Schull Sharks victorious at the 10th Elmo Trophy
The Four Star Pizza sponsored Elmo Trophy came to a thrilling conclusion in Dun Laoghaire harbour this weekend. In an event curtailed by the near gale force conditions at times, an easing wind from Sunday afternoon allowed PRO Jack Fahy and team to quickly fire through 20 races an hour, bringing 4 rounds of the Swiss league format to completion. After 64 races, 4 teams were still unbeaten and thus worthy semifinalists.
Sunday dawned with strong 25 knot conditions requiring a series of postponements before sailors could launch at 12pm. This gave all the teams a chance to catch their breath after fantastic night at the Elmo Dinner, a key feature of the event. A tradition has emerged in recent years of farewell songs from teams that will be in their final year at the Elmo, with the age parameters of the NOR meaning that sadly father time catches up with everyone. This year Karaoke added fuel to these performances with many young sailors showing that they are as good with a microphone in their hands as they are a with a tiller extension.
Now in its 10th year the Elmo has grown from 8 teams in its first year to a 36 team format with teams coming from all over Ireland as team racing continues to grow. To date 227 teams have competed at Elmo trophies, meaning 1362 sailors flying around the starboard S shaped courses. Who knows how many starting hoots! The fun and camaraderie at the event ashore being just as important as the racing afloat in bringing back teams year after year.
This year’s event was generously sponsored by Four Star Pizza which meant hot pizzas ashore and a fantastic set of Four Star branded sails afloat all adding to the colour an excitement of the event. As always Frank Elmes was on hand to assist with race management and award the trophy. The Elmo trophy being a fitting team racing legacy to his son Graham whom the event is named after.
At the end of the 4 rounds, the 4 teams for Semi Finals were Knotorious, Nautical Beauties, Schull Sharks and the Ilcaholics. Knotorious coming through as top seeds having knocked out defending Champions the Rutland Raiders in the previous round. A closely contested semi final between Knotorious and Ilcaholics kept Chief Umpire Liam Glynn and his team of 12 on the water umpires busy with multiple green and red flags flown. Alas, for Knotorious the Elmo Curse of the top seed before the knock outs getting eliminated early continued. In the other semifinal an all girl line up of the Nautical Beauties went down fighting to a super sharp Schull Sharks team.
So, the final saw the Schull Sharks versus the Ilcaholics. In what can only be described as a feeding frenzy on the start line, the Sharks got the early advantage in both races and then with some smart team racing tactics extended on each leg to win both races in style. It was a complete performance and this team who were also runners up in 2024 are already firm favourites for the 2026 Elmo. As for the Ilcaholics, they showed great speed and boat handling and should be very proud of how quickly they adapted to two sails and two crew in a boat, watch out for them next year!
- 1st Schull Sharks
- 2nd Ilcaholics
- 3rd Knotorious
- 4th Nautical Beauties
Plate Winner Rutland Raiders