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Traditional northern hospitality was strongly in evidence when the Irish Fireball fleet made their debut appearance at Strangford Lough’s East Down Yacht Club.

Situated a short distance round the coastline from Killyleagh, EDYC played host to 16 Fireballs, a similar number of Wayfarers, sailing their National Championships, and a group of Drascombe Luggers who were having a cruise in company.

For the Fireball Class the turnout was disappointing! We had hoped that a number of Scottish boats would make the regatta but they pulled out late Friday and a number of other entries also had to pull out at short notice. For some unknown reason the Ulsters don’t enjoy the same support as the other events which is very surprising because we always enjoy a superb hospitality when we go north. As with last year in Lough Neagh, the club put on live music on the Saturday night, which combined with an excellent barbecue and home made desserts meant that there was every incentive to stay on at the club for the evening.

Pic: Vivienne Beck

On the water, the wind and individual performances were of the Jekyll and Hyde variety, with certain, almost predictable exceptions. One combination got back to winning ways; another combination found that sailing in more tangible breeze presented a different challenge to the last Fireball outing when light winds dominated the entire weekend. One recent World Championship entrant had, by their standards a nightmare weekend and had to chalk the regatta down to a character-building exercise. Local Fireballers, Brian O’Neill, with Owen Sinnett crewing and father and daughter John & Karen Orr must have enjoyed the company of the visitors and they both had a superb 5^th race when the former led the race for a period followed closely by his clubmates. They slipped down the order but managed to post a single digit result.  For those who had gone to Barbados for the aforementioned Worlds, this was a first opportunity to wet their boats since they emerged from the UK-bound container last Wednesday morning (16^th).

Four races were sailed on Saturday and the wins were shared equally by Noel Butler/Shane McCarthy and Damien Bracken/Brian O’Hara. For the Clontarf-burgeed combination, hearing a winning gun is something they have been missing for a while so they were in very good form at the close of the racing as their last race win saw them top the leaderboard. Butler/McCarthy had their work cut out for them in all the races and indeed opened with a fourth in Race 1. However, order was restored when their count of the next three races was 1-1-2, though they didn’t lead these from the front.

Louis Smyth/Cormac Bradley had a good day on the water as well when a 5-9-3-3 sequence saw them in fourth place overall, three points adrift of Simon McGrotty/Ruairi Grimes of Skerries who had a 2-2-4-6 score.

Race Officer Roy Edwards set four races on Saturday, sailed in good trapezing breezes using a trapezoid course to keep the Fireballs and Wayfarers apart.  Exciting spinnaker reaches and long downwind legs were indicative of the racing on Saturday, sailed in sunny but slightly cool conditions.

Louise McKenna/Hermine O’Keefe, who had finished on the podium in Killaloe and have been doing well in DBSC with new-found boatspeed, found these conditions less to their liking – in terms of results anyway, posting results outside the top ten.

Five boats made up the silver fleet and here Stephen Oram and new crew Joan Mulloy put their stamp on the fleet on Saturday and had a comfortable margin over the rest.

By the time the fleet got ashore they knew that they had had a challenging day on the water – not excessive, but enough to know the sinews had been stretched a bit!

Sunday saw a complete change in the weather! The sun was still out, but the wind had disappeared! And so the early start was postponed while the fleet waited for the breeze to fill in. The Drascombe Luggers disappeared northwards under motor! Out of Killyleagh, six or seven Formula Ones enjoyed an early race before they too had to wait for the wind Gods!

Race 5 was sailed under light conditions with none of the crews getting out on trapeze, or if they did, it was only momentarily. Butler/McCarthy banged in another first, followed home by John Chambers/Francis Rowan who had been slightly off the pace the day before. Chambers, a debutant in Fireballs was enormously enthusiastic about the racing of the previous day, so must have been delighted with a second place. McKenna/O’Keefe started the Jekyll & Hyde comparison with a 3^rd, while Neil Colin/Margaret Casey scored a 4^th to start moving up the rankings overall. Bracken/O’Hara contributed to the Jekyll & Hyde syndrome by posting a 14^th, while Owen Laverty & Ed Butler posted the first of two DNFs. Smyth/Bradley also suffered with the first of two tenth places.

Race 6 saw an improvement in the conditions but the wind still wasn’t as healthy as the day before. McGrotty/Grimes took the race by the scruff of the neck to win, leading all the way round, with Chambers/Rowan 2^nd and Colin/Casey 3^rd. Bracken/O’Hara pulled off a Houdini act to recover to 6^th and save their position on the podium. Possibly because they knew they were safe, Butler/McCarthy posted their worst result of the weekend, a 5^th, which was discarded, to win the event overall. McGrotty/Grimes’ last race win saw them finish behind Bracken/O’Hara overall and 1pt ahead of Chambers/Rowan who took 4^th.

In the Silver fleet, Oram/Mulloy also had a good Sunday seeing their lead stretch to 7pts after discard and a 8^th place overall. McKenna/O’Keefe finished second in the Silver fleet, with the home clubs’ Brian O’Neill and Owen Sinnett in third.

Challenging conditions were married with superb hospitality from EDYC and at the prize-giving Gordon Jess was commended for his work in the planning of this three-class event weekend. EDYC have maintained the tradition of northern hospitality enjoyed by the Fireball Class!