#lasersailing – After Friday's blowout in the Zhik Irish Laser National Championships, it was great to see the forecast hold true on Belfast Lough yesterday with a sunny start to the morning and 12-15 knots with a few gusts and lulls along the way writes Mark Mackey. The wind stayed fairly true in direction all day with just the odd hole or squall to cope with.
Although only 2 races have been completed so far, the Laser organisation opted to stick to 3 one hour races rather than try to catch up on the schedule. James Espey in the Laser Standard again rose to the fore winning all three races and apart from the first race when Darragh O'Sullivan held him off till the first downwind, led the rest of the fleet around all the marks. Behind James, there has been great competition. Fionn "Stallion" Lyden has shown great speed downwind (or faster than Colin Leonard who came 4th in Race 1). Finn Lynch dropped out of the first group on Race 1 but cam back to score 3 and 2 on the next races and liers equal with Fionn going into the final day.
In the Radial fleet, Annalise Murphy lies first with only 5 nett point sbut had a more mixed day with some of the future young stars mixing it up. Last year's Topper World Champion and in his first year in Radials - Liam Glynn had a good day with 5,3,2 and lies in scond place overall from Cian Byrne. ISAF Youth Worlds silver medallist Seafra Guilfoyle had a worse day even with a bullet in the final race, scoring a DNF and BFD in Race 1 and 2 and drops down to 13th. Cian Byrne was the other beneficiary and moves up to 3rd overall with a win in Race 2 today.
Ballyholme's Sorcha Donnelly (who sails from Skerries but has always competed from BYC) led Race 2 but misread the earlier staring flags - one of the Irish Radial nuances is that they drop the "sausage" if there is a general recall. Race Officer Robin Gray, getting used to the tricks of some forcing general recalls so that they have shorter races, started using AP's instead 5 seconds before the start meaning they should have sailed the longer course. Sorcha led at the first mark and took a group of her fellow radials with her around the wrong course scoring RET in the end.
In the 4.7 fleet young Royal Cork's Johnny Durcan continues to set the bar with a 1 and 2, leading from Ballyholme's Rory Fekkes who won Race 2 today. Ronan Walsh, another Cork youngster, won the final race of the day
Overall:
Standards
1 James Espey 1,1,1,1,1,
2 Finn Lynch (Youth) 3,2,6,3,2
3 Fionn Lyden 2,6,3,2,3
4 Darragh O'Sullivan 7,5,2,4,4
5 Colin Leonard 4,3,4,6,8
9 Nick Walsh (Master) 14,4,11,16,12
Radials:
1 Annalise Murphy 1,1,1,2,3
2 Liam Glynn 6,4,5,3,2
3 Cian Byrne 2,6,6,1,7
4 Ross O'Sullivam 16,5,3,4,4
5 Conor O'Beirne 11,7,2,7,5
4.7
1. Johnny Durcan 2,1,1,13,2
2. Rory Fekkes 8,2,4,1,4
3. Rory Caslin 9,4,2,4,8
4. Conor Sheriff 5,8,3,15,6
5. Ronan Walsh 18,16,7,2,1
