Mills v Ker v the rest of the world

It could be argued that despite fielding what on paper were the strongest teams with the most new boats in the last two Rolex Commodores’ Cups, the Irish were robbed of victory on both occasions. With this year’s event looming at the end of the month, will it be third time lucky for our friends from the Emerald Isle? This time Ireland is fielding two teams. Team Boat Name Type Rating Skipper IRELAND WHITE 1 ANTIX ELLE Ker 39 Anthony O'Leary 2 JUMP JUICE Ker 37 1.098 Conor & Denise Phelen 3 VOODOO CHILE Ker 32 1.051 Eamon Crosbie IRELAND GREEN 1 TIAMAT Mills 43 Tim Costello 2 BLONDIE IV Mills (King) 40 1.121 Eamon Rohan 3 NO NAKED FLAMES Mills (Slim) 37 1.074 Andrew Allen These effectively break down into what people are calling the ‘Mills’ and ‘Ker’ teams after their designers. While all the boats in the Mills team are 2008 launches, only Antix Elle is new in the Ker team, the first of semi-custom production Ker 39s (of which to date three have been built). This may have something to do with Jason Ker having been tied up with his AC design work at Team Shosholoza over the last couple of years. The boat is owned by perennial Commodores’ Cup competitor Colm Barrington, but who this year is not competing, busy as he is with his IRCed TP52, and so the boat has been chartered to Anthony O’Leary. So having come so close on the last two occasions are the Irish doing anything differently this year? “The fundamental thing we’ve done this time - we will only discover if it works - is that we have two boats that are tried and tested in that they are boats that been around for a couple of years in Voodoo and Jump Juice,” says Anthony O’Leary, who two years ago campaigned the Corby 35 Antix. “And on the other side we have the Ker 39, which we've sailed for three months - yes, you’d like