Antix retains her title

A report from the BMW Irish Cruiser Racer Championship

Three Cork IRC victories, two titles retained and local success in the BMW Corinthian Cup were the outstanding features of the overall results of the BMW Cruiser Nationals run by Howth Yacht Club for the Irish Cruiser Racing Association, with the 7-race series finishing last Sunday in glorious sunshine but in tricky northerly breezes.

Royal Cork boats Antix and Tiger retained their Division 0 and 3 Irish titles respectively but in totally different ways. Anthony O’Leary’s Antix was pushed so hard all the way by Richard Fildes’ Impetuous that the Welsh Corby 37’s double win on the last day set up the intriguing scenario of a tie after discards. With four wins to Fildes’ three, O’Leary made it by the tightest of margins.

The opposite was the case in Division 3 where the Keneficks’ dominance on Tiger was underlined by two more wins on the third day to seal an emphatic victory by the biggest margin (9 points) of any fleet. The pre-event favourites saw off the early challenge of Tim Goodbody’s White Mischief.

Only two points separating the top three showed how competitive Division 1 was on IRC with another Royal Cork entry Jelly Baby (Nagle & O’Malley) emerging on top, with a final race win the difference in edging out Xtravagance (Colin Byrne) from RIYC.

After the first day, it was pretty straightforward for Checkmate XV, Nigel Biggs’ entry from the Royal St. George, and three more race wins was enough to finish with a 7.5 points gap over second-placed Dux (Anthony Gore-Grimes of HYC).

The only perfect scoreline in the Championships came in Division 4 where Team Toy Yot from Howth had a clean sweep on IRC while consistency earned Malahide visitor Goyave (Camier/Fitzpatrick) second overall.

Howth boats were very much to the fore in the non-spinnaker classes competing for the BMW Corinthian Cup, winning the A and B fleets. On the Rox (C&J Boyle) wrapped up the A division with two wins to finish six points ahead of Bite the Bullet (Colm Bermingham) while, in the B fleet, Harry Byrne’s Alphida stayed in the top four throughout and also recorded three wins to beat off the challenge of Joe Carton’s Voyager.