SAILING Column: Olympic and international competition will add spice to this morning's Fireball championships - just one of five national titles to be decided this weekend - when a 40-boat fleet starts off Wicklow Head.
Athens 49er helmsman Tom Fitzpatrick has already won the Western and Celtic championships (taking six of the 10 races) this season having teamed up with David McHugh again and the pair race as favourites for national honours on McHugh's home waters.
Also contenders are Leinster championship winners, former Laser 2 world champion Noel Butler sailing with Hugh Butler, who returned last week from the Fireball Europa cup event on Lake Garda, Italy, where the Dún Laoghaire crew finished fifth overall.
In other classes, a 64-boat Mirror National championships got under way at Skerries yesterday. The Ruffian keelboat Nationals are being hosted by the National Yacht Club today and the Puppeteers stay at home in Howth Yacht Club for their class title.
The Topper Nationals start tomorrow in Ballyholme Yacht Club a month before the class European championships are staged here in Blessington.
In offshore news, dates for next year's (2006) Commodores' Cup at Cowes, in which Ireland finished third in 2004, will clash with another RORC event, the Round Ireland race, making it impossible for any of Ireland's crews competing in Cowes - where Ireland is expected to field two three-boat teams - to participate in the biennial circumnavigation from Wicklow that starts on June 24th.
Race organiser Dennis Noonan confirmed yesterday that the east-coast club had not been consulted on the fixture compilation and though it may rule out only a handful of boats from a 50-boat turnout, the Irish Sailing Association has written to RORC over the high-handed manner in which the dates were fixed stating that the clash could have a "direct and possibly irreparable effect" on the 704-mile race.
In international dinghy news, class officials are hailing the Irish European Optimist team performance on the Baltic last week as one of the best ever performances of an Irish Oppy squad.
Held in predominantly medium winds of 1012 knots the relatively young team - four are still under 13 - produced 15 top-10 places and 27 top-20 places between them in a fleet of 242 sailors.
Drawn from 41 countries for the open championships held in Gdynia, near Gdansk, Ireland's best result was in the girls division where Diana Kissane placed 16th with a string of consistent scores (18, 5, 14, 10, 10, 10, 16, 7, 4), ending the 11-race series with two discards on 94 points.
In the boys division Dún Laoghaire's Matthew O'Dowd was top Irish in 49th.
In the UK, a group of eight young people from the Northern Ireland Cancer Fund for Children, all either in remission or currently being treated for cancer and leukaemia, went sailing with the Ellen MacArthur Trust last week around the Isle of Wight. During the four-day sailing trip, the youngsters also got to sail with the charity's two patrons, Round the World yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur and double Olympic gold sailing medallist Shirley Robertson.
Fixtures: Fireball Nationals Wicklow Sailing Club www.wicklowsailingclub.com; Mirror Nationals Skerries Sailing Club www.skerriessailingclub.com; Ruffian Nationals National Yacht Club www.nyc.ie; Puppeteer Nationals Howth Yacht Club http: www.hyc.ie; Topper Nationals Ballyholme Yacht Club www.ballyholme.com; Flying Fifteens Northerns - Portaferry Sailing Club www.flyingfifteen.ie.
