Oppie End of Season Prizegiving and Supper

The Optimist Prizegiving and Supper held last Friday at the club was a great success. 76 sailors took part in the 77 races run by the class locally during the season from April to the end of October with many sailors competing in over 40. The overall results are here.

The Admiral was on hand to present the prizes.

The local Optimists are divided into Gold, Silver, Bronze and Copper fleets, allowing each sailor to compete at their own level. Generally, all fleets start together and race on the same course giving everyone a chance to pit their skills against some of the best sailors in the country. This formula is clearly successful with the continued excellent participation levels.

Putting on this many races for junior sailors (some as young as 7 years old) requires a great deal of commitment and resources. The class is very grateful for the support of the club and, in particular, Mark Ring for his organisation of crash boats and Nemo. Credit is also due to the many parents who ran the races both as race officers and safety boat drivers and assistants. Without the commitment of the parents none of this would be possible.

It is particularly gratifying that the best sailors continue to turn out in numbers for local racing despite their commitments to national and international competition. Our most successful sailor competed in 50 races locally in addition to regional championships, the nationals and a number of overseas events. Local racing gives the sailors a chance to hone their skills in a friendly competitive environment on a regular basis which stands them well in competition further afield. It is no surprise, therefore, that Royal Cork sailors won both Senior (Richard Harrington) and Junior (Seafra Guilfoyle) National Championships in 2008 as well as most of the regional championships at both levels.

The principal prizewinners were as follows:

Additional age prizes were awarded as follows:

14 y/o Silver – Isabelle Nyhan, 12 y/o Silver – Rory Martin, 12 y/o Bronze – Maeve O’Sulliva, 11 y/o Silver – Eoin Lyden, 11 y/o Bronze – Jil McGinley, 10 y/o Criofan Guilfoyle, 9 y/o Mike Varian, 8 y/o James McCann.

Special prizes were awarded to Chloe Crosbie and Peter McCann for the longest running and most intense argument on the water, Matthew Kehoe and Oliver Nyhan for the best crash to be recorded on camera and Graham Smith for the worst lunch!

Small tokens of the classes appreciation were given to Larrie Martin for billeting our Argentinian coach, Fernando, for many weeks in June and July, and to Richard Leonard for his great support and help as class measurer.

Thanks to the Admiral, Mike McCarthy for presenting the prizes and to Paul Tingle for bringing the Heineken Cup.

More photographs are available here .