Three Irish boats reached the top 10 of the Laser 2 World Championship at Heineken Dinghy Week on Cork Harbour that ended in victory for the sole New Zealand crew attending. The event was marked by light winds that hardly exceeded 10 knots throughout.
Saturday's final race saw Laura Dillon and Ben O'Donoghue on Halidon just one point behind Matthew Davies and Nathan Handley of Murray's Bay Yacht Club near Auckland and a close battle was predicted. However, both boats were penalised for being over the line early in one of several attempts at getting the race underway in the shifting airflow.
The penalty incurred placed a 20 per cent burden on both crews but while the Kiwis used their discard to negate the weighty result from that race, the Howth YC crew had earlier escaped a 65th from race one using their discard, now counted and a devastated Dillon saw her World Championship ambitions fade at least for this event anyway.
The post of leading Irish boat and series challenger fell to Irish European Champions Tom Fitzpatrick and David McHugh who were in third overall before the final. However, a Kiwi defeat was a mathematical impossibility and Davies had just to finish to secure the event.
The Irish leaders put in a valiant performance, rounding the first weather mark in third and quickly pulling into the lead. A slip on the last leg saw them drop to third while the New Zealanders ended in the late 20's; Dillon and O'Donoghue crossed the finishing in the mid-50's which translated into 76 points after the penalty.
Meanwhile, there was a distinctly Olympic element at the main Dinghy Week where six national championships were decided. Apart from the Olympic single-handed Laser class having the largest fleet turnout at more than 100 boats, there was four recent Olympic athletes taking part in various disciplines.
Mark Lyttle successfully defended his National Laser title while Atlanta team manager Bill O'Hara was sixth. Soling crewman Dan O'Grady won the Skiff class championship in his B14 while Cathy MacAleavey narrowly missed the Hurricane 5.9 title in the multihull fleet by a slim .25 point.
