Brother and sister tops at Irish Sailing Youth Championships
Despite a weather interruption that did its best to scupper the series, the annual Irish Sailing Youth Championships ended with winners in all six events at Crosshaven.
The event included the annual selection trials for the Optimist class that decides Ireland’s squads for international championships this year and Cork’s James Dwyer Matthews won the trials series counting all top five results over eight races in the 60-strong class.
Of all the events in the event, the Optimists had the most races as their size meant racing in the shelter of Currabinny on the Curlane Bank with the rescue fleet doubled as a precaution.
But the rest of the event was postponed ashore for Friday and Saturday before Storm Hannah abated. Only the Laser Radial and 420s who started racing on Thursday had been afloat before Sunday morning.
While deciding national titles in five youth classes, the event was also used to decide Irish representatives at the Youth World Sailing Championships in Gydnia, Poland in July.
Howth brother and sister Jamie and Eve McMahon emerged best of the Laser Radial event in first and fifth places respectively. Their elder brother Ewan recently made his debut at Senior level in the Laser class.
Meanwhile, there was a clean sweep of Topper 5.3 class by sailors from the Royal Cork Yacht Club as Darragh Collins, Oisin Mac Sweeney and Anna Keal took the podium for the 37-strong fleet.
In the second largest class in the championship after the Optimist class, Cillian Foster of the Royal Cork won the single-handed Laser 4.7 class in a 53-strong field.
