24 boats competed in the  Ireland  National Championship at County Antrim Y C in Belfast Lough with a win for the cousins Niall & Ronan O’Briain (4092) from Chonamara, after they affected a 10-point swing in the points table on the final day. They won the penultimate race of the regatta on Sunday morning and then proceeded to make sure that Ian Mathews & Keith Poole (4093) did not upset the applecart in the final race by keeping an initial cover of the National Yacht Club pair in the middle of the fleet before finishing with an 8th to Mathews and Poole’s 15th. After discard, this left the westerners with a 9pt advantage and the title of 2023 National Champions.

 Seven races series were completed under the excellent race management of Sheela Lewis (NRO) with 10-15 knots on Friday, 10 – 12 on Saturday and around 10 knots maximum on Sunday. The tidal push on Friday caused problems for both RO and the fleet alike and when the fleet came ashore, four boats found that they had “jumped the gun” under the black flag start. Lee Statham & Andy Paul (4070) [1,9] won the Gerry Donleavy Trophy for winning the first race. They had led the first race from the start to near the finish when the McCarthy/Green combination caught them and went over the finish line first, only to learn they had a DSQ due to breaking the black flag.
Andy McCleery & Colin Dougan (4037), who were carrying a black flag from Race 1, won Race 2 by a comfortable margin and another race one infringer Hammy Baker & Peter Chamberlain (3756) scored a fourth place.

Saturday dawned to a no-wind situation and a postponement flag was hoisted.

The fleet launched in accordance with the shoreside postponement and were soon back in start mode. Three races were completed on Saturday under benign conditions of wind and sunshine Ian Mathews & Keith Poole went to the “top of the class” for the day with a 1,2,1 scoreline. However, the O’Briain cousins were a very tight second for the day with a 2,1,2 scoreline.
Overall, after Day 2, Mathews & Poole led the way with 7pts, followed by the O’Briain cousins (8), Statham & Paul (16), Kennedy & Kane (19), D’Arcy & McClemon (20), Baker & Chamberlain (26), McCleery & Dougan (28), Colin & Casey (34), McCarthy & Green (34) and Roger Chamberlain (36).

Sunday morning gave us wind and sunshine.  However, Race 6 only got away after a “U”, then black flag. The O’Briain duo led this race from start to finish, winning by a large margin. Conversely, Mathews & Poole were back in the vanguard and could only finish 11th. Between 1st and 11th, were Statham & Paul (2), Chamberlain (3), McCarthy (4), Kennedy (5), Meagher (6), Colin (7), D’Arcy (8), Peter Lawson & Chris Hannon [3893] (9) and David Mulvin & Ronan Beirne [4068] (10).

The final race saw the O’Briain cousins keep a loose cover on Mathews & Poole off the start and first half of the race. That left each of them mid-fleet before the westerners departed the scene to finish 8th in contrast to Mathews’ 15th. Kennedy & Kane finished second to McCarthy & Green but ahead of Mulvin & Beirne (3), Meagher & Matthews (4) and Dermot Flaherty & Joe McDonogh (4083), the new owners of Phoenix, also from Connemara (5).

As ever, County Antrim Yacht Club in Whitehead were exceptional hosts! Commodore Peter Darragh was on-site for the full three days and behind him there was an enormous group of volunteers managed, cajoled and pressed ganged by regatta organiser John Lewis (his own words).

NRO Sheela Lewis and her team ran a good regatta with challenging conditions (tide) on the Friday, more manageable conditions on Saturday and a fluctuating wind on Sunday. She made every effort to get the fleet away under “P” or “U”, before having to break out the black. Her reward was the completion of seven competitive races.

Next month (October) sees the first anniversary of the untimely passing of our dear friend Ben Mulligan. Over the weekend many people mentioned how much he would have enjoyed being back at Whitehead with the Flying Fifteens and how much he is missed.

This is a summary of a full report written by Comac Bradley which is available here

