The final day of the 2021/22 Frostbites, sponsored by Viking Marine and hosted by Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club was bathed in sunshine from start to finish. Across Ireland and the UK we were bathed in sunshine (I was in N Ireland on the Saturday) and given that at one stage we went four Sundays without a race, to have a sunshine day for the Series conclusion was just reward for everyone’s perseverance. From early in the week the forecast had suggested we would have a genteel finish to proceedings and while the strength and direction of the wind for the first race of the day was NOT according to forecast, it didn’t prohibit starting of the race. Albeit we flew a postponement for a short period in case there had been any stragglers who had forgotten to change their clocks and watches overnight.

The wind was of the order of 5/6 knots as the committee boat took up station in the main part of the harbour, but it was much further northwards than had been forecast. Expecting a large fleet for the last day and with the weather we had, a triangular course was set for the first race with a start area set inside the transit from the gybe mark to the leeward mark – triangles make the recording a slightly easier task. The weather mark was set just off the red lighthouse at the entrance to the harbour with the gybe located towards the western breakwater and the leeward mark about 100m off the entrance to the marina and three laps were set.

A modest fleet of 44 boats started the first race made up of PY (21), ILCA 7s (2), ILCA 4s (5) and ILCA 6s (16). All three starts got away cleanly at the first time of asking with a large number of all the starts going left initially. Frostbites Director, Neil Colin and Marjo Moonen (FB 14775) were first to show at the weather mark with their reddish spinnaker and they proceed to pull away from the rest of this fleet for the duration of this race. Behind them the rest of the Fireballs were clustered but also in the mix, on the water was the Finn, the IDRA, the RS 400 and, of course, the Aeros.

Colin’s elapsed time for the race was 33:28 and 1:16 ahead of the second Fireball of Frank Miller & Neil Cramer (14713) who had 5 seconds on Cariosa Power & Marie Barry (FB 14854) on the water. Three minutes and thirty-one seconds later, the IDRA of Pierre Long and his son finished. Yet, on corrected time, Colin & Moonen dropped to 7^th on handicap, losing out to the IDRA (Long), the Finn (Des Fortune), the K1 (Tom Murphy), the Aero 7 (Noel Butler) the Wayfarer (Monica Schaeffer) and the GP14 (David Mulvin & Ronan Beirne).

Conor O’Leary took the ILCA 7s, while in the ILCA 4s who share the start with the 7s, the finishing order was Ava Ennis, Max Cantwell, Emily Cantwell, Zoe Hall and Dylan de Vreeze.

In the ILCA 6s Sean Craig led most of the way round to take another gun, followed home by Michael Norman, Conor Galligan, Conor Clancy and Brain Carroll.

By the second beat of this race, the wind has made a substantial shift to the east but given the space between the leaders and tailenders in the three fleets changing the weather mark during the race is well nigh on impossible. So, while another committee boat member finished the mid to late fleets, the Racer Officer reset the course, moving the weather mark closer to the obelisk on the upper deck of the East Pier, moving the gybe mark to a position close to the green lighthouse, leaving the leeward mark where it was. A three-lap Olympic course was then set for the last race of the Series.

Again, all three starts got away at the first time of asking but in the ILCAs one of the younger competitors fell foul of one of the doyens of the Class and was obliged to take a penalty on the water for his efforts.

In the PY Class, Colin and Moonen dominated proceedings on the water, breaking out their spinnaker first and sailing away from the rest of the fleet.  In the lighter winds of the mid-afternoon, the all-lady combination of Cariosa Power & Marie Barry were proving difficult to catch but weren’t able to lay a finger on Colin & Moonen, coming in just shy of two minutes after the leaders but 1:17 ahead of Miller & Cramer. On corrected time the three Fireballs finished 2^nd, 10^th and 14^th respectively, with Colin giving 1:10 to the 2.4 of Patrick Hassett. Behind the Fireball there was the K1 of Tom Murphy, the Aero 7 of Noel Butler, the Wayfarer of Monica Schaeffer and the GP14 of Mulvin & Beirne. Special mention must be made of Noel Butler who finished his first day back with two 4^th places after undergoing major (major) surgery in early February.

O’Leary scored a second ace in the ILCA 7s, the Cantwells Max and Emily led the ILCA 4s home followed by Zoe Hall, Dylan de Vreeze and Ava Ennis. And, in the ILCA 6s, Conor Clancy took the win from two ladies, Shirley Gilmore and Judy O’Beirne with the former winning by a “nose” with Sean Craig and Mark Henry closing out the top five. 

As this is the concluding report of the 2021/22 Frostbites, there is a large number of results to declare, so they are in tabular form for ease of reading.

