With a deft twist of fortune and skill, Richard Estaugh and Simon Potts turned around a potential runner-up place into success at the Heineken GP14 World Championship at Skerries yesterday.
Although only needing a fourth place if close rivals Neil Marsden and Derrick Hill were to win, the soon-to-be champions led the fleet.
Their second-placed rivals were not easily beaten and pressurised the pair right to the finish. Always within a few boatlengths of the leader, Marsden and Hill engaged Estaugh in a match race duel approaching the finish, throwing half a dozen crash tacks with a few seconds in an effort to break their lead. But to no avail, the die was cast and Estaugh secured his new three-year tenure until the 2000 Worlds in Durban, South Africa.
After Tuesday's mid-series waypoint, Estaugh and Potts had slipped to fourth overall with a seemingly irreversible 12-point deficit. But when racing resumed on Thursday, new leaders Marsden and Hill suffered a disastrous capsize while leading, and dropped to second while the world champion slipped back into the lead.
Meanwhile, Estaugh and Potts will be concentrating on their Olympic 49er campaign in the autumn.
Hugh Gill and Stephen Boyle from Sutton Dinghy Club ended best of the Irish crews in the 143boat fleet but in spite of pulling up from the mid-twenties earlier in the week, the helm expressed some disappointment with the final position: "I feel happy enough . We've had a moderately good event despite the set-back of the first two races," Gill said.
Heineken GP14 World Championship (at Skerries SC); Race 7: 1 R Estaugh & S Potts; 2 Marsden & D Hill; 3 T Woods & J Dewhurst; Best Irish: 9 P & B O'Hara (Clontarf YBC/Skerries SC); 15 D Bracken & K Moriarty (Skerries SC); 16 A Duffin & C Penny (East Antim BC); Final overall: 1 Estaugh & Potts; 2 Marsden & Hill; 3 N Platt & C Aubrey; Best Irish: 10 H Gill & S Boyle (Sutton DC); 16 O'Hara & O'Hara; 21 P Maguire & S Boyle (Sutton DC); 23 Duffin & Penny; 27 D Fletcher & B Jobling (East Antrim BC); 29 D Rose & M Darrer (Royal Cork YC)
