There was a southerly breeze and lumpy sea with low skies and mist, but the Red Fleet – under race officer Richard Leonard – got the best of the racing for races five and six of the Royal Cork Yacht Club's Autumn League today (Monday 19th October), writes Claire Bateman. A selection of pictures by Bob Bateman over the fold.
Despite the (aforesaid) sometimes miserable weather, there were 51 boats on this course each engaged in competition with those nearest to them, with a discard to be applied after to-day’s racing.
Class Zero IRC looks like this as a result: Dave Dwyer’s Marinerscove is on 9 points, Tim Costello’s Tiamat is second on 9.5 points as is Eamon Rohan’s Blondie 1V also on 9.5 points. In Class IRC One Anthony O’Leary’s Antix Beag leads with Ian Nagle’s Jelly Baby second and Donal O’Leary’s D-Tox Third. In Class Two IRC Ted Crosbie’s No Excuse leads Desmond/Deasy/Ivers Bad Company on 22 points with Kieran O’Brien’s Magnet on equal points.
Speaking of Class Two, there's a team from the University of Limerick led by Katie Tingle and Darragh O’Connor who are going to represent the UL at the Student World Yachting Cup in Marseilles next weekend and they have been working up throughout the league on Alpaca.
There is also the defending Student World Champions, Cork Institute of Technology, from last year’s event working up throughout the League and this team is made up in its entirety of Royal Cork sailors. They've been working up on Endeavour and racing on a quarter tonner called ASAP, with some of the members sailing on other boats throughout the fleet.
Best of luck to both teams, as they all leave for France next Friday with the competition proper starting on Sunday.
The Green Fleet under Race Officer David O’Brien didn’t fare quite so well. This was because of the spring tides and a southerly breeze particularly affecting race six of the event. A heavy shower came in during race five and the wind died away afer the rain and with the flooding spring tide and the slack wind some of the boats did not even make it over the starting line and the race was shortened at the EF mark. Michael Murphy of Class Four was prompted to observe that perhaps if during the spring tides the sailing areas were reversed for the red and green fleets this would not have happened as the large boats would not have had the same difficulty making it against the flooding spring tide.
Racing continues next Sunday with the first race of each day counting for SCORA.
Results from all fifteen divisions are available on the Club Results section under Cruisers here.
A full photo report the League will be published in Afloat's Christmas
Annual in early December.