Full Results

Results are final as of 17:57 on September 3, 2023

Gold Fleet

Rank	Sail Number	Helm Name	Crew Name	Club Name	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	Total	Nett
1st	4092	Niall O'Briain	Ronan O'Briain	Flying Fifteens Chonamara	(9.0)	3.0	2.0	1.0	2.0	1.0	8.0	26.0	17.0
2nd	4093	Ian Mathews	Keith Poole	National Yacht Club	3.0	8.0	1.0	2.0	1.0	11.0	(15.0)	41.0	26.0
3rd	3920	Peter Kennedy	Stephen Kane	Strangford Lough Yacht Club & RNIYC	4.0	5.0	5.0	(7.0)	5.0	5.0	2.0	33.0	26.0
4th	3782	Trevor D'Arcy	Alan McClernon	Carrickfergus Sailing Club	6.0	2.0	4.0	(12.0)	8.0	8.0	9.0	49.0	37.0
5th	4085	Shane MacCarthy	Alan Green	National Yacht Club	(25.0 BFD)	13.0	7.0	8.0	6.0	4.0	1.0	64.0	39.0
6th	4070	Lee Statham	Andrew Paul	Waterford Harbour Sailing Club	1.0	9.0	11.0	3.0	3.0	(17.0)	13.0	57.0	40.0
7th	3756	Hammy Baker	Peter Chamberlain	Strangford Lough Yacht Club	(25.0 BFD)	4.0	3.0	5.0	14.0	2.0	17.0	70.0	45.0
8th	3962	Roger Chamberlain	Phil Anderson (Peter Gilmore)	Strangford Lough Yacht Club	16.0	15.0	13.0	4.0	4.0	3.0	(25.0 DNF)	80.0	55.0
9th	4028	Neil Colin	Margaret Casey	Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club	13.0	6.0	9.0	6.0	(16.0)	7.0	16.0	73.0	57.0
10th	4037	Andrew McCleery	Colin Dougan	Killyleagh Yacht Club	(25.0 BFD)	1.0	8.0	10.0	9.0	25.0 UFD	25.0 DNF	103.0	78.0

Silver Fleet

Sailed: 7, Discards: 1, To count: 6, Entries: 6, Scoring system: Appendix A

Rank	Sail Number	Helm Name	Crew Name	Club Name	Boat Name	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	Total	Nett
1st	3938	Niall Meagher	Nicki Matthews	National Yacht Club	ffantastic mr ffox	5.0	7.0	(19.0)	13.0	12.0	6.0	4.0	66.0	47.0
2nd	4068	David Mulvin	Ronan Beirne	National Yacht Club	Ignis caput duo	2.0	(20.0)	15.0	15.0	11.0	10.0	3.0	76.0	56.0
3rd	4083	Dermot Flaherty	Joe McDonagh	Flying Fifteens Chonamara	Phoenix	7.0	11.0	(16.0)	16.0	7.0	15.0	5.0	77.0	61.0
4th	3893	Peter Lawson	Chris Hannon	Portaferry Sailing Club	FFRIG-IT	14.0	10.0	6.0	(18.0)	13.0	9.0	12.0	82.0	64.0
5th	3883	Charlie Boland	Rob McConnell	Waterford Harbour Sailing Club	Fleet Foxes	8.0	(24.0)	10.0	14.0	17.0	12.0	6.0	91.0	67.0
6th	4074	Bryan Willis	John McPeake	County Antrim Yacht Club	Simply Gold	10.0	16.0	14.0	9.0	18.0	13.0	(25.0 DNF)	105.0	80.0

Bronze Fleet

Rank	Sail Number	Helm Name	Crew Name	Club Name	Boat Name	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	Total	Nett
1st	3608	Emma Pierce	Ian Smyth	Strangford Lough Yacht Club	Monkey Business	12.0	(22.0)	12.0	11.0	15.0	16.0	7.0	95.0	73.0
2nd	3757	Tom Galvin	Cormac Bradley	National Yacht Club	Thingamabob	(25.0 BFD)	14.0	17.0	17.0	10.0	14.0	14.0	111.0	86.0
3rd	3753	Alastair Court	Conor Oleary	Royal StGeorge Yacht Club	Ffinisterre	15.0	12.0	18.0	19.0	(22.0)	19.0	10.0	115.0	93.0
4th	3454	Niall Bradshaw	Rory Scullion	Strangford Sailing Club	Freyja	18.0	18.0	(22.0)	20.0	19.0	18.0	11.0	126.0	104.0
5th	3747	Jill Fleming	Richard O'Rahilly	Royal StGeorge Yacht Club/National Yacht	Snowwhite	11.0	19.0	(21.0)	21.0	20.0	20.0	18.0	130.0	109.0

Classic Fleet

Rank	Sail Number	Helm Name	Crew Name	Club Name	Boat Name	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	Total	Nett
1st	074	Jocelyn Hill	David McFarland	County Antrim Yacht Club		20.0	17.0	20.0	22.0	23.0	(25.0 DNF)	21.0	148.0	123.0
2nd	2265	Ben Ferris	Peter Darragh	County Antrim Yacht Club	Taz-Mania	19.0	23.0	(24.0)	23.0	21.0	21.0	19.0	150.0	126.0
3rd	2278	John Lewis	Maurice Porter	County Antrim Yacht Club	Charley Brown	17.0	21.0	23.0	(24.0)	24.0	22.0	20.0	151.0	127.0