Last week’s event in our club was one of the most successful events undertaken in the past two years. The National Mermaid Championships 2017 went off without a hitch. 10 races were planned and 10 races plus I crews race were executed on time through the week. The competition in excellent sailing conditions went down to the wire. We congratulate our own Sam Shiels and his crew Con Bissett and Eoin Boylan in 189 on their retention of the their title as Mermaid Champions and winning the handsome “Lady” trophy. We also congratulate Paul Browne and his crew of Brendan Dunne and Jennifer Shiels in 146 for winning the Designers Cup and also Conor and Martin O’Toole in 179 for their third place in the Daphne Cup. Well done to Frankie Brown Jr for winning a very competitive crews race on the Tuesday. Definitely a very successful week all round for Skerries sailors.
(Photos courtesy of Michael O’Connor)
26 boats from 6 clubs – Foynes YC, National YC, Royal Irish YC, Clontarf Y&BC, Rush SC and Skerries SC – competed making this one of the largest single class sailing events held in Irish waters this year. Competitors were full of praise for the organisation and management of both on and off the water activities. Hugh organisation and planning in advance was undertaken, combined with excellent execution over the week to make this a successful event. Thanks also to our main Sponsors – Bacharach and Sail Alarms – and the many Skerries businesses listed in the brochure who sponsored prizes on the various nights.
Special praise must go to Brian McNally, SSC Mermaid class captain, and his team including Susan Roundtree, Valerie Cronin and Ross Galbraith. Brian and his team were planning this event over a year ago and their hard work paid off – even the weather played its part. Our experienced Race officers of Liam Dineen, Micheline Shiels and Helen Ryan executed flawlessly producing some great races that enabled the competitions to go right down to the last day. Well done. Thanks to our many Rescue/Mark laying support team members throughout the week – Colm Collins, Jim Boylan, Neil Cramer, Tom Adams, Laurence Breen, Jim Dowling, Paul Hick, David Cooke, Liam O’Callaghan, Richie Ferguson, Eugene Osbourne, Andrew Thornton, Olive Parker, Noel Lappin, and the many Junior drivers, the safety officers Stan Pyke, Ronnie Horan and Liam McMahon and our punt men Conor, Ben and Sean who also helped on shore. Our thanks to Michael O’Connor for his brilliant photos which even featured in Afloat – see http://afloat.ie/sail/sailing-classes/mermaids/item/36818-two-past-champions. Apologies if I left out others.
Off the water Kathryn Collins and her team with Donal Lynam our Club Manager did a great job on catering both early morning, mid-afternoon and then with the various functions in the evening. Thanks to Colm Collins for sponsoring the coffee. Well done to Con Bissett and Maria Browne on securing the many special prizes for the various nights and Carol Maxwell for maintaining our event Facebook page. And also to our race Office team of Graine Mc Grotty, Susan Roundtree, Valerie Cronin, Monica Alcock and Siobhan Boylan for keeping us in good order.
Apologies if I missed anybody. It was truly a great undertaking by a great many people resulting in a great event. Thank you to one and all.
Commodore.