Mixed experience for ILCA fleet at Youth Nationals

After a very promising start to Thursday with hardly a ripple outside the club. Unfortunately, storm Kathleen completely wiped out all racing for our ILCA 4 fleet who were eager, ready to sail and hoping for some strong results. At one point, a river race was proposed which certainly would have created drama and fantastic spectator viewing from the marina. Kathleen had other plans however. It is very rare to see these rollers on the Curlane bank on Saturday.

The ILCA 6 fleet had a much better start and completed four races on the first day, Thursday. The initial two races had an Easterly/South East aspect which was not quite forecasted and race officer Nigel Biggs had to deal with a 90 shift during race two and a heavy mist that created some challenging racing. The expected Southerly wind filled in nicely and race three and four went very nicely with Andrew Kingston taking race four to solidify his second place position.  Bobby Driscoll followed up his ILCA Munsters win last weekend in Baltimore with three race wins out of four and gets the opportunity to represent Ireland at the ISAF Youths at Lago de garda in July. Megan O’Sullivan came in a very credible fourteenth (5th girl) in her second regatta in ILCA 6. Michael Doherty crossed the line in 6th in the final race only to see a BFD in his results which put him back to sixteenth with no discard. Sean O’Herlihy, Mike Egan and Dan O’Leary also competed in ILCA 6.

  Andrew picked up his second place medal from John Twomey, president of Irish sailing. Tim McCarthy led the singing of Happy Birthday to Andrew as it was his 18th birthday on the day of the presentation.

All in all, Royal Cork picked up second place in both 29ers and ILCA 6. Oisin Pierse just missing out on a third youth nationals gold in a row having won ILCA 4 in 2023 and Optimist in 2022.

At the end of the day Thursday, it turned very miserable with rain pouring down on the competitors coming in and all the beachmaster’s crew. Huge amount of work by all organisers and especially Tim McCarthy, the event director. It is almost unprecedented to have a storm last three full days, but Kathleen really stood out as a monster. Hoping to see the ILCA4s racing for the Youth prizes in the not too distant future. Next Racing is the Crosshaven House PY1000. Lasers have won for the past number of years and we are hoping to keep this trend going. Connaught championships in Lough Ree on 27th/28th and then the Irish masters in May will keep us busy.

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