On the weekend of the 29th and 30th of January, UCD Sailing club made the journey up to Kenmare, Co. Kerry for the Irish University Sailing Association Southern championships hosted by CIT.

The first day brought a light breeze which posing an interesting challenge to all teams and making for exciting racing on the water. UCD had 2 teams in the gold fleet, 1 team in the silver fleet, one team in the bronze fleet and one team in the copper fleet. This demonstrates the great strength in depth that the club continues to enjoy. UCD1 recorded a perfect day winning all six of there races in exciting fashion and finished the day lying in 1st place overall. UCD2 won four out of their six races and were lying in 3rd position at the end of the day. In the silver fleet UCD3 had a disappointing day but with eyes set firmly on the intervarsity championships in a months time, the losses served as an important learning tool. UCD4 managed to claim three wins from six races in the bronze fleet while UCD5 won a total of three races out of six also.

Sunday morning dawned bright, sunny and windless. Sadly it remained that way and the racing was eventually abandoned at 2 o’ clock by the race committee. The results were thus as they were on Saturday night and this meant that UCD1 after a fantastic day on Saturday were crowned IUSA Southern champions for 2011. This means that UCD have finished first college in all 3 IUSA events so far this year, a great achievement for the whole club.

UCDSC would like to thank CIT for hosting a fantastic event and we would also like to specifically mention Cxema Pico, Eoin Duggan and Conor Kinsella all of whom are from UCD and kindly volunteered their services for the weekend to the organising committee.

Final Results:

Gold Fleet: 1st- UCD1 3rd- UCD2

UCD1- Simon Doran and Christine Lynch, Barry McCartin and Sharon Quigley, Aidan McLaverty and Jodie-Jane Tingle.

UCD6- Andrew O’Donoghue and Katie Curtin, Nick Harger and Ellen O’Donovan, Rory Murphy and Mary Lucey.