Royal Cork's Nigel Young from Cork Harbour and the National Yacht Club's Will Byrne from Dun Laoghaire were part of the winning crew of Black Seal that successfully defended its Club Swan 36 class title at the Sardinia Challenge in Villasimius last week.
After a very challenging week, where two days were blown out, the Richard Thompson crew were at the centre of a hard-fought battle, with the top three yachts separated by just a single point.
Black Seal edged ahead of Edoardo, Vanni Pavesio's Fra Martina (ITA), and Giangiacomo Serena di Lapigio's G-Spot (MON), who were only separated on countback.
"It was very exciting, very shifty with lots of changes of position, a great deal of fun," said Thompson, adding: "Honours across the races were pretty even with different winners."
There were some spectacular conditions in Sardinia for Black Seal's (above) victory in the ClubSwna36 class Photo: Studio Borlenghi
Black Seal had an uncharacteristically low 8th-place finish at the first event of the season in Croatia after finishing last year as European Champions, but as bowman Will Byrne explained, "the crew worked really hard with our coach Filippo Togni to analyse what went wrong and came up with a game plan going into the Club Swan Sardinia Challenge".
"An overall improvement in boat speed and handling saw us back up the front of the fleet fighting for podium finishes. The Club Swan 36 is an awesome boat; average speeds of 20+ knots downwind in a blow are a regular occurrence," he told Afloat. Byrne features in the vid below.
The next event in the exciting ClubSwan Racing season is The Nations Trophy (June 20-24), again in Sardinia at the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda.
Nigel Young from Cork Harbour and Will Byrne (both pictured centre) from Dun Laoghaire on the podium at the Sardinia Challenge in Villasimius as part of the winning crew of Black Seal in the Club Swan 36 class Photo: Borlenghi
Results here
