The Crosbie Cup for Optimist sailors outside the Gold Fleet was raced for at Malahide YC over the weekend of July 29/30.
In a 41 boat fleet drawn from eleven different clubs, HYC's Lewis Eickholt, Mark Condy and Tara Flood got their first tastes of success at an Optimist Open event when they finished 8th, 11th and 13th overall and were the three best placed eleven year olds.
The weather on Saturday was very testing for the young sailors, many of whom were competing outside the Optimist Regatta fleet for the first time.
Showers and gusts of 22 knots led to many retirals and only 11 boats finished the first race, a lot of the sailors finding that sailing an Optimist both upwind and on a dead run in that strength of wind required more experience than they have yet acquired.
Spectacular capsizes abounded but Lewis Eickholt found the conditions to his liking and finished the day with a score of 3, 6, 6 to stand at 4th overall on Saturday night.
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Lewis Eickholt, Mark Condy and Tara Flood
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Sunday was a much more pleasant day and, in the bright sunshine, the 12 - 16 knots gusty breeze was much less intimidating. Those who had found Saturday too demanding were keen to get afloat and try and score some good results.
Mark Condy got into his stride and scored a 3,9,4 to move him up into 11th overall. Lewis struggled in the bigger fleet and slightly lighter conditions but had done enough on Saturday to hold onto 8th overall. Like Lewis, Tara Flood was one of the exclusive group of sailors who finished all six races sailed and her consistency paid off with a 13th place overall.
Because thirteen of the 41 competitors were born in 1995, the organisers awarded 3 prizes for eleven year olds and Lewis, Mark and Tara made it a clean sweep for HYC.
The first three overall were Dermot O'Flynn (RCYC+RIYC), Fintan Hughes (RStGYC) and Kirsti O'Flynn (RCYC), all of whom race in the Silver Fleet and had the technique to deal with the variety of conditions encountered during the event.
Next event is the Optimist Nationals in Kinsale YC (Aug 17 - 20) and a good turnout of HYC boats is expected to compete at this very popular venue.
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