Lough Erne Yacht Club

News > SPORTS AWARD GALA DINNER 5 MAR

Created: 1/22/2010 3:21:11 PM, Updated: 3/31/2010 4:28:35 PM

Michael McCaldin , 2009 Irish National J/24 Championship and crew Michael Whaley, Joey Kelly, Bertie Forsythe and Edward Beattie, nominated for the Fermanagh Senior Sports Team Award 2009 are invited to the Gala Dinner.


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Final note - this time round the senior team award went to a GAA Ladies team. The Murder Picture got a nice dinner and a souvenier salver.
Keith Collen, Secretary of the Fermanagh Sports Advisory Committee wrote on 8 February 2009 (received 12 February) about the Annual Sports Awards Presentations at a Gala Dinner set for 7.30 on Friday 5 March in the Killyhevlin Hotel. The Murder Picture team's nomination has been accepted for consideration in the category of Senior Sports Team of The Year 2009

The winner will be announced at the dinner. The letter enclosed 4 complementary meals with additional meals available at £18.50, to be booked by Wednesday 24 February. Please contact Michael Clarke, Admiral 6862-1436.

Background posted earlier
Lough Erne Yacht Club members were delighted when Michael McCaldin helming Murder Picture became Irish National J/24 Champion for a second time in this decade, by winning the 2009 championship on Lough Ree over the weekend, 12 and 13 September 2009. This 30th Irish National J/24 Championship involved 90 sailors in 18 boats from 6 clubs.

This same crew, Michael McCaldin, Michael Whaley, Joey Kelly, Bertie Forsythe and Edward Beattie, also won the National Championship back in 2000, when it happened also to be hosted by Lough Ree Yacht Club, on a Shannon lake north of Athlone with smaller but similar waters to Lough Erne.

Among other J/24s and crew there from Lough Erne YC in 2009 was another past National Champion, Diarmuid O’Donovan, winner of the 2003 National Championship. His team’s achievement at that time merited the 2003 Fermanagh Senior Sports Team Award – in the particular circumstances of that year’s crop of Fermanagh sporting achievements.

Joking at the 2009 prize giving, Michael McCaldin said his trim team were under the 400 Kg combined crew weight limit, but their ages totalled over 300 years. So these twice Irish National J/24 Champions are also Ireland’s most mature J/24 crew. Their ages range from 49 to 72 and they include three grandfathers.

Three took up sailing as schoolboys in Enniskillen. The other two came to sailing originally from Omagh, among the many good sailors recruited to LEYC by the late Roy Howard. All have many years experience in Fermanagh’s oldest organised sport, racing in a fleet of sailing boats. Each is himself a racing helmsman - in historic 103-year-old Fairy keelboats, GP14 dinghies and Yeoman keelboats.

Together a J/24 crew for a quarter century they are long the Erne’s top racing crew yet also well experienced in World and European J/24 Championships. They have won many Irish regional J/24 Championships, and are often top contenders at National Championships.

Racing a J/24 demands exacting team work. The boats by rule are the same, so speed and success depends only on the crew. They work swift and neatly together in matters of sail handling and nimble movement of crew weight for best boat trim and speed. They share strategy, tactics and decisions, judging wind and wave and position relative to other boats. In timed race starts it is vital to be crossing the line right on time, at speed, in the best direction and clear of other boats trying to do the same. Team success in this sport is most satisfying.

The Murder Picture crew is well worthy of consideration by Fermanagh Sports Advisory Committee for the Senior Sports Team of the Year award 2009.

Michael Clarke
Past President and Councillor of Honour, J/24 Association of Ireland