#dbsc – Greeted with a foggy Dublin Bay yesterday morning and a gentle breeze due to a huge high pressure sitting over Ireland, team INSS were one of the first boats to head out to the DBSC Spring Chicken race course in a lovely 10-12 knots of breeze writes Kenneth Rumball. Our crew were keen to get to grips with the intricacies of handling the mast head spinnaker on our race prepared 1720 prior to the start of racing, giving us the best possible opportunity to win the day's race.
A great race course was set with a start line just off the harbour mouth and a 'Z' style course incorporating a laid weather mark, yellow mark as gybe mark, another laid gybe mark and then the pin end of the line as the leeward which we had to round to starboard. The 1720 fleet as always started in the third start with a biased committee boat end. Team INSS gave a lesson on how to control the fleet on a committee boat start and won the highly competitive start.
Up the first beat Merlin pulled ahead due to her dominant speed with Third Time Lucky also having a speed edge. Lady A from the RIYC rounded in third place with Team INSS rounding in fourth. A fumbled hoist saw Team INSS catching a few mackerel n anticipation for lunch, however the tem didn't lose too much and was soon catching the rest of the fleet.
On approach to the yellow mark there were many discussion on whether or not the 1720s could hold their kite on the tight reach, the small Sonata 'Asterix' had showed the fleet it can be done. All the 1720s apart from Merlin took the risk and tried to hold the kites which was to be a mistake. Merlin used the advantage and increased their lead as the remainder of the fleet struggled to douse kites on the fetch.
Team INSS also benefitted from some slick spinnaker work and was up to second place by the second gybe mark.
Despite their best efforts TEAM INSS could not manage to hold off Lady A even though at the finish there was barely two seconds between the hooters as the two 1720s cross the line.
Back ashore in the INSS centre we had a busy day with a full First Aid course for dinghy instructors as well as an ISA Dinghy Instructor Pre-Entry Assessment run by ISA Regional Development Officer Ciaran Murphy where all 7 candidates passed.
The afternoon saw our dinghy sailors out sailing in the DMYC Frostbites.
