Thanks to Lough Derg Yacht Club, Andrew and John for organising this year’s IOM Irish National Championships. I would also like to thank all the competitors who made the trip to Dromineer. Not forgetting an assisting rib driver who kept a close watch on the racing and helped moving the marks.

 

We had 9 skippers who came from Dublin, Wexford and Cork.

 

After a quick briefing from Andrew Crosbie about the layout of the course, a reminder of the essential rules of sailing and checking the frequency we got underway.

 

In order to get a good course the race area was at the end of the pier - Andrew had laid 2 weather mark to cover wind shifts and after a few minutes of tuning we got underway. We had a Swedish race officer (thanks to John) and after the usual 2 mins countdown the serious racing started. So serious that it was difficult to get a good clean start but we eventually got off on the second start.

 

John Morehead was showing very early his intentions and went on to win the first 3 races while the running champion Gilbert Louis only managed 3 third places. Andrew Crosbie and Ollie Williams also in the heat of the battle in these early races. Joe who never helmed a IOM before was showing potential and went from strengths to strengths through the day. For Chris it was an opportunity to see how his new 3-Dogs was going against other IOM boats. Tony, Des and Laurent were also close to the battle.

 

The wind that day had a mind of its own and coming to the 5th race it just disappeared so we took this opportunity to grab a quick bite to eat before starting round 2. But here again despite coming back to its original position it was getting weaker by the race and at the end we could only get 9 races out of the 16 scheduled - and this was enough to validate the championships.

 

Andrew Crosbie and Gilbert Louis who finished 2nd and 3rd respectively though winning the odd race just could not contain John behind and he went to win 5 out of the 9 races, brining home the National trophy - our congratulations to John our 2008 IOM Irish National Champion.