Phelan unable to deny Fildes

SAILING:THERE WAS little change in the overnight standings at Cork Week yesterday as light winds made their mark with a shortened Harbour Course for the 100-boat fleet.

An eighth place for Conor Phelan’s Jump Juice, his worst place of the week, ended any hope of overtaking Richard Fildes’ Impetuous from Wales who won Class One after a second place despite a win for Richard Goransson’s Inga from Sweden.

It was similar story in Class Two where Ian Nagle and Paul O’Malley’s Jelly Baby from the Royal Cork Yacht Club secured the overall class win plus the Irish J109 national title after a solid first place on home waters.

RCYC Adm Peter Deasy on Bad Company won Class Three by placing second to Tim Cunliffe’s half-tonner Insatiable.

Winds on Cork Harbour were threatening to drop throughout the day so the race committee opted to sail much of the course south of south of Roche’s Point other than a short sprint to the Cobh turning mark and back out.

Cork Week chairman Anthony O’Leary, racing his Ker 39 Antix, narrowly missed out on beating Tonnerre de Breskens in the Harbour Race by just 25 seconds.

“I think that the overall standard of racing this week has been very high, both from the competitors and also the race management team. With the wind mainly in the northwest, setting courses is not easy and for a variety of reasons I think that the race management team have done an excellent job. In difficult conditions, we only lost two races.”

Competitors in the practice race for the ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships were taking no chances on Dublin Bay yesterday as the fleet, comprising 265 boats in eight classes, sailed a practice race.

In a sloppy seaway kicked up by the easterly breeze, a single race for each of the three course areas was sailed. But in keeping with superstition, few if any boats crossed the finish – fearing bad luck over the coming seven days of racing. Most abandoned racing after the first lap.

Many of the 63 national squads have already been training on Dublin Bay in the last six months. The annual championship begins properly today with two races for each class beginning at midday. Irish hopes centre on Sophie Murphy in Laser Radial, Seán and Tadgh Donnelly in the 29er skiff, Patrick Crosbie and Grattan Roberts in the Boys 420 along with Finn Lynch in the Laser Radial Boys fleet, and Alex Rumball and Rory McStay in the SL16 catamaran.