UCD SAILING NEWS 2024

09/10/2024

UCD 1st place overall in the first Irish University Sailing Association (IUSA)

UCD Sailing has kicked off the 2024/25 season with a big win, with UCD 1 finishing 1st place overall in the first Irish University Sailing Association (IUSA) event of the year hosted by Carlingford Sailing Club.

21 teams from 8 Irish universities headed to Carlingford to start the year, with UCD sending 4 teams and 28 sailors. UCD 1 and 2 competed in Gold fleet, with UCD 3 and 4 racing in Silver and Bronze fleet respectively. This event was the first of three qualifying competitions to decide the seedings going into the IUSA Intervarsity's in March. The format for the event was a round robin, where each team races all the other teams in their fleet.
On the Saturday morning, due to a building forecast, the race committee were determined to get racing underway quickly and were able to get 18 boats and the 3 fleets out on the water. The first two rounds of racing were completed in 20 knots of breeze, with gusts of 25 knots coming down the racecourse. However, as the breeze continued to build and competitors began to struggle, the decision was made to send the sailors ashore while the winds were still manageable. 

On Sunday, the wind was lighter, blowing 14-22 knots all day, but the drop in wind was made up for by heavy rain all day. Trinity College and Carlingford Sailing Club volunteers braved the rain and laid the racecourse early, getting racing started at the earliest opportunity. UCD 1 raced all the teams in Gold fleet, winning against teams from Trinity, UCC and UCD. Their final race was against Trinity 1, a closely fought affair. Trinity led for much of the race but two red flags on the last upwind allowed UCD to come through to a 2, 3, 4 on the finish line. This meant that UCD 1 finished the event with 6/6 wins and 1st place overall. 

Congratulations to the entire team - Jacques Murphy (Captain), Kate O’Connor, Emily Riordan, Emma Lynch, Archie Daly and Leonie Judge.

UCD 2 finished with a win, remaining in Gold fleet for the next event. UCD 3 finished fifth in silver fleet with 2 wins and UCD 4 finished in Second place in bronze fleet. 

UCD Sailing Club has continued to demonstrate their commitment to promote women at the helm, with 6 male and 6 female helms at the event. UCD provided 3 of the 4 women helms sailing in Gold fleet, with one being on the 1sts and two on the 2nds. 

A huge thank you goes to Trinity College and Carlingford Sailing Club, who organised and ran this event. UCD Sailing's attention now turns to the Irish Team Racing Nationals and the next IUSA event, with both being in the next month. Some photos below courtesy of Leonie Judge, Treasurer UCD SC.

    
 

UCD Inter Varsity Champions 2024

This year UCD took the helm and organised the 2024 sailing Inter-varsities. After months of training, 165 students from nine colleges travelled to Schull to participate in the biggest university sailing event of the year.

Although it was a long day on the water with extremely challenging conditions, the UCD 1st team raced brilliantly on Saturday to make their way to the final. Despite loosing their first race against Trinity, the UCD 1st team came back to win all of their remaining races, becoming the 2024 Inter-varsity champions.

UCD are now ranked as the best sailing university in Ireland, paving the way for international events.

Congratulations to all the sailors for a fantastic event, we’re already looking forward to another great year of sailing.