Day one lead for Danish

A report from the Nationals Cup Regional Final in Kinsale

Kinsale Yacht Club is playing host to the ISAF Nations Cup 2009 Regional Final Europe (Open), from the October 22-25th 2008. This is the 5th addition of the ISAF Nations Cup with the Grand Final being held in Porto Alegre Brazil from March 23-28th 2009.

The ISAF Nations Cup is a global competition to find the world's top match racing nation and to develop match racing infrastructure around the world. Nine teams are completing in this regional final including, Denmark, Slovenia, Poland, Netherlands, Finland, Germany, Estonia, Great Britain and Ireland. This International match race event will be competed in the Irish Sailing Association Sailfleet J/80 sportsboats.

As the ancient ruins of Charles Fort overlooked the harbour, the fleet set out in glorious autumnal sunshine. Conditions were near perfect with a stiff westerly breeze of between 15-20knots allowed international race officer Alan Crosbie get the flights off and spinnakers were used for the all the races.



Leaders after day one of racing is Denmark (Ranked 11th), Mads Elber and his crew are competing in their first match race event under the Danish flag. Mads has competed in Grade 2 & 3 events, winning the 2008 Autumn Cup this year. It was noticeable that the Danes dominated through-out the day, of 6 races sailed, they only lost to Finland (ranked 47). Keeping tight to each of their competitors the Danes dominated the starting box and the teams found it very difficult to sail out from under the Danes control.

John Sheehy from the Royal St. George flying the flag for Ireland suffered an OCS in flight 4 match 4 against Solvenia. Ireland requested redress from the international jury being headed up by Sally Burnett and the result of the jury was that the race should be re-sailed tomorrow.

Results Day-1
(Country Wins-Losses)
Denmark 5-1
Poland 3-2
Finland 3-2
Estonia 4-3
Germany 3-3
Slovenia 2-3
Netherlands 2-3
Ireland 2-3 (one race to be re-sailed)
Great Britain 1-5