On Sunday past, 26th February, a full quota of races was completed for the Viking Marine sponsored Frostbites with all starts being clean, and some decidedly conservative. The overall fleet size was just under the fifty mark with the PY Fleet and the ILCA 6s vying for largest fleet with the ILCAs winners by one, twenty-one versus twenty with the ILCA 7s also having a good turnout with eight boats. The ILCA 4s seem to have abandoned the Frostbites, as for the third weekend in a row, we had none of them on the water.
The PY Fleet had an extremely healthy turnout of eleven Fireballs, almost the full quota of the boats registered for the Series.
Race Officer, Brendan Duffy, located himself just east of the marina entrance and only a short upwind distance off the eastern breakwater with an easterly breeze of 10 – 15 knots, which held up for the duration of the afternoon. That left the weather mark just inshore of the obelisk on the upper deck of the East Pier and a gybe mark just inside the end of the East Pier and a leeward mark situated between the committee boat and the marina entrance – maybe just a little bit squashed. Fortunately, it wasn’t a day when there was going to be multiple capsizes at the leeward mark. An Olympic three-lapper was set for the first and second races.
For all three fleets the preferred option was to work the left-hand side of the beat before taking a long port tack across the top of the course to get into the weather mark. In R1 the Fireballs were the first to show at the weather mark with the blue spinnaker of Alastair Court & Gordon Syme (15167) leading the way. They were followed, in close company by Frank Cassidy & John Hudson (14934), Jack McNaughton & Jamie Malcolm (14101) and Louise McKenna & Hermine O’Keeffe (15016). Conspicuous by their absence from the leading bunch were Frank Miller & Ed Butler (14915) and Neil Colin & Margaret Casey (14775) who were off the pace despite excessive enthusiasm at the start – Yes, they were OCS!
Court & Syme led the fleet all the way round finishing in a time of 22:51. In total four Fireballs finished ahead of the leading Aero on the water, Noel Butler, who had a finish time of 26:15, but when the calculations were completed ashore, Butler and Court were tied on corrected time, 24:00, and the other Fireballs finished behind Butler and Roy van Maanen (Aero). Thus, on corrected time the finishing order was Court, Butler, Roy van Maanen, Cassidy and Sarah Dwyer (Aero). The Fireballs enjoyed three-sail reaches on both triangles and the downwind leg of the sausage was also entertaining.
The overall leader in the ILCA 6s was absent on the day but with a healthy lead over the rest of the fleet, Sean Craig could afford to miss two races. In his absence, a new race winner came to the fore, Pascal Boret, but behind him the pecking order had a ring of familiarity to it – Darren Griffin, Conor Clancy, Brendan Hughes, Peter Williams and Shirley Gilmore.
In the ILCA 7s, the overall leader going into Sunday was Conor Byrne, but his absence saw a change in the overall lead in this Class. Theo Lyttle took the first race win with Gavan Murphy second, Chris Arrowsmith third, Gary O’Hare fourth and Sean Bowden fifth. For Lyttle, this was a first step in taking the overall lead of the Class away from Byrne.
For the second race, the RO tweaked the course to push the gybe mark further away from the committee boat and moved the leeward mark further westwards into the entrance of the marina. For the first triangle this worked with the spinnaker classes being able to three-sail the top reach, admittedly under some pressure as evidenced by flogging mains. However, for the second triangle the wind had gone northwards which meant that the top reach became a tight two-sailer! Again, the Fireballs were to the fore on the water and again, they lost out to the Aeros when the numbers were crunched. Court led the fleet around the course and Cassidy & Hudson also had a particularly good race, holding second until Miller & Butler engaged with them on the final approach to the leeward mark and the resultant “shenanigans” saw Cassidy manoeuvred away from the leeward mark and capsizing before recovering to finish down the pecking order. (I didn’t see the detail on the water!!).
In handicap terms Aeros took first and third, Butler and van Maanen respectively, with the Fireball of Court sandwiched between them. The IDRA 14 of Pierre Long took fourth and another Aero, Stephen Oram finished fifth.
In the ILCA 7s, the same five boats occupied the first five places, but in a revised order. Gary O’Hare led them home, followed by Sewan Bowden, Theo Lyttle, Gavan Murphy and Chris Arrowsmith.
In the ILCA 6s there was a different winner as well with Darren Griffin taking the honours with Conor Clancy second and Peter Williams third. Thereafter, the order was Owen Laverty, David Williams with Shirley Gilmore claiming 6th again.
In daily Frostbite Mug terms, absentee winners would have been Jack McNaughton and Jamie Malcolm (PY), Grattan Donnelly & Marjo (PY) and Owen Laverty (ILCA 6/R2). However, there was a presentation to Shirley Gilmore for her 6th place in the ILCA 6 for Race 1.
| Viking Marine Frostbites – Series 2; Overall. | ||||||
| PY Fleet | ILCA 7s | ILCA 6s | ILCA 4s | Fireballs | Aeros | |
| 1st | Noel Butler
(20) |
Theo Lyttle
(40) |
Sean Craig
(27) |
Kate Flood
(11) |
Miller & Butler
(27) |
Butler
(17) |
| 2nd | Stephen Oram
(46) |
Conor Byrne
(44) |
Darren Griffin (46) | Zita Tempany
(17) |
McKenna & O’Keefe
(36)
|
Oram
(33) |
| 3rd | Sarah Dwyer
(77) |
Gavan Murphy
(52) |
Conor Clancy (58) |
Sergei Vasilev
(19) |
Court & Syme (37) | Dwyer
(42) |
| 4th | Stuart Harris
(79) |
Chris Arrowsmith
(57) |
David Cahill
(77) |
Grace Gavin
(26) |
Paul & Morris ter Horst
(65) |
Harris
(45) |
| 5th | Frank Miller & Ed Butler
(82) |
Sean Bowden
(58) |
John O’Driscoll
(88) |
Sam Legge
(32) |
Colin & Casey
(68) |
Van Maanen
(45) |
| 1st Lady | Sarah Dwyer | – | Shirley Gilmore | Kate Flood | Mc Kenna & O’Keeffe | Dwyer |