Andrew Fowler took his first win in a truncated weekend of match racing, dominating a light and tricky Sunday of racing in Howth Yacht Club for the Investwise.ie Dublin Match Race Open. With Saturday's sailing canned due to high winds and heavy seas, the event was shortened to just a single day of racing and a single round robin for the nine teams ahead of the final.
Sunday brought blue skies and never more than 13 knots, and the crews spent almost ten hours on the water in the ISA Sailfleet J80s to get one full round robin in, with each boat sailing eight races. With reigning champion John Sheehy away racing the Wilson Trophy in England, the pressure was on Andrew Fowler and his team as top-ranked Irish entry, with UK helm Mark Lees and his crew of Roddy Lacey, Toby Mumford and Matt Reid another team to watch.
Fowler and Team Lazarus (Brendan Faffiani, Guy O'Leary and Dave McHugh on main) duly delivered, sailing an immaculate round robin to finish the series without dropping a single race. The Howth MadMatch team, skippered by Ben Duncan followed in second on their home turf, dropping just two races, pushing UK visitors Team Echo into third on equal points with another home sailor, Laura Dillon.
The next event on the circuit will be the Leinster Match Racing Open, hosted by the Royal Irish Yacht Club on June 12 & 13.