Philip Brownlow wins Optimist Junior Munsters

Philip Brownlow won the Optimist Junior (under 12) Munster
Championship held last weekend in Dunmore East. Seafra Guilfoyle finished a
close second and Cian Byrne was 4^th. Harry Whitaker was 4^th
in the Junior Silver fleet.

The Senior division was won by Jamie Aplin (RStGYC) while
the best of the Royal Cork boats was Richard Harrington in 5^th.
David Whitaker won the Senior Silver Fleet with John Durcan 3^rd and
Chloe Crosbie 4^th.

Results: Senior Division , Junior Division and Regatta Fleet ,

Dunmore East hosted a very successful Munster Optimist
Championships over the weekend with 139 boats in total in three different
divisions – Senior (56), Junior (61) and Regatta (22).

Saturday morning dawned with beautiful sunshine and a very light
northerly breeze that died. Racing was postponed awaiting the sea breeze the
filled in to a light 8-10 Knots with a fairly steep chop caused by the strong
ebb tide. This ebb tide was to be a significant feature inducing a number of
general recalls (particularly for the Junior Division) and causing a number of
the sailors to sail the “great circle route” on the reach.

In the Senior division, Jamie Aplin started off the regatta
in fine style by leading the first race up until the start of the last run when
he capsized while trying to kite the boat a bit too much and ended up 8^th.
He gathered himself together to post a 1^st and a 2^nd in
to lie first overall on Saturday night.

Katie Gambier-Ross (KYC) continued her good form from the trials
by posting a 2^nd, 3^rd and 6^th to lie 2^nd
overall followed by Alexander Rumball, Guy Aplin and Tara Flood. The Royal Cork
sailors had an inconsistent day with Killian O’Keeffe counting a disappointing
20^th, 15^th and a 4^th. With one discard to be
applied the second poor result was to cost him dearly at the end of the regatta.
Richard Harrington had two 7^th‘s and a 17^th.

In the Junior Division, Philip Brownlow started as he meant
to continue with a 1^st, a 2^nd and a 4^th to
lead from Seafra Guilfoyle with two 2^nd‘s and a 4^th. Cian
Byrne was also showing well with a 3^rd, 5^th and a 9^th.

Cloudy skies greeted the sailors on Sunday morning but the
southerly gradient wind was sufficient to get racing started soon after the scheduled
time. The lighter winds did not seem to adversely affect the performance of the
bigger sailors with both Killian & Richard posting consistently good
results on the day.

In the Senior division, Jamie Aplin did enough to hold off
Katie Gambier-Ross by a point while Richard Harrington finished the regatta with
a 1^st to claim 5^th overall. Killian O’Keeffe had the best
results of the day with two 2^nd’s and a 4^th while Chris
Phelan had a fine day with two 6^th’s and a 9^th to claim
11^th overall and put the disappointment of an OCS in race 2 behind
him.

Philip Brownlow had two 1^st’s to claim the Junior
title from Seafra Guilfoyle while Cian Byrne finished just off the podium in 4^th.
The Junior division was particularly successful in Dunmore East with excellent
racing at the top end where the Royal Cork are particularly strong and with
numbers growing consistently such that the Junior division is now larger than the
Senior.