Last weekend, the 28-29 January 2012, UCD Sailing club made the journey to the far-reaches of South West County Cork for the Irish University Sailing Association (IUSA) Southern Championships. It was hosted by University of Limerick (UL) at the Fastnet Marine Outdoor Education Centre in Schull.

Not only famous for the Racing Mark of the Fastnet Rock and a little pub called the ‘Black Sheep’; in August 2011, it played host to the ISAF Team Racing Worlds. Therefore having just hosted the Holy-Grail of team racing, this event could only be run in an extremely professional manner with a fleet of brand new 24 TR 3.6 dinghies from the Worlds ready for use. This weekend event was the third of five college team racing events held in the university year; but the first of the New Year 2012 and the last before the all-important, fast-approaching IUSA Intervarsity Championships.

Bright on Saturday morning, the 28 competing teams woke a little early to find completely flat, calm seas with not a breath of wind. The OOD and Event-running team gave their normal briefing stating their intentions that as soon as enough breeze filled in, they wished to deliver on-time, good length racing. The competing teams were accordingly ranked from the previous IUSA event with UCD competing with two teams in Gold, one in Silver and one in Bronze A and two in Bronze B. There was still little sign of any wind by the time many were into the second half of the FA Cup tie, however just around 1.45pm, enough breeze filled in to deliver some racing, ensuring the sailors got something from their day. With not enough time to complete all races before the end of the day, UCD 1 scored 2 wins from 2, while UCD 2 looked to improve. In Silver fleet UCD 3 had a good day, scoring 3 wins from 4. UCD 4 also wished improvement from their day in Bronze A while in Bronze B UCD 5 and UCD 6 did well in their opening races. By 16.15 racing was cut short and postponed until Sunday to complete the Round-Robin and conduct the Final Series.

Sunday morning dawned however similar to Saturday, even misty and rainy with again little breeze at 09.30. Luckily though, by about 10.30, there was barely enough breeze to start racing, and the Round-Robin from Saturday was soon underway. The wind was still very shifty, fluky and variable with rare moments of sitting upright on the boats, but still the race management team did well to complete the round robin. UCD 1 won all but one race to end Gold in 2^nd place before Finals while UCD 2 dropped to Silver Semi-Finals along with UCD 3. UCD 5 joined UCD 4 moving up to Bronze A and UCD 6 stayed in Bronze B. In the one-race quarter-finals, UCD 1 was paired with UL 2 winning comfortable. This matched them against the dangerous UCC 1 team but in a close-contest they prevailed 2-0 in the best-of-three encounter. Who was UCD 1 to meet in the Gold Fleet Final? It could only be once familiar, now inevitable foes of UL 1 as it approached 16.30.

UCD 1 had won the last round having beaten UL 1 in the IUSA Easterns in November 2011, UL were successful the time before that, so it was anyone’s game. With a slightly changed team from before, UCD 1 won the first race of the best-of-3-race final in reasonable wind conditions of 5-6 knots. However, for the 2^nd and 3^rd races, the wind dropped off to < 2-3knots making racing extremely slow, painful and less predictable. The 2^nd race went to UL to set up a winner takes all race. In the last race which was in ever more deteriorating wind conditions, despite best efforts UL prevailed with a 2-3-4 combination. The conditions made it near-impossible to catch up as it became follow-the-leader with no one able to risk a slight loss in momentum to the opposition. UCD finished in 2^nd place this time; but the game is firmly set for the 2012 Intervarsity Championships in 3 weeks time, Westport, Co. Mayo. It should be a hum-dinger!

UCD 2 and UCD 3 competed in Silver Fleet semi-final matches but lost out to TCD 3 and eventual Silver Fleet winners Schull School Team. Meanwhile, UCD 4 and UCD 5, promoted to Bronze A finished with semi final losses as well with UCD 6 remaining in Bronze B to complete the weekend sailing.

UCDSC would like to thank UL as well as Dave Harte, the Schull-Centre Principle for use of the boats and facilities along with John Downey and his race management team including all the umpires, mark layers and change-over directors. The lack of wind all weekend was unfortunate but that does not take away from an extremely well organised event in what were extremely frustrating conditions. It was good to see racing take first priority, racing up to 19.15 Sunday to complete the Championship and everyone involved showed great commitment and should take credit for that.

Final Results: Gold Fleet: 2^nd place-UCD1

Team: Simon Doran and Aoife Cooney, Barry McCartin and Eimear McIvor, Dave Fitzgerald and Zoe Flood

Silver Fleet: 3^rd-UCD 2; 4^th-UCD 3

Written by:

Barry McCartin