Entries exceeds 50 boat target at O'Leary Insurance Group Sovereign's Cup 2021

Boats rounding Sovereign's Island mark © David Brannigan / Oceansport

During the past weekend the number of entries for the O'Leary Insurance Group Sovereign's Cup exceeded the target of 50 boats. The entry List is available here.

Regatta Director Anthony O'Neill and his organising committee have closed the online entry system until further notice. The government's Covid-19 Pandemic restrictions and guidelines will now be closely monitored to determine if more boats may be accommodated in the event. A waiting list has now been set-up and any boat interested should email Anthony O'Neill at stating Boat Name, Sail No., Rating, Owners Name & Club.

On reviewing the entry list one can see that the calibre of boats taking part has not been affected by the lower number of entrants necessitated by Covid-19. In the Coastal Division, Conor Doyle's Xp50 Freya, the biggest boat in the fleet, along with Tom Roche's Salona 45 Meridian, both from KYC are potential winners. They are sure to have shaken off any winter rustiness and honed their boat-handling skills having completed the demanding Dun Laoghaire to Race earlier in June. Other boats that will have benefitted from the D2D race will be George Sisk's Xp44 WOW, Denis and Annamarie Murphy's Grand Soleil 40 Nieulargo, and the Burke/Lemass/Rigley team's Beneteau First 40 Prima Forte. These bigger boats will be joined by two other smaller boats, also competing in the D2D which are Johnny Treanor's Grand Soleil JustTina and David Riome/Mark Leonards Valfreya from KYC.

In IRC 0 Conor Phelan's Ker 37 Jump Juice and Niall Dowling's Ker 40+ Arabella are sure to feature strongly. In IRC 1 the J109's are set to repeat their 2019 'Battle of Kinsale' with Richard Colwell/John Murphy's Outrajeous, Simon Knowles' Indian and the Shanahan Family's Ruth. These along with Paul and Deirdre Tingle's X-34 Alpaca will be expected to do well as like the bigger boats in the Coastal Division they are also competing in the D2D race.

In IRC 2 no less than eight half Tonners will be participating. George Radley's Cortegada will be making the trip over to Kinsale from Cobh to take on the seven entries from Dublin Bay. Among those will be the 2019 IRC 2 winner Nigel Biggs in Checkmate XVIII and 2019 Irish half Ton Cup winners Michael Wright and Rick DeNeve in Mata.

The White Sail Divisions will be 'book-ended' by KYC's James Matthews' new acquisition Fiscala, a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 49, and the biggest boat in White Sail. In W.S IRC2 will be the smallest boat Shilleagh, a Blazer 23 owned by Kinsale Yacht Club Ex-Commodore and former Sovereign's Cup winner John Twomey.

All in all, there should be intriguing racing in the battles not just for the individual class titles but for The Sovereign's Cup, the Portcullis Trophy and the Michelle Dunn Prix d'Elegance Trophy which are the perpetual trophies awarded for the best overall performing boat in IRC, the best overall performance in Echo and the best presented boat at the event.

For additional information please visit www.sovereignscup.com.