HYC had a healthy representation of 18 boats at the Leinster Optimist Championships on the weekend of 16th & 17th June at Skerries SC. Conor O'Brien, one of our ex Optimist National Champions, took charge of the 12 sailors in the main fleet as the HYC coach. Conditions were very mixed with a solid 20 to 25 knots on Day 1, decreasing to a drifting 3 knots or less on Sunday.
The attrition rate was high on the Saturday, but in the midst of some serious girl power from Royal Cork (Sophie Browne, Jil McGinley and Rebecca O'Shaughnessy finishing 1,2, 3 in the first race), Richard Hogan flew the HYC flag in the Senior fleet and a solid day of 4,5, 10 had him in 3rd place overnight.
In the junior fleet Alex O'Grady won the first race by a huge margin, but his brother Jamie was more consistent and his 9, 5, 5 first day scoreline saw him sitting in 4th overall.
The conditions worsened as the day went on and anybody who completed all 3 races deserves a huge amount of credit, particularly in the junior fleet. Unfortunately, the weather kept the regatta fleet ashore for the day.
Sunday couldn't have been more different. Everybody launched in a reasonable 6-8 knot wind, but it was always unsteady and very patchy. The race officer got one iffy race away as the breeze died for senior and junior fleets, but the combination of very little wind and a strong ebb tide made it almost impossible to make progress upwind. Some did manage the zephyrs better than others however, none more so that Richard Hogan who posted an excellent 2nd place finish in Race 4, leaving him 4th overall.
In the junior fleet, the O'Grady's were using up their discards as Loghlen Rickard from the National YC cemented his place at the top of the leaderboard. Despite repeated efforts and a lot of waiting, the race officer was forced to call it a day about 14.30 with the 15.00 deadline approaching and no sign of the breeze stabilising. So after 4 races, results stood and the HYC prizewinnners were:
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Richard Hogan, 4th Senior Fleet Gold
Darragh Kelly, 4th Senior Fleet Silver
Jamie O'Grady, 5th Junior Fleet Gold
Eve McMahon, 1st Regatta Fleet
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Full results at www.iodai.com/live/results/
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