Cover Image by Mark Kelly (the wateredge)
The first Grand League regatta of the Irish racing calendar is here. Skibbereen Regatta is an interesting one in the sense of quite how early in the season it comes – the universities are busy with exams, while few clubs will be targeting peak speed for early April, with a long road yet to the National Championships in July. The women’s senior coxed four also is not a championship category, so a high-achieving crew will need to be pointed to race at the intermediate level to get their hands on those coveted pots.
University College Dublin/Old Collegians Boat Club
The only entry in the category, this UCD/OCBC composite should have other clubs eyeing up the category for later in the season wincing. Sarah Daly leads the boat in stroke – joining UCD after an impressive junior career with Commercial RC, she went on to win three Corcoran Cups in the Colours Boat Race vs DULBC, back-to-back wins in the intermediate eight at the National Championships 2021 and 2022, and a further plethora of triumphs in the big and small boats various regattas around the Irish and English circuits. Claire Martin is back in the blue and saffron after last kitting out in 2022 for College, but she won the intermediate eight in 2021 alongside Daly at Champs 2021, after starting as a novice in 2018. Naomi Fearon is Ladies’ Club President of UCD, and is the solo OCBC representative in this boat. With a career stretching back to novicing with UCD in 2007, she racked up titles at the University and National Championships in the eights between 2007 and 2012, took a break from the sport until 2017 and returned to the Islandbridge clubs circuit in 2017. Ailise O’Sullivan rounds out the crew in bow as its youngest member. She won the J18 coxless quad at the 2024 National Championships with Skibbereen RC, and has represented Ireland at the Home International Regatta in 2022 and 2024.
Prediction
The UCD/OC crew will automatically take the category win as the only entry, but what they’ll really be targeting is a big performance against the other Division One coxed fours entered – Shannon ‘A’ and ‘B’, UCDBC, and Cork BC. This crew should be confident of a divisional win, with their combined experience permitting them to lay down a solid early-season marker.
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