Harte beat drives Commercial eight on

Rowing/ National Championships: There had been debate about the exact composition of the crew, and the eight men sat together in a boat for the first time only two hours before the race. But when they raced they flew.

Commercial won the senior eights title at the National Championships at the National Rowing Centre in Cork on Saturday with a stunning performance, covering the 2,000 metres in a remarkable five minutes 27 seconds.

"We never rated below 39 (strokes per minute)," said the experienced Albert Maher afterwards. Even with a strong tailwind, none of the other crews could live with the pace laid down by Scottish strokeman Danny Harte, and once Commercial, with their engine of four powerful scullers in the middle of the boat, moved away at 250 metres there was only going to be one winner.

NUIG, who otherwise had a wonderful regatta, found this race was gone by the time they pulled out all the stops.

Maher was winning his 18th national senior title, putting him in the top four of all time, but for Seán Jacob it was a particularly satisfying victory. The gentle giant moves into the record books as the first winner of all the senior sculling titles (single, double and quadruple) and the senior eight at the same National Championships.

He achieved it by mastering Maher, his doubles partner, in the final of the single scull. "From the 1,000-metre mark it was over," Maher admitted. "I think he's too good a sculler not to have won a senior singles title," he said.

Jacob also had the distinction of becoming part of the first married couple to have won the senior singles titles - Siobhán Jacob won the women's title in 2002. The two will represent the Dublin Sculling Ladder in the upcoming Guinness Sculling Challenge in Belfast.

Maher, too, is soon to form a remarkable union - this day week he marries Susan O'Brien, who rowed at number six in the UCD boat that comfortably won the women's senior eight.

Two fours drawn from the winning eight had to give way to Neptune in the senior coxless fours, however. Helen Walshe, part of last year's UCD winning eight, closed out this season as expected by winning the intermediate title.

As on the first day of the championships, Galway clubs reeled off a succession of wins through the day. NUIG took the men's senior and novice coxed fours and annexed the intermediate eights title when they won a thrilling battle with Trinity over the last 300 metres.

Tribesmen took the women's junior eight, and St Joseph's were outstanding in their win in the men's junior eight. The tailwind helped produce some very fast times, but five minutes 30 seconds gives a measure of how good these young men are.

Orla Hayes also covered most of the last 500 metres virtually on her own in the women's junior single, the Skibbereen woman giving a graphic demonstration of how far ahead of the rest she has travelled.

Neptune's Paul O'Brien, already a giant of 6ft 4in at only 16, won the men's junior title - but after being pushed hard by Offaly's Rory O'Connor in the middle stages of the race.

"He came out of nowhere," O'Brien admitted, adding he had been watching out for the challenge of defending champion Stephen O'Sullivan of Skibbereen, who finished third.

Some of the loudest cheering of the day came for the win of Cork Boat Club's young crew of Gillian Fleming and Sile Murphy in the junior coxless pair.

This crew, Hayes, and a quadruple that includes O'Brien, Commercial's Ger Ward and Conor Quirke and Liam Molloy of Coláiste Iognáid will be part of Ireland's team for the Coupe de la Jeunesse in Italy in a fortnight.

The women of the University of Limerick drew a close to a satisfying regatta for them with a win in the novice eights.