Champions at the helm

In possibly the greatest move yet to revitalise the national Helmsmans championship, the Irish Sailing Association (ISA) has changed the name of the event and announced a new sponsor for the regatta, that has its origins in the 1940s.

ISA Director of Racing and event organiser Harry Gallagher has signed up Eagle Star as event sponsors for the November regatta that will now be known as the ISA Eagle Star Champion of Champions and raced in Ireland's own 1720 club sportsboat class.

This is the seventh fundamental change to the structure of the event that seeks to find the champion sailor from all of Ireland's classes over a weekend format of round robin racing in a selected one design dinghy or keelboat.

A notice has been distributed to all classes and each of the 19 classes has been invited to submit the names of a class nominee plus one alternate this month. These will be the two highest ranked helmsmen or women from the 1999 class ranking list or from at least two major championship events (regional or national) held this year.

The remaining five `wild card` places in the event will be awarded by a panel consisting of the ISA's Director of Racing, the ISA Secretary General and John Godkin of Kinsale Yacht Club.

The four man sportsboat selected for the championship has perhaps produced the most equitable solution to date for an event that, although billed as the most prestigious title in the Irish racing calendar, has, in recent years, lacked lustre. However, it looks now - under Gallagher's guidance -that the event and the sailing champions will be given the recognition they deserve. Gallagher is credited with breathing new life into an event that, despite its shortcomings, has a past winners list that reads like a who's who of Irish sailing. In struggling to find an equitable formula the ISA have previously laid down rules that required competitors to borrow boats, use supplied boats, and in the 1970s, actually sail their own boats using a handicap system to calculate the times of a dozen different classes.

Gallagher's decision to forge a successful partnership with the Royal Cork YC last year has proved vital in allowing the event's image to be recast while retaining much of 1998s successful on-the-water format. In Dun Laoghaire, following the computation of handicap results for Dublin Bay Sailing Club's first Saturday Series this week the most successful one design yacht on the bay last season, Glenluce, sailed by Donal O'Connor, is halfway to completing the double in 1999.

In the biggest-sized cruiser racer division, Stuart Kinnear leads the IRC category from Frank Elmes Marissa IX, who in turn leads that class on ECHO handicap.

It looks likely - for the sixth year in succession - that Chris Johnston, at the tiller of Harmony, will retain his Royal Alfred Superleague title. Off Kinsale, four boats travelled from Crosshaven for the UK/McWilliam sailmakers sponsored series and it proved a successful trip for Dave Hennessy's Luas, which won overall both IRC2000 and ECHO in Class two.