Following the postponement of Calves Week's scheduled Fastnet race, Thursday's racing took place, with the start line off the mouth of Schull harbour in West Cork in a building westerly breeze which eventually reached 12/14 knots. All the fleets raced through the Castle Island and Long Island sounds, with the larger fleets making multiple circuits.
In class 1 IRC Paul O Higgins continued his domination of the fleet, with a victory which ensures that “Rockabill”1V has won the class overall, before any discard, while Conor Doyle’s “Freya “took second on the day. In Echo it was a second consecutive win for Gabby Hogan’s “Growler” ahead of Andrew Craig’s “Chimaera”.
In class 2 “Bad Company” sailed a great race to win both divisions ahead of Fergus Coughlan’s “Jedi “in IRC and Kevin Doyle’s “Jamaro” from Cobh S.C in Echo.
In Class 3 the “Muskateer”crew from Cobh S.C had another excellent outing, to win in both IRC and Echo from David Buckley’s “Boojum” and Diarmuid Dineen’s “Growler”.
In class 4 Echo it was a first win of the series for Kevin Murray and his local crew on “Dovita of Colla” while the Murphy family on “Shelly D” had a first in IRC and second in Echo.
In the White sail class Sean O Riordan's “Y Dream” sailed to victory in IRC ahead of Denis Murphy’s “Nieulargo”,while in Echo it was local Schull boat “Quinsea” with Barry Quinlan on the helm who took the trophy ahead of Tom O Mahoney’s “Loch Greine, while in White sail 2 the honours went to Don Buckley’s “Zeezwan” from Paul Taylors “Sea Psalm”.
With much fresher weather forecasted for today's Fastnet race, a contingency plan has been put in place which may see only the larger boats attempting to round the rock, while the remaining fleets enjoy the relative comfort of an inshore course.
