UCD Sailing has kicked off the 2024/25 season with a big win, with UCD 1 finishing 1st place overall in the first Irish University Sailing Association (IUSA) team racing event of the year hosted by Carlingford Sailing Club.
21 teams from 8 Irish universities headed to Carlingford to start the year, with UCD sending 4 teams and 28 sailors. UCD 1 and 2 competed in Gold fleet, with UCD 3 and 4 racing in Silver and Bronze fleet respectively. This event was the first of three qualifying competitions to decide the seedings going into the IUSA Intervarsity's in March. The format for the event was a round robin, where each team races all the other teams in their fleet.
IUSA represents sailors from University College Cork, Dublin City University, University College Galway, Technological University of Dublin, Queens University Belfast, Dublin Business School, University of Limerick, Munster Technological University and Trinity College Dublin with over 70 students attending the Carlingford event.
On the Saturday morning, due to a building forecast, the race committee were determined to get racing underway quickly and were able to get 18 boats and the 3 fleets out on the water. The first two rounds of racing were completed in 20 knots of breeze, with gusts of 25 knots coming down the racecourse. However, as the breeze continued to build and competitors began to struggle, the decision was made to send the sailors ashore while the winds were still manageable.
On Sunday, the wind was lighter, blowing 14-22 knots all day, but the drop in wind was made up for by heavy rain all day. Trinity College and Carlingford Sailing Club volunteers braved the rain and laid the racecourse early, getting racing started at the earliest opportunity. UCD 1 raced all the teams in Gold fleet, winning against teams from Trinity, UCC and UCD. Their final race was against Trinity 1, a closely fought affair. Trinity led for much of the race but two red flags on the last upwind allowed UCD to come through to a 2, 3, 4 on the finish line. This meant that UCD 1 finished the event with 6/6 wins and 1st place overall.
The first Irish University Sailing Association (IUSA) event of the year hosted by Carlingford Sailing Club was sailed in Firefly dinghies Photo: Evan Smith
Congratulations to the entire team - Jacques Murphy (Captain), Kate O’Connor, Emily Riordan, Emma Lynch, Archie Daly and Leonie Judge.
UCD 2 finished with a win, remaining in the Gold fleet for the next event. UCD 3 finished fifth in the silver fleet with two wins, and UCD 4 finished Second in the bronze fleet.
UCD Sailing Club has continued to demonstrate its commitment to promoting women at the helm, with six male and six female helms at the event. UCD provided 3 of the four women helms sailing in the Gold fleet, with one on the 1sts and two on the 2nds.
UCD Sailing's attention now turns to the Irish Team Racing Nationals and the next IUSA event, both of which are in the next month.
Race results: Winner Gold Fleet = University College Dublin 1, Winner Silver Fleet = Queen's University Belfast 1, Winner Bronze Fleet = Munster Technological University 2.
