Two Optimist National Champions from the Royal Cork

Richard Harrington won the Optimist Senior National Championship and Seafra Guilfoyle took the Junior title at Tralee. 40 Royal Cork Sailors in all took part, the largest contingent by far, and there were many more notable results from the remainder of the sailors, all of whom represented the club with distinction.

Seafra & Richard with the Loot (Photo – G. Morehead)

Richard Harrington concluded his fine Optimist career with his first National Championship win. This win was the culmination of many years of excellent results including 3^rd in last year’s National’s and being selected to represent Ireland twice at the European Championships.  His race results of 7, 1, 1, 3, 9, 2, 2, 10 & 1 were really consistent in this very competitive fleet of 68 boats.

Other notable Royal Cork results in the senior fleet included Killian O’Keeffe (9^th), Brendan Lyden (10^th), Amy Harrington (13^th), John Durcan (15^th) and Conor Lyden (20^th). In the silver division David Whitaker was 3^rd and Marc Cudmore 4^th.

In the Junior Fleet, Royal Cork Sailors were particularly dominant, showing great potential for the future. Seafra Guilfoyle sailed an outstanding regatta to win convincingly, including beating all of the strong UK Junior Squad of 18 sailors. He counted two race wins, five other podium finishes and a fifth to win with something to spare over a total of 89 boats in the fleet. This win was the culmination of fine season in which Seafra won three of the provincial titles, finished second in the fourth and was the best placed Irish sailor in the UK Junior nationals finishing in 8^th place out of an entry of 160.

Peter McCann was next best of the Irish in 5^th place overall. He also took the prize for the best sailor born in 1997. Philip Brownlow finished in 6^th to take the ISA Bronze Medal. We had two other sailors in the top 10 – Patrick Crosbie 9^th and Cian Byrne 10^th. There was no need for calculators when it came to calculating the best club team which was taken by Seafra, Peter and Philip.

Seafra Guilfoyle, Peter McCann & Philip Brownlow (Photo G Morehead)

In the regatta fleet, James McCann was the best (and only) sailor born in 2000.

A special word of thanks must go to the coaches for the event – George Kennefick and Donagh Good – who supported the sailors so well during the regatta.

The trophy donated by the club in fond memory of Jenny Murray was won by Sean Donnelly of the National Yacht Club.

Gabrielle Morehead took a number of photographs at the prizegiving and they can be seen here .

Darren O’Keeffe took some photographs on the water and they are here .

The complete results for the senior fleet are here , the junior fleet here and the regatta fleet here .