then rounding it out with a convincing win in the Brooks Macdonald Warsash Spring Championship, a twelve race series which concluded on Sunday April 26th.
O'Leary's new mount is yet another Antix, but this time she's the unmistakably red state-of-the-art Ker 40 which was formerly Catapult, key member of Ireland's winning 2014 Commodore's Cup Team, in which she was also the top individual points scorer.
In classic O'Leary style, the team debut with the new Antix at Easter was a low-key affair. At the conclusion of the series, some might have expected to witness a close-knit disciplined group in some sort of uniform as the winning crew assembled outside the RORC's new Cowes base at the former Royal Corinthian clubhouse. Instead, they saw what seemed like a bunch of mates of many ages who could have been casually assembled from the RCYC waterfront and taken to the Solent for a bit of light-hearted Easter sport.
But the results speak for themselves, and by the end of the month, the remarkable new Antix with her very dished stern was being sailed as though the crew had been with her for at least a year. And their skipper was particularly enthusiastic in his praise for the foredeck duo of Dylan Gannon and Jamie Donegan, "whose performance had been faultless throughout the Brooks Macdonald regatta". But in the end, it is Anthony O'Leary's sure touch in assembling a talented crew and sailing a boat to perfection which makes him a very worthy "Sailor of the Month" for April.
The new Ker 40 Antix with Anthony OLeary at the helm in the RORC Easter Challenge. The exceptionally dished shape of the stern makes her markedly different from his previous Ker 39, the veteran silver Antix
