Dublin University Sailing Club (DUSC) enjoyed a successful start to the season over the weekend in the Irish University Sailing Association Easterns. Held in Wexford and hosted by University College Dublin (UCD), the event saw Trinity collect silverware in all three categories: gold, silver and bronze.
Conditions were ideal on Saturday as racing began. The three fleets featured seven, nine and 10 teams. Each team, with three two-person boats, raced each other in a round robin competition structure, with quarter and semi-finals following the group stages.
Trinity’s first team competed in the gold fleet, one of seven colleges represented in the top tier. Represented by Mark Bolger, Ruairi Finnegan, Conor O’Beirne, Isabelle Deladiennee, Kate O’Reilly and Charlotte Bowen, they progressed through the preliminaries on Saturday to make it to the latter stages on Sunday afternoon. There they took on University College Cork’s first team (UCC) and claimed victory after a thrilling finale.
In a demonstration of DUSC’s strength in depth, two Trinity teams made it to the final of the silver fleet. After dominating the early rounds on Saturday, Trinity’s second team, represented by Caitlin Waters, Sandy Aplin, Douglas Elmes, Sophie Whelton, Maeve Lavelle and Susannah Mollen, faced the fourth team in the final. The seconds took victory to claim the bragging rights over their clubmates.
In the bronze fleet, Trinity’s fifth and sixth teams both made it to the semi-finals of the tournament. The fifths exited the tournament at this juncture, with the sixths progressing to the final on Sunday afternoon, where the squad faced the second team of Cork Institute of Technology (CIT). Aonghus Byrne, Alex Walsh, Conor Twohig, Camila Kelly, Grainne Young and Meg Tyrrell helped maintain DUSC’s pre-eminence at the top of the honours list with an impressive showing.
Yesterday’s victories show the strength of DUSC. Since claiming its first victory in 11 years at the Sailing Varsities earlier this year, it had brushed off the loss of key sailors to cement its dominance over the country’s university sailing scene. This in spite of the fact that many of the club’s boats are in varying states of dilapidation. Speaking to The University Times over email, club PRO Sophie Whelton identified “securing sponsorship for new boats, to help maintain the high standard” as the club’s main priority for the season.
