National Championship and AGM this weekend, 6 & 7 September at Galway Bay SC. First signal not before 11.55 on Saturday. Any queries, please text Lucille Bradfield.
- Photos from UK Nationals - 2nd September 2008
- Seán Ó Laoire took a large number of photos at the UK Nationals. Some of these are now posted on the Gallery here (including the formal stuff!). A full Photo Gallery is available on the Intl420 website: www.420sailing.org. There were also some photos by Philip Alton (including some IRL), and these are in the Photo Archive on the GBR420 website: www.420sailing.org.uk. If anyone wants to obtain any of the files, please e-mail: int420webadmin@mbecks.co.uk, including the relevant file references (although the images uploaded on the websites are low resolution, the originals will provide good quality prints, even if they are cropped).
- Junior European Championships - 21st August 2008
- The combined 420 and 470 Junior Europeans were held in Zadar, Croatia this year. Ireland had 7 representatives in the 420, plus 1 in the 470 who made the switch after the 420 World Championships earlier in the month.
The event took place from the 8th to the 15th August in what were amazing sailing conditions, with qualification spread over 2 days. In a very competitive fleet, the team found it difficult to get the results required for gold fleet qualification and ultimately finished in the silver fleet.
With Qualification over, we had sailors positioned at the top within the silver fleet and able to climb their way up the fleet, with four days of final series in varied conditions, the race management dropped behind on racing however always made sure that the sailors didn’t have to sail in the light decreasing conditions which we usually came late in the day.
The last day of racing saw an impressive display of sailing with T. O’Laoire and B.Kelleher leading both the races but unfortunately dropping back to 3rd in the first race and taking a BFD in the second.
After a long day on the water, the sailors were faced with the long pack up in order to get the trailer ready in time to depart for the UK Nationals, which started on Sunday 17th August.
Results overall in Silver Fleet (58)
10th A Rumball / N O’Connell
23rd T O’Laoire / B Kelleher
24th C O’Regan / A Rudgrock
28th J Butler / J Andreason
33rd J Costigan / I Kennedy
41st N Coady / R O’Mahony
47th D Kissane / S Scannell
Overall Junior Ladies Results (34)
18th A Rumball / N O’Connell
23rd J Butler / J Andreason
32nd D Kissane / S Scannell
On behalf of the Sailors, the Coach, the ISA and the Irish 420 Class Association, we would like to thank Lucille for all her hard efforts over the summer in organising logistics, driving the boats to the events and making the near impossible journey back to the UK in time for the UK Nationals.
Check out www.uskok.biz.hr/420-470jec and www.420sailing.org for all the photos and results from the event - 420 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS 2008 - 1st August 2008
- The 2008 world championships held in Athens, Greece have now drawn to a close with an impressive result for the host nation. Ireland had 7 boats who where representing the country at this years worlds with 5 mixed teams and 2 girl teams including the 2008 ISAF Youth Worlds team who made the move from 420s to 29er’s earlier this year.
Qualification for the gold and silver fleets took place over two days, followed by four days of final series which saw both the Ladies Worlds and Open Worlds split into Gold and Silver fleets.
Qualification saw a shifting breeze from the north west which was directly off the land, this made sailing conditions on the Open Worlds course very difficult with shifts of up to 40’ occurring during racing. However, the qualifying series was easily completed.
Moving into the final series, the first day we where greeted by a steady sea breeze from the south. The second day of the final series we had the tricky conditions off the land, however having sailed in these conditions before made life for the sailors relatively easy. The third day of the final series saw the local breeze known as the Meltemi, this made for some great sailing, however with weather conditions worsening, the race committee made the call to abandon racing after only one race.
The final day was always forecast to be the windy, with a early start of 11am, the sailors had to wait on the shore till the race committee finally made the called of abandoning racing for the day with wind speeds reaching up to 44 knots on the water.
Final Results
Ladies World Championships – 72 Entries
Alyson Rumball and Niamh O’Connell – 33rd
Jane Butler and Jenny Andreason – 56th
Open World Championships – 104 Entries
Tim O’Laiore and Brian Kelleher - 72nd
Stephen Tiernan and Rob Lehane – 82nd
Cian O’Regan and Mark Boylan – 88th
Alister Kissane and Darren Burke – 94th
Nessa Coady and Ben O’Manohy – 98th