 

	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th
Race 1 PY Class	Pierre Long & Son IDRA	Des Fortune Finn	Tom Murphy K1	Noel Butler Aero 7	Monica Schaeffer & Crew; Wayfarer
ILCA 7s	Conor O’Leary	Margaret Casey
ILCA 6s	Sean Craig	Michael Norman	Conor Galligan	Conor Clancy	Brian Carroll
ILCA 4s	Ava Ennis	Max Cantwell	Emily Cantwell	Zoe Hall	Dylan de Vreeze
Race 2 PY Class	Patrick Hassett 2.4m	Neil Colin & Marjo Moonen; FB	Tom Murphy K1	Noel Butler Aero 7	Monica Schaeffer & Crew; Wayfarer
ILCA 7s	Conor O’Leary	Margaret Casey
ILCA 6s	Conor Clancy	Shirley Gilmore	Judy O’Beirne	Sean Craig	Mark Henry
ILCA 4s	Max Cantwell	Emily Cantwell	Zoe Hall	Dylan de Vreeze	Ava Ennis
Series 2 Overall	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th
PY Fleet 50 boats	Brendan Foley Aero 7 20pts	Sarah Dwyer Aero 5 50.5pts	Paul Phelan Aero 7 58.5pts	David Mulvin & Ronan Beirne GP14 69pts	Stephen Oram Aero 7 70pts
ILCA 7s 16 boats	Conrad Vandlik 22pts	Gavan Murphy 28pts	Chris Arrowsmith 32pts	Conor O’Leary 38pts	Gary O’Hare 38pts
ILCA 6s 44 boats	Sean Craig 15pts	Conor Clancy 34pts	Conor Galligan 39pts	Shirley Gilmore 56pts	Marco Sorgassi 59pts
ILCA 4s 22 boats	Daniel O’Connor 24pts	Ava Ennis 28pts	Dylan de Vreeze 36pts	Zoe Hall 47pts	Donal Walsh 48pts
Aero 7s 11 boats	Brendan Foley 14pts	Paul Phelan 25pts	Stephen Oram 32.5pts	Mark Gavin 44pts	Damien Dion 46pts
Fireballs 16 boats	Frank Miller & Ed Butler; 21pts	Barry McCartin & Conor Kinsella; 36pts	Louise McKenna & Hermine O’Keeffe; 38pts	Alistair Court & Gordon Syme; 42pts	Neil Colin & Marjo Moonen; 45pts
Frostbite Series Overall	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th
PY Fleet 55 boats	Brendan Foley 45pts	Mark Gavin 110pts	Stephen Oram 113.5pts	Frank Miller & Ed Butler; 121pts	Sarah Dwyer 122.5pts
ILCA 7s 18 boats	Gavan Murphy 38pts	Chris Arrowsmith 48pts	Conrad Vandlik 50pts	Gary O’Hare 70pts	Conor O’Leary 90pts
ILCA 6s 51 boats	Conor Clancy 74pts	Brendan Hughes 101pts	Conor Galligan 121pts	Judy O’Beirne 137pts	Sean Flanagan 137pts
ILCA 4s 30 boats	Daniel O’Connor 48pts	Ava Ennis 55pts	Donal Walsh 69pts	Emily Cantwell 74pts	Dylan de Vreeze 81pts
Aero 7s 11 boats	Brendan Foley 31pts	Mark Gavin 56pts	Stephen Oram 57.5pts	Paul Phelan 62pts	Noel Butler 66pts
Fireballs 16 boats	Frank Miller & Ed Butler; 31pts	Louise McKenna & Hermine O’Keefe; 66pts	Neil Colin & Marjo Moonen; 68pts	Alistair Court & Gordon Syme; 81pts	Owen Sinnott & Grattan Donnelly; 92pts

 

As I was involved in hearing a protest that overlapped with the final prize-giving I am unable to give you the details of who got what, so I am assuming that prizes were awarded on the basis of the table above. I think there is an overall Frostbites prize but I would be wrong to speculate as to how it may have been awarded this year. I can confirm that Ian O’Meara of Viking Marine was present to hand over the prizes under the MC control of Frostbites Director Neil Colin and that Frank Guilfoyle deputised for current Commodore Ian Cutliffe who was unavailable due to illness.

As Race Officer for the Series and correspondent for the Frostbites, may I take this opportunity to thank all the volunteers who give so freely of their time to run the racing. To try and name each of them would be dangerous, in that somebody could get left out, but for each Sunday there are at least 16 people who take to the water to provide the racing – 5 ribs with two people apiece and a committee boat of six. A seventeenth person helps with the computing of the results. A further three people help with providing soup and the bar in the DMYC after racing and the DMYC Boathouse crew makes sure everything is ready on a Sunday morning.

And to all those who were asked to sample my beats before racing began, my thanks as Race Officer.

Best wishes to all for your summer sailing.