Last weekend, six RCYC laser sailors travelled to Howth as a team to compete in the Laser Leinsters under the watchful eye of Thomas Chaix both on and off the water. This is the first occasion that the sailors have travelled together with their coach to an Irish regional and was a great success and blueprint for the future. Thomas reports on the event as follows:
“Windy day at the office for the RCYC team. 3 races were sailed on Saturday in a building breeze and it was surely gusting close to 20kts by the end of the 3rd race. On the results side we had a couple of good scores, some gear failures and a few frustrating races. In the 4.7, Tom McGrath had a great first race ending his challenge with a 3rd benefitting from Daire Curnane’s capsize (whoops; from 3rd to 16th). The second race was led by Daire but another capsize dropped him to 3rd. The last race was nice to watch in the 4.7 with Daire (4th), Tom (5th) and Arran Walsh (7th) fighting for top positions.
In the radials, Seafra Guilfoyle and Cian Byrne were on form posting top 10 results however Cian had to retire from race 2 with a broken kicker at the end of race. Darragh O’Shea had an 8th in the first race just ahead of Dermot Lyden.
Sunday was a long day in fickle light winds all over the place! I think the breeze visited all 4 cardinal points… 2 races were sailed. In the radial, Seafra was once more the come back kid messing up his first beats before finding the extra gear scoring a 4th and a 3rd to secure him 4th overall. Darragh and Cian raced well upfront taking 7th and 8th overall. Dermot took 18th a couple ahead of Ruairi Finnegan whose OCS on his best race (7th) prevented a top 20 overall.
In the 4.7, Tom had a tough time in the light air but good fighting spirit helped him to maintain his best result at a provincial with a 6th overall. Daire struggled but saved 10th overall just ahead of Richard Thompson who climbed to 13th after scoring two 8th. Arran found it more difficult in the light breeze taking eventually 17th overall.”
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