The Royal St George Yacht Club hosted 16 teams at the 71st National Team Racing Championships last weekend in Dun Laoghaire.
Near perfect team racing conditions of 8-12 knots breeze allowed a full round-robin competition of 120 races to be sailed. Each team completed 15 races against their opponents. Baltimore SC conceded one loss to Not Fast Just Furious and Royal St George Knights conceded to Baltimore SC who both emerged on top with 14 wins apiece. In their wake were’ Not Fast Just Furious’ on 13 wins and Howth YC and Poppa J and Hoochie Men on 10 wins apiece.
HYC won the tie on lowest points to qualify for the Semi Finals against Baltimore. Not Fast Just Furious faced the George Knights in the other semi-final leg. Time was limited by the sailing instructions and consent had to be sought from the leading two teams to permit a semi final after 3pm: sportingly both Baltimore and the Knights agreed. Surprisingly ‘Fast not Furious’ overturned the Knights 2-0 to face Baltimore who despatched Howth 2-0; all races were fought frenetically with the umpire team fully engaged in sorting out the flurry of flags during racing.
‘Fast and Furious’ were true to their moniker but calm and collected the Baltimore team comprising Mark Hassett with Adam Hyland, Fionn Lyden with Amy Harrington and Johnny Durcan with Trudy O’Hara controlled the races from the starts and systematically ground their opponents back to convincingly claim the title 3-0 in the final races. Fast not Furious comprised Finn Lynch, Liam Glynn, Conor O'Beirne, Cora McDowell, Sally Bell and Graine Young...... George Knights comprised John Sheehy with Rachel McManus, Nick Smyth with Jodie Jane Tingle, and Gerald Owens with Melanie Morris. The Knights despatched Howth YC in the petit final to claim the bronze medals. H.Y.C. Simon Rattigan, Lynn Reilly, Darragh O'Connor, Kerrie O'Leary, Aidan McLaverty & Jenny Andreason. The Youth division was won by RCYC Lola! Lola kohl, Eva Spillane, Justin Lucas, Killian Oregan, Rory O'Sullivan & Rob Keal
Results are downloadable below.