The Race Management Team from DMYC and the weather combined to get another two races completed in the Viking Marine sponsored Series 2 Frostbites in Dun Laoghaire yesterday. Winds were in the range 7 – 15 knots from the South-East and Race Officer Ian Cutliffe set the fleet a three-lap Olympic course to get proceedings underway. With the wind in this direction, he was able to set a beat across the longest dimension of the harbour and set the weather mark off the bandstand on the East Pier. The gybe mark was inside the end of the East Pier and the leeward mark was in the elbow of the western breakwater and the West Pier.
A delayed departure by the Marine Institute’s brand-new research vessel, “Tom Crean” necessitated the flying of a postponement flag and some of the PY fleet mistook the dropping of this flag for the Warning signal, meaning that they had a one-minute jump on the balance of the fleet who knew their timings.
This led to an unusual sight, a Finn mixing it with the Fireballs at the windward mark at the first rounding and a very different leader in the Fireball fleet on the water. Colin Breen (14683) must have really enjoyed the first race because he only relinquished the lead on the water halfway down the first reach of the second triangle. In the pre-race period, ILCA 6-er Sean Craig said it was a very good beat as he hadn’t worked out which side was going to pay.
The 21-boat PY fleet seemed to concur as they spread themselves across the width of the course. Apart from Breen and the Finn, the usual suspects were to be found at the front of this fleet, Messrs Butler, Oram, van Maanen in the Aeros and Colin & Casey, Power & Barry and McKenna & O’Keeffe in the Fireballs.
By the third windward mark, Breen was still leading on the water but the two lady crews were closing in on him, Cariosa Power & Marie Barry (14854) with a slicker spinnaker hoist overtook Breen who then had to watch Louise McKenna & Hermine O’Keeffe (15016) close on him as well.
Power & Barry took the win on the water in 34:32 and the leading Aeros were Stephen Oram (7) in 38:21 and Noel Butler (6) in 39:40. However, on corrected time Oram took the win in 36:01 with Butler and Power/Barry tied at 36:16. Two other boats had finishing times within the 36th minute, McKenna & O’Keeffe at 36:43 and Roy van Maanen at 36:53.
Seven ILCAs enjoyed reasonably close racing on the water and were led home by Theo Lyttle, with Niall Cowman and Sean Bowden occupying the podium places. The ILCA 4s, sharing the start line with the 7s saw a 1-2-3 of Kate Flood, Patrick Foley and Grace Gavin.
The ILCA 6s however, were subject to a General Recall for their start before their 26-boat fleet got away. Despite having got out to the race area early, Sean Craig hadn’t seemed to work the beat out to his satisfaction, as at the windward mark for the first time he was down in 5th or 6th place. His situation improved as the race went on and he came home in third, behind Darren Griffin and Pascal Boret, but ahead of Conor Clancy and Peter Williams.
For Race 2, a two-lap windward/leeward mark was set with an offset mark at the windward mark and a leeward gate. It seems this simple course configuration bamboozled quite a few people – people who should know better and others who simply played follow my leader. One ILCA passed within touching distance of the spreader mark on both occasions……. on the wrong side. Ditto, a high placed Aero!! Later, I learned that boats were leaving the gate marks to port!
In the PY fleet normal order was restored on the water with Fireballs and Aeros to the fore. While the Fireballs were able to do well on the water, the computation of numbers left them behind the Aeros. However, the theoretical racing was very tight with six boats finishing within a minute – between 20:04 and 20:46 on corrected time; Butler (Aero), Damien Dion (Aero), Sarah Dwyer (Aero), Stephen Oram (Aero), Neil Colin & Margaret Casey (FB 14775) and Stuart Harris (Aero). Louise McKenna led home a trio of lady helms – Louise (9th), Cariosa Power (10th) and Ciara Mulvey (GP 14 11111) with Peter Murphy (11th).
The ILCA 7s and 4s transgressed significantly with respect to the spreader mark so there are lots of NCSs on this fleet’s scorecard, but in terms of finishing positions the 1-2-3 for the full rig was Sean Bowden, Robbie Walker and Roy McKay, while none of the ILCA 4s sailed the correct course.
The ILCA 6s were much better behaved in the second race, both in terms of starting and mark-rounding. They enjoyed some tight racing at the head of the fleet and there were enough wise heads at the front to take them around the spreader mark. This adherence was diluted further down the pecking order. Conor Clancy improved on his score from Race 1 by jumping two places to second, while Sean Craig finished third again. Ahead of Clancy was Brian Carroll, while behind Craig was Hugh Delap and Peter Williams. The tightness of racing between Clancy and Craig is further reflected by the fact that Clancy now leads Craig by a single point in overall terms, the tightest margin across the four fleets.