Baltimore Icicles 2012
2012 started really well on the laser scene with a very successful Baltimore Icicle. The oldest laser trophy ( 1975) was once more for grab and 30 sailors made the journey to West Cork. The Bcademy team was going to provide the entettainement in the radials with Locals Fionn and Darragh ready to fend off attempst from the KYC and RCYC sailors. I decided to race in the full rig against the udual supects from the Munster based various frosbites and Sean Murphy who eventually made the move into the Olympic sail size. The 4.7 would have been disapointed with the absence of the national squad which was training just a couple of miles down the road in Schull! That did not stop the very versatile Paddy Crosbie to line up With local Mark Hassett ( the sailX master) and John Durcan as his main opposition. It promised to be a superb weekend... and it was! & races were sailed in 8-14 kts of westerly breeze displaying shifts and gusts keeping all sailors on their toes... In the 4.7 class, it rapidely ended up as a mano a mono between Paddy and John, Mark being only able to referree from a 3rd position most of the time. Eventually Paddy edged out John by taking 4 bullets and a further two 2nd positions. John took the other 3 races. Mark secured 3rd. Cliodhna O Regan was top lady. The radial and the full rigs raced together making the startline very competitive. The standard was high overall making it for very close racing all around. Darragh O Sullivan showed his progress producing a solid series to edge out Favourite Fionn Lyden. David whitaker showed superb speed and smart sailing upwind, however dropping valuable points downwind. He just managed to retain 3rd ahead of Dara O Shea. I produced a bit of a one man show on day one picking up 3 races and only dropping the last one to a late start ( thought I was OCS so I came back and restarted)... However it was not to be on day 2 with Sean Murphy, Ronan Kenneally and James Long torturing me until the final race. Sean sailed well with 2 seconds and a bullet whilst Ronan saw his hopes shattered by the black flag collected in the second race of the day (which he had won). Anyway, I took the trophy home ahead of Sean and Ronan.
photo courtesy of Ingrid Strassburg |
Bcademy update.
10 sailors have now comfirmed participation to the spring program. There is still a vacant space for an eleventh sailor to join the program. At the moment we are reviewing a little the early part of the program as the ISA has only included one of the the ebvents we are attending as the international qualifier for the ISAF youth worlds. Team 2012:
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