J24 Midland Championship 2004 Event Report ( Michael Clarke )

Below is the weekend event report from Michael Clarke. This report is also published on the ISA website.

Principal Race Officer, Vincent Rafter, earned strong praise from Ireland’s J/24 sailors when, in very difficult weather, he managed to run five of eight yacht races planned for the weekend J/24 Midland Championship hosted by Lough Ree Yacht Club. Racing was abandoned on Lough Ree, and elsewhere, in Saturday’s hard Southerly winds with driving rain. The fleet was led out earlier than first planned on Sunday for five short races, challenging with no time to make up on mistakes. Racing went on later than first planned yet before the worst of the new hard Northerly wind.

The new and the defending Champion, Andrew Algeo has strong Athlone family roots. Helming Scandal, from Royal St George YC, Dublin Bay, he was in the top six in each, and won two of the five races, making 14 points overall and 9 points well clear of second overall, club mate, Barry O’Neill, in Just 4 Fun. Third overall was Enda O’Coineen, in Kilcullen, with an international crew, here on a second time visit from the Czech Republic to race on Lough Ree.

A keen and varied fleet of 19 International J/24 racing keelboats with 95 sailors saw local J/24s joined by three times their number towed by road from Loughs Erne and Neagh, inland, and Belfast, Strangford, Carlingford and Dublin Bay on the coast to the 2004 season’s first of six big events for Ireland’s busy and competitive International J/24 fleet, where select results overall counted towards six Irish places at next year’s 2005 World J/24 Championship in Britain.

Five of the fleet were older boats built by the Westerly company around 1980. A local helmsman, Andrew Mannion Junior, and crew in Jiffy won the Westerly prize, coming 9th overall, and in the top half of a strong fleet, his best result a second in the second race.

Club prize winners included Mark McCormick from Lough Ree in Jana, 13th overall, Stephen Bradshaw, Strangford, Co Down, in Jibberish, 7th overall, Tim Sheard, Lough Neagh, in Jay Kay, 8th overall, and Ron Finegan from Carlingford in Just 4 One, who had won the Westerly prize in last years Midland event.

This Midlands event was typical of Irish J/24 Championships. About half the fleet achieve a top 20% place in at least one race. Race Prizes went to Michael McCaldin and Joey Kelly Lough Erne YC, Frank Heath and Desmond Fortune, RStGYC, and David Taylor, Carickfergus SC who has towed Taz the longest distance to be at Lough Ree. Another 40 Irish J/24 championship races remain for 2004 in four weekend championships, each with up to 8 windward-leeward races, and August’s 10 race 25th Irish National J/24 Championship on Dublin Bay. After Lough Ree, J/24s next gather in May on Dublin Bay and Lough Erne, in June on Lough Neagh, and Carlingford in October.

Amateur International one design keelboat racing is getting ever stronger. The number of J/24s in Ireland has doubled in the past six years to 63, all part of the World’s largest and most widespread one-design keelboat class.. The J/24 is the classic, high performance fin-keel racing yacht, with a big sail area and real spinnaker, designed by an Irish-American, Rod Johnstone, and 24 feet long, hence the name J/24. One-design rules make each J/24 the same so success depends largely on the crew, a team of five men and women, in tight close racing sport.

These J/24 one-design rules, and sustained world-wide popularity, have produced a performance boat much less costly to own, maintain and campaign than any comparable boat, and helped keep older boats competitive at very low cost. Lough Ree’s local J/24 fleet is typical of many small J/24 fleets in most yachting nations all around the world.