Portsmouth Olympic Harbour in Kingston Ontario, Canada was the venue for the 2005 Laser 2 world championships, 56 boats from Europe, USA, Mexico and Canada too part.

Saturday 20th August, With all the boats through measurement just about, everyone took to the water for a practice race. After six general recalls and a black flag the fleet finally sailed. Unfortunately we fell victim to the black flag (just getting it out of our system early)

Day 1. 20 - 25kts, of wind thanks to the thermals (sea-breeze). Race 1 got off after 3 general recalls, the wind steadily rising through-out the race, with a few boats starting to struggle at the back of the fleet, we finished 5th. 2nd race was much of the same finishing 4th. The third race was abandoned due to guests of 35kts, happy with our performance we looked forward to improving on our results.

Day 2. Unfortunately things didn’t go so smoothly in race 3. we picked up two 720 degree penalty turns at the first windward mark leaving us in 42nd after the first lap. A good recovery got us back to 18th by the finish. Race 4 saw a return to form with a fifth. Race 5 started in light conditions. Unfortunately most of the fleet were caught out by the wind shifts, we finished 13th in a race later described as a lottery anything could have happened. Race 6 started after 3 general recalls and a Z flag which gave you a 20% loading on your finishing position if you were CAUGHT over the line. With a strong pin end bias we managed to fight off 53 other boats to win the start. 3 boats, Team GBR, URL and CAN, broke away at the front of the fleet, the finishing order was 1.CAN 2. IRL and 3 GBR.

Day 3. 6 hours on the water and no races due to lack of wind. Yvette fine tuned the art of trapezing upside down and made it into the front page of the Kingston newspaper. A long day was followed by a night of antics on the “Magic Bus” (TEAM USA) involving big ball pool, killer darts and something about Franks left knee (don’t ask).

Day 4. saw the birth of a new sport created by Marty and one of the Canadian leopard skin brigade (Canada’s team colours was leopard skin). The sport was joisting, with boats as horses, trapeze wires as saddles and spinney poles as weapons. After a two hour wait for joisting and wind the race committee got two races off. We picked up an 8th and a 5th, leaving us in fifth overall with only two races left.

Day 5. 28 degrees Celsius ten knots of wind the ideal conditions. Marty was on a solo mission to keep beside the “Bikini Babes” unfortunately they were all finishing around the 30’s, so race 9 saw us finish 38th, but Marty still had a huge smile. In race 10 boats were match racing each other in order to hold onto their overall positions. We finished up 17th but held onto our fifth position.

Marty, Yvette and Team Ireland would like to thank all our sponsors, family, friends and Courtown Sailing Club for all the practical help and support we received. We would also like to thank our “coach” Ian Deacon and “campaign manager” Brian O’Leary who travelled with us and helped the race committee on rescue and committee boat.