Howth duo take champions title

In a series cut almost in half by light airs Tom Fitzpatrick and David McHugh became the ISA's champion of champions for the second time in three years after a six-race Church and General-sponsored Helmsman's championships on home waters at Howth.

Racing in a fleet of borrowed Squib keelboats for a £1,000 purse, the 23 invited national champions faced 30 degree windshifts and a patchy, south-easterly breeze that frustrated crews to the extent that Laser and Multihull representatives retired. Fitzpatrick (22) and McHugh (22), the Laser 2 class representatives, were overnight leaders after the second of two races on Saturday had been abandoned (when what remained of the breeze disappeared) but lost their advantage in the first race yesterday morning when they finished 11th, which allowed Squib champions Robert Stanley and Fergus O'Kelly, also of Howth YC, to enjoy a 1.5 point margin. Another top-five result in the penultimate race gave Stanley and O'Kelly a 5 3/4 point cushion going in to the final round. But Fitzpatrick rounded the weather mark of the last race in fourth position and after a good downwind running leg, moved into third place, sufficient to take the title given that Stanley, for the first time in the event, had rounded in the teens. By the final beat Fitzpatrick and McHugh had worked their way into second position, a deficit too deep for Stanley who was forced to discard 14 points after an otherwise consistent series (two wins).

Meanwhile, a tactical slip by Fitzpatrick and McHugh, yards from the finish line allowed two boats to creep through but the Laser 2 duo prevailed to beat their clubmates by 1.5 nett points.