Optimists all over the place!

The weekend 15 – 16 June, we hosted over 120 Optimists sailors and parents for the 2019 Optimist Leinster Championships at Broadmeadows. Sponsored by Joe Duffy, Volvo, we had competitors from 10 sailing clubs nationally, all accompanied with a fleet of support and coach boats. We prayed that the forecasted rain would not pour down on our parade, but as luck would have it, the sun shone for the most part!

The main fleet had a total of 96 boats, divided into two separate fleets, Senior and Junior, divided perfectly (by coincidence) into 46 boats. Keeping discipline on the line, coupled with the oscillating wind was going to test the skills of PRO Neil Murphy and his team.

On Saturday, winds were light and variable, however Neil managed to get two races under his belt in very challenging conditions. On the opposite side of the estuary over at the regatta fleet of 27 boats, Graham Smith got 3 fun races completed. Sunday proved much better for all, with 4 rmore fun races for the Regatta Fleet and three for the Main Fleet sailors undertaken in “steadier” winds of 5-10 knots.

MYC sailors post – Personal Best Results

William Walsh had his best Championships scores to date, winning the first race of the junior fleet and eventually taking second place overall in the Junior fleet.

On Sunday morning, there was more excitement as we watched Glenda Gallagher chase for 1st place and eventually post a “race personal best” of 3rd in junior fleet race, following it up again in the next race with a 4th! Watch out for this superstar in the future!

There were other superstars too!
In the regatta fleet, coaches prizes went to:

• Conor Cronin – Best local sailor
• Juliet Ryan – Most improves starts
• Gabriel Fegan – Most improved
• Steve Gannon O’Connor -got his first race win

With some notable performances from all the MYC crew including Cara O’Donnell who very very nearly made it into the top ten in several races. Well done everyone.

Senior Fleet:

• Ciara Campion – 4th Senior Silver
• Amalie Soffe – 5th Senior Silver
• Kate Campion – Highest Ranking local sailor in the Senior Fleet

Junior Fleet:

• William Walsh – 2nd Junior Gold
• Glenda Gallagher – 4th Junior Silver
• William Walsh – Highest Ranking local sailor in the Junior Fleet

Finally, Hannah Walsh made her debut into the main fleet, so expect to hear that name mentioned again soon.

Generations join together

Running an event on this scale requires an enormous amount of volunteers to ensure success. Our culture of volunteering is legendary and without the friendly team spirit that bonds us all together such events would not be possible. The “call” for help was always answered. Ordinary, Senior, Pavilion and cadets, each member willingly volunteering themselves for duty.

Team spirit

Even at the end of a busy event, you could hear the teenage crews cry “Pull like a Dog” as they wrestled the final rescue boats ashore and busied themselves restoring the pen to its former glory. Each and every one, a credit to our club.

A BIG thank you to all our members who helped run this immensely successful event.

As a result we have been able to purchase a “small committee boat” for starting races on Broadmeadows along with extra marks and Anchors for our rescue fleet. But that’s not all, we also had a surplus revenue which we put into the club coiffeurs for future projects.

Finally, on Sunday evening, the volunteers enjoyed a quite drink in SJT.

The event in numbers

123 Optimist sailors
55 MYC Volunteers
155 Re-usable Water bottles issued
26 Rescue and support boats
340 Hot-dogs eaten
182 Ice creams enjoyed
. . . and no-one has any idea how many cups of tea and coffee