SAILING: Dún Laoghaire basked in brilliant sunshine yesterday and warm appreciation from the 400-boat fleet gathered for the inaugural Regatta Championship. All were agreed there was little could be done about the lack of wind for the series, and most got most of their racing programme completed.
Tim Concannon with Emmet Dalton, from Howth, won the Squib class on Femme Fatale, a result that made them overall one-design fleets champions and eventually overall regatta champions. Anthony O'Leary on Antix won the overall handicap classes, and Roger Bannon was the overall dinghy fleets winner.
This pool of winners represented the 23 classes taking part, the overall winner selected by a combination of criteria such as class size and number of races sailed.
International jury chairman George Chapman was the independent voice for the final selection.
But the weather proved the ultimate arbiter for the four-day series; a large high-pressure system directly overhead made for a virtually windless Dublin Bay for the duration.
In spite of that, most of the in-shore course areas, such as the Sutton, were able to deliver at least light-airs racing. Several classes completed six races, in stark contrast to the two races managed by the handicap classes Zero and One in the centre of the bay.
After two days of waiting for wind, a halt was called to proceedings at lunchtime yesterday to rapturous cheers from the becalmed yachts of classes Zero, One and Two as a mass exodus to the harbour got under way.
With little change since the start of the weekend, their results stood. Eamon Conneely's Patches was overall winner of Class Zero. In Class Two, Enda Connellan's Blue Berret Pi won overall with two wins from the two races. In the Sigma 33 class, Tim Goodbody plummeted from the overall lead to hand the win to Dermot Baker on Shillelagh.
Reaction to the new event format has been overwhelmingly positive in spite of the frustrating lack of wind for some classes.
"Initially I thought combining the regattas was a mistake and the event was doomed," commented J24 sailor Richard O'Connor. "But I'm pleased to admit I was wrong and it's been a great success."
A 2007 event run on the same format, with possibly 700 boats, has already been mooted.
