The previous day had seen the Irish team put in some good results and reign victorious in the protest room, which together had pulled them back into contention for a podium finish. Starting the final day of racing the Irish lay 3rd some distance behind the defending team, Solent, in 2nd but only one point ahead of the English team from Southampton. With the possibility of finishing behind both English teams adding fuel to the fire, the Irish hit the water with a point to prove.
In the first race the Cork boat made a perfect start right off the pin but as the wind slowly swung around to the right they could only manage to round the top mark in a tight group just outside the top five. A cleverly placed gybe threw the Irish back into the top five with the inside track coming into the leeward mark. A poor rounding at the mark however cancelled out their gains and they found themselves back in the midfleet fight. Another strong downwind before the end made up for some of their earlier mistakes and helped them sneak just past the English team to finish one place ahead of them in 5th.
As the second race started the wind was starting to drop below 10 knots. This made life difficult in the Irish boat with their old sails making it hard to keep pace with some of the newer boats. With this in mind most people would have ruled them out when they came round the first mark amongst the last three boats. The Irish team however were determined not to let their third place slip and in the downwind threw in gybe after gybe to keep themselves in the strongest breeze and sail right through the fleet to catch up on the leading pack. After rounding the bottom mark they immediately tacked out to the left side of the beat to get to some new pressure, which it seemed that only the Norwegians and themselves had seen. The Irish sailed around the boats ahead and rounded the next mark in fourth. They went on to complete this amazing comeback by leap frogging the French on the final beat to finish in 3rd place, four ahead of Team England and make it mathematically impossible to lose their 3rd place overall before the last race.
Unfortunately the two English teams had miscalculated and still thought Ireland a threat. The two decided to aggressively match race the Irish before the start and in the face of this English tag team were forced to bail out of their pin end start and duck the fleet as they started on port. In the now very light conditions the Irish found it hard to get back into the race and after sealing third place with second too far off, they took their foot off the pedal. Eventually they came round to finish somewhere midfleet, interestingly their only finish outside the top six over a very consistent week.
A delighted Irish team came ashore to receive third position overall. Despite their pre-event goal of winning the championship, third position was an incredible feat given the amount of setbacks the team had to endure with equipment. It never feels right to blame your boat but with daily breakages and the charter company agreeing that the boat should be sunk, there are times when it is justified.
The Team would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have helped get them here, namely their sponsors; Cork Institute of Technology, Bank of Ireland, Avis and Euro Car Parks. They of course would all like to thank there family and friends who have given their support to the team leading up to the event and all throughout the week.
And sure... This. is. it.
