Royal Alfred team confirmed as Round Ireland winners

Following the news last week of the retirement from this year's Round Ireland Race by the yacht Lobster, the organising committee at Wicklow Sailing Club (WSC) has confirmed that Kinsale YC is no longer the winner of the overall team prize. Instead, the award is now due to be presented to the Royal Alfred YC team later this autumn.

The retiral arose when the skipper of Lobster, Gary Horgan, decided to withdraw from the race last week as he had sought and received outside assistance on the second day of the 704-mile race. This comprised a replacement fan belt for the yacht's engine that was needed in case of an emergency requirement for auxiliary power. In the event, the spare part was not needed and the incident was not reported in the declaration at the end of the race.

The new winning team is a Howth/Dun Laoghaire mixture led by the RAYC commodore Kieran Jameson on the Sigma 38 Changeling. Joining him on the team was race veteran Roy Dickson on the Corby 40 Cracklin' Rosie along with Bob Stewart's Prima 38 Great Bear from the Royal Irish YC.

Horgan's Dubois 45-footer was the lead boat for Kinsale's Team A in the race that was sailed in late June of this year. The team prize was decided on the finishing times of the three-boat squad that included George Radley's Imp and George McConnell's Sigma 38 Galliver. These boats won first and second place overall, respectively, in addition to winning their individual classes. These results are unaffected by the WSC decision.

In making the change, the WSC committee decided to accept Lobster's retiral from the race but will also be reporting the matter to the Irish Sailing Association (ISA) as governing body for the sport in Ireland. It is understood that when the report is received by the ISA, a group comprising the president Paddy Maguire, the director of racing Harry Gallagher and secretary general Paddy Boyd will meet to consider whether the matter should be referred to the Rules Tribunal.

Meanwhile, the ISA has announced a revised format along with this year's nominations for its Junior Helmsman Championship that will take place at Swords in a week's time. Like its senior counterpart, the Champion of Champions, this event seeks to find a single outright winner from the variety of classes within sailing.

However, this year will produce two champions, a single and a double-hander. This reflects greater planning towards elite racing levels at international and Olympic events when both disciplines are common. The nominees for the single-handed event are drawn from the Optimist, Laser, Laser Radial and Topper classes while Mirrors and 420s dominate the double-handed line-up. There are also representatives from the Laser 2s and the Irish-developed Zzap dinghies plus an unusual Mermaid class representative.

The other development is that the junior event format is being changed to match the senior championship more closely. To this end, the Saturday will be used as a qualifying day with six boats from each discipline going forward to Sunday's finals. Two further races on Sunday for those who do not qualify from the previous day's five races brings a chance for two more to qualify in each discipline. The final will be a best of five-race series between eight boats in each fleet.