O’Leary’s mixed emotions
After four-days of intense racing in the Covestone Asset Management Sovereigns Cup, he was collecting the overall trophy as winner of the 1720 Sportsboat class, judged to be the most competitive of the ten classes taking part.
And while it was an O’Leary receiving the prize, it could and arguably should have been another family member on the podium except for the hand of fate and a worn piece of rigging.
In fact it was his younger brother Nicholas O’Leary, steering Tom Durcan and Clive O’Sheas’ T-Bone who was on track for the class win and the Sovereigns Cup until Friday afternoon when the backstay snapped and the rig came down.
Forced ashore for repairs, the Royal Cork Yacht Club was back in action on Saturday morning against their clubmates and family rival though the damage to T-Bone’s prospects had been done.
Peter O’Leary had a hat-trick of wins on the Friday including the first race of the day, a race that included his younger brother but the following day was comeback time for Nicholas, if only to make a point thanks to wins in the last two races of the series.
Two other classes had strong performances and were understood to be contenders for the trophy.
Anthony Gore-Grimes on Dux from Howth Yacht Club won Class Two while John Maybury’s Joker 2 from the Royal Irish YC took Class One, both on matching scores from eight races.
Only John Twomey’s Shillelagh from the host club delivered a clean sheet of race wins from the four-day series to convincingly win Class 3 though with just six boats in this division, the overall trophy was always likely to be awarded elsewhere.
A clean score for British visitor Andy Williams on Keronimo proved elusive in the end though it mattered little as far as the outcome to class zero was concerned.
The Ker 40 footer held commanding leads on the water and won all but two races in the class over the course of the series to the surprise of nobody.
Nevertheless, ten boats was a healthy turnout for the class and there was plenty of great racing for the runner-up places that were claimed by Royal Cork YC boats.
Kieran Twomey’s Gloves Off got the better of Welsh visitor Impetuous after being tied going into the final day while Conor Phelan’s Jump Juice also gained places at the end of the eight race series so the Crosshaven pair took second and third respectively.
In the Quarter Tonner event that shared a course with the Sportsboats, Sam Laidlaw maintained his command of the eight strong turnout to win comfortably after counting all race wins or second places over eleven races.
Although his former boat Kote had been his main challenger, in the end it was New Zealand Tony Hayward on Black Fun that led the runner-up places that were separated by 1.5 points from second to fourth places.
