Marconi Cup at Glandore Harbour Yacht Club

Last Saturday at Glandore the annual Marconi Cup Junior Team Challenge event took place hosted by Glandore Harbour Yacht Club.

The Marconi cup is a West Cork event for the combined clubs west of Galley Head and the Glandore, Baltimore, Schull, Crookhaven and Bantry usually participate. The Marconi cup was inaugurated in 2001 by Crookhaven Sailing Club and has been an important summer club event each year since, with the venue rotating each year between the Clubs.

The Marconi Cup is awarded based on the over results of the two events, the morning event is a Relay Race where each club race one boat around a fixed course, there are three laps to the course with a crew change between each lap. This event was positioned right under the village and a grandstand view was afforded to the many spectators who were cheering their teams on from the shore. There were seven teams entered, the Baltimore Blue team won, Schull were second, and Baltimore Red were third. This level of entry saw 84 competitors in action during the two events.

Following the relay race, the committee boat reset the course configuration and began the afternoon Team-racing schedule where each team sails off against the other. The teams had lunch provided on the water by the Glandore club between events. The first race started at 12.20hrs and by 16.15hrs all 21 races had been completed. Ideally races should take about 10 to 12 minutes, as the wind was light the early races were quite slow, race officer Cormac O'Carroll, reconfigured the course to shorten slightly and with a little more wind the balance of the races were sailed off really smartly.

Following the sail off there were two ties, for winning position Baltimore Red and Schull both finished with five points, with Baltimore awarded first place based on the result of the race between Baltimore Red and Schull, similarly Crookhaven1 and crookhaven 2 both finished with two points Crookhaven 2 getting 5th and Crookhaven 1getting sixth based on the result of the race between the two teams.

Overall Results:

Relay Race:

1st Baltimore Blue Team
Mark Bolger & Stephen McCarthy, Niamh Connolly & Rachel Burke, David Whitaker & Isabel Whelan
2nd Schull Team
Tomas O'Sullivan & Orla O'Donovan, Meg O'Connell & Ellen O'Regan, Gleb Montchik & Katie Monihan
3rd Baltimore Red Team
Derbhail Cotter & Éilis O'Reilly, Felix Millar & Patrick Geary, Harry Whitaker & Anna McCarthy

Team Race event:

1st Baltimore Red Team
Emma Geary & Eva Donworth, Jack Hogan & Tom Bushe, Jack Bushe & Brian Stokes
2nd Schull team
Jay Jay Stacey & Orla O'Donovan, Connor Miller & Ellen O'Regan, Oísín O'Driscoll & Katie Monihan
3rd Baltimore Blue Team
Diarmuid Collins & Michael Clune, Ross Johnson & Cliodhna Connolly, Lucy Bolger & Suzy O'Neill

The overall Marconi Cup was awarded based on the combined results from the two competitions. As sailing and results were tight, we had a tie on four points between three teams, in accordance with Notice of Race point 5.4, the tie was broken in favour of the team scoring highest in the Team Racing section of the competition. The Marconi Cup was awarded to Baltimore Sailing Club Red Team. The Sporting Achievement Trophy was awarded to Schull Harbour Sailing Club.