For Thursday's Inter Island race series Race Officer Neil Prendeville sent the fleets on a long course around many of the scenic marks in Roaring Water Bay writes Claire Bateman. The arrival of the forecasted rain late in the afternoon resulted in the westerly wind dropping off to a gentle breeze, necessitating the shortening of the Class Two and White Sail One courses after five hours of sailing. In class zero Kieran Twomey's "Gloves Off" showed a clean pair of heels to the rest of the fleet, by comfortably winning both IRC and Echo with"Crackerjack" and "Infinity" in second and third. In class one, Donal O'Leary continued his run of good results in winning both divisions with Simon Coveney's "Wavetrain" second in IRC and Derry Good's "Exhale" second in Echo.
The Royal Cork dominance continued in Class Two where the Desmond, Ivers, Deasy trio in "Bad Company" captured both trophies, with Conor Ronan's "Ruthless" second in IRC and John Mc Gowan's"Mackey G" filling second place in Echo. In Class Three IRC David Kenefick's Quarter Tonner,"Tiger" is proving to beunbeatable, while Paul Murray in "Full Pelt" had a slender ten second advantage in Echo .In Class Four, Richard Hanley in "Saoirse" led his family crew to victory inboth handicap divisions ahead of "Shelly D" in IRC and "Witchcraft" in Echo.In the White Sail One class Frank Whelan added another win to his recentstring of victories with Don McCarthy's "VSOP" in second and Julian Dockery's "Flying Fox" in third, while in White Sail Two it was a cleansweep for local Schull boats with Frank Murphy's "Dreamcatcher" taking thetrophy ahead of Paul and David Kiely sailing their Norfolk Smuggler "Cu NaMara" and the Crowley family in "La Perle Noire".
