Irish Fireball National Championship at Lough Ree Yacht Club - Final Day
by Cormac Bradley 15 Sep 2014 07:49 BST
12-14 September 2014
Barry McCartin & Conor Kinsella only needed one of the two races sailed on Sunday to win the Irish Fireball Nationals.
Winning the 8th race of the series meant they could not be beaten and for the ninth race they swopped roles with Conor taking the helm. At the second leeward mark they tok their leave of the fleet.
The 1-2-3 overnight finished 1-2-3 in Race 8 which gave Kenny Rumball & Finn Bradley a 1pt advantage over Noel Butler & Stephen Oram.
The last race saw three attempts to get it started, an I Flag and two U Flags being put to use. Rumball & Bradley stormed away (proverbially) to win by a country mile, thus securing 2nd overall. Butler & Oram worked very hard to come back from a poor first beat to record a third place finish behind Neil Colin & Margaret Casey who elevated themselves to 6th overall.
Rumball's win secured 2nd overall with Butler taking 3rd. Team Clancy took 4th overall while Niall McGrotty & Neil Cramer were fifth.
Lough Ree served up a very challenging regatta with predominantly light winds. Race Officer John Leech kept to his promise of turning races around quickly and was responsive to the requests for course modifications from the two fleets. His club colleagues also did their best to make both the Fireball & Wayfarer fleets welcome at what is a great location.