On the weekend of November 5, Dublin University Sailing Club (DUSC) hosted the second Irish University Sailing Association (IUSA) event of the season. The IUSA Easterns, held in Wexford Harbour Boat and Tennis Club, followed on from the IUSA Southerns held last month in Carrick-on-Shannon. The location, which hadn’t hosted an IUSA event since Varsities of 2014, provided an ample sailing area while the clubhouse proved an ideal vantage point for spectators to view the racing.
Saturday began slowly with the wind consistently blowing well in excess of 25 knots, meaning racing was postponed until mid-morning. Once the conditions improved teams got on the water with early leaders in the gold and silver fleets becoming clear. Both UCC 1 and 2 performed strongly throughout the day in the gold fleet to take the top two spots, while TCD 4 and 5 represented the best of the Trinity teams winning their first four races each in the silver fleet.
However, rig trouble in the bronze fleet boats meant racing had to be cut short for the fleet on Saturday afternoon. This meant that ultimately a full series was unable to be completed for the bronze teams. Regardless of this Trinity performed well and TCD 6 came away with a one hundred per cent record for races sailed on the day, the only bronze fleet team who sailed to do so.
Sunday began much like Saturday morning, but with even stronger winds making sailing impossible. Unlike the previous day, however, the strong winds showed no sign of abating and shortly after midday the unfortunate decision was made to abandon the day’s racing to allow the various colleges to begin their journeys home.
The overall results from the first day of racing stood for the series, meaning UCC 1 took the gold fleet and TCD 4 and 5 jointly won the silver fleet, given both teams had won an equal number of races the previous day. The IUSA Easterns rounds off IUSA events for 2016, with the IUSA Westerns and Varsities to be hosted by NUI Galway and UCD respectively in early 2017. Silver Fleet winners TCD 4 were comprised of Stephen Craig, Zoe Boles, Conor Totterdell, Meg Tyrell, convert Conor O’Beirne, and Julia Deladiennee while TCD 5 was made up of Thomas Deckers, Isabelle Deladienee, Kevin Martyn, Caoimhe Tyndall, Rory McStay, and Jack Connolly.
In place of the formal university team racing events between now and the New Year, Trinity will begin entering teams in the Dublin Bay winter and spring keelboat racing and begin training for the national Student Yachting World Cup (SYWOC) qualifiers, at which CIT finished fourth in France this week.
