SAILING: In an action-packed preliminary series, Ireland's John Lavery and David O'Brien emerged overall winners of the Irish national title at the Subaru Flying 15 championship at Dun Laoghaire yesterday. David Branigan reports.
Dubbed "Silver Shadows" by one Australian crew, the pair counted four top-10 results out of five races in a 99-strong fleet.
The pre-worlds event is used by many of the visiting crews as a familiarisation event for next Sunday's start to the main event, and the local pair will face stiff opposition in their new capacity as homeside favourites.
Defending national champion Justin Burke paid tribute to the duo. "They are very worthy winners, all due to a well-prepared campaign," he said last night.
The National Yacht Club crew have been preparing intensively for the last year, regularly training on the bay in a repeat of the formula that brought them success in the 1995 Fireball World Championship.
Nevertheless, Lavery remains cautious about prospects for next week's world series.
"It's going to be hard," he said. "Dublin Bay is going to throw up seven days of difficult conditions. There are also national champions from each competing country here as well as multiple world champions."
O'Brien sailed for Ireland with Mark Mansfield in the Star class at Sydney 2000, and this experience has helped their Flying 15 campaign. The Afloat magazine editor and Sailing Correspondent for this newspaper points towards sailing time and boat preparation as the major lessons gained from the Olympics for this class that would be positioned at the international level just below full-time campaigning.
The pair can now be counted amongst possibly 12 contenders for next week's title. Also racing for Ireland from the Royal St George YC is Sean Craig with Stephen Boyle, who ended the nationals in seventh overall.
Alongside Lavery and O'Brien, current World champion and former Flying Ducthman Olympian Charles Apthorp returns to Dun Laoghaire as another title favourite.
Australians Nick and Janet Jerwood from Perth, who ended in second place overall yesterday, are tipped, as are multiple champion Ron Packer with Peter Mudford.
Not performing as well as might be expected, though with the proviso that this was just the pre-worlds series, is Grant Anderson and Dean McAullay, who were 12th overall.
Richard Estaugh is no stranger to Irish waters as a multiple world champion in other dinghy classes and, with Tim Harper, finished fourth overall yesterday.
In what principal race officer Jack Roy described as a "bad day at the office", the fleet was at sea for four hours yesterday before racing got under way.
"We won't have this next week, as we'll have Dublin Bay Sailing Club's Mac Lir as committee boat and that should sort out this problem," he said.
Racing gets under way at 12.30 p.m. on Sunday, with a single, three-hour race daily until next Saturday's finale.
