Following the celebrations at the opening ceremony on Monday evening, it was a far cry from Quail and Cork Dry Gin as the sixty-three boat fleet took to the water in Schull Harbour for race one in Calves Week.
The morning started bright and clear with the 10/12kt westerly wind allowing OD Alan Crosbie to start all the fleets off the eastern shore of the inner harbour with a dramatic short dash to the windward mark off the opposite shore. From there to the turning mark at the harbour mouth there was little to separate the competitors, however, the long beat up Long Island channel certainly separated the men from the boys, with the six fleets splitting on to a variety of courses at Goat Island.
Leslie Parnell's Black Velvet from Dublin Bay Photo: Bob Bateman
A series of short rain squalls struck the spinnaker fleets as they crossed Long Island Bay, causing anxious moments as the clocks read 30kts, particularly for the crew of Musketeer from Cobh who had to act swiftly to recover one of their crew, who had an unexpected dip in the choppy water of the bay, however, they continued incredibly to finish second in IRC 3.
In class one Frank Whelan's Eleuthera had a first in both IRC and Echo ahead of Conor Phelan's Jump Juice, while in class two it was a clean sweep for the crew of Bad Company.
In class three it was a productive day for Dan Donovan's Seconds Count from Dungarvan S.C winning both divisions, while class four IRC went to local boat Shelly D sailed by the Murphy family with Rob O Reilys Bonjour from Monkstown S.C taking the Echo trophy.
Aidan Heffernan's Dehler, Indulgence Photo: Bob Bateman
In the White Sail division, it was a victory for local boats with Aidan Heffernan's Indulgence winning both divisions while Michael Hearn's Summerfly came home first in Echo.
At a packed presentation on main street Schull, the consensus among the various crew was that it was a superb day's racing dampened only by some strange ECHO results that appeared to bring the system into question with skippers, particularly from the Royal Cork, advocating the adoption of their current Sailwave Scoring Software for future events.
Full results are here
