Consistently excellent sailing in very tricky conditions in Lough Ree gave Patrick Crosbie a deserved victory in the IODAI selection trials at the weekend. All of our sailors sailed with distinction with more than half of all the places on teams being filled by Royal Cork sailors.
Patrick Crosbie, Seafra Guilfoyle and John Durcan took three of the four available places on the boys’ squad for the European Championships. Amy Harrington took one of the three available places on the girls’ squad for the same event and five of the ten spots on the International Development Team were taken by Royal Cork sailors as follows: Peter McCann, Brendan Lyden, Cian Byrne, Philip Brownlow and Katherine Geoghegan. Five of our sailors made the Junior Squad: Peter McCann, Cian Byrne, Sophie Browne, Eoin Lyden and Harry Whitaker. Full results are available here.
Classic lake conditions in Lough Ree gave a wide variety of conditions over the three days of the bank holiday weekend. Shifty breezes and bands of wind gave the sailors very testing conditions rounded off by a full on 20-25 knot blast on the last day.
In spite of the capricious winds Patrick Crosbie sailed a remarkably consistent series with all scores in the top 6 over the 8 race weekend. This fine achievement, added to his results from the first weekend in Crosshaven meant that he won the event by 10 points from Colm O’Regan of Kinsale.
Seafra Guilfoyle continued his successful Optimist career by finishing third overall. He had five top ten results over the weekend in this competitive 62 boat fleet of the best Optimist sailors in the country.
John Durcan held off the challenge of Peter McCann on the last day to take the final European’s Team place. Five solid top ten results for John meant that he was a bit more consistent than Peter over the weekend. However, Peter had a great third place in the second last race of the day in very windy conditions to put the pressure on. In the end, after much drama in the final race John won the day.
Amy Harrington comfortably won her place on the European’s team. She really came to the fore on the last windy day with two seventh places.
Peter McCann started the final day in style with a third place. This, added to a number of other good results, including three bullets from the first weekend, made him the top junior in sixth place overall.
Brendan Lyden enjoyed the windier conditions on the last day with two top ten places to end the regatta in 8th place overall having scored a fine win in race 11 over the weekend.
Cian Byrne was second placed Junior in 11th overall having scored a race win and two seconds over the weekend.
Philip Brownlow made the International Development team after counting three top ten places over the weekend.
Much of the success of the Royal Cork sailors was down to the excellent support they got from our coaches George Kenefick and Stefano Cherin from Trieste in Italy. George and Stefano have been working with this group of sailors almost every weekend since February. This coaching, together with the superb support they gave the sailors on the water over both weekends of the trials, helped the sailors to achieve these wonderful results for themselves and the club.
IODAI decided this year that our top sailors should represent Ireland at the European Championships. However, the opportunity was open to any of the top five sailors to travel to the World’s should they wish. Alexander Rumball who finished fourth in the trials opted to travel to the Worlds in Brazil later this year.
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