Thursdays were good too with an average of about 15 boats out each week. The George boats were well to the fore throughout, especially SinBin (Barry O'Neill – pictured above) and Mephisto (Tim Bourke – pictured below). Another new development on the Bay this year was an extra few weeks racing in October, courtesy of the NYC Autumn series… more bang for your hard-earned euro!
The social element is always a bit tricky with Sunday as our main race-day but this was helped by monthly Super Sundays, with big BBQs after sailing and class-provided race day prizes. We also had the first ever SB3 Ladies Race in June, a well-supported race using normal DBSC Tuesday night racing. Fortunately we had a superb evening of glorious sunshine for a testing course set by Carmel and co. in the hut. George ladies Steph Bourke and Judy O'Beirne took 2nd and 3rd places.
On the Friday of the same week, eight Dun Laoghaire SB3s went up the River Liffey straight after the Thursday night race for an extremely enjoyable Royal Alfred Liffey Challenge, sponsored by Dublin Port Company.
George boats took 1st and 3rd with Sean Craig's Squalo Bianco just about sneaking a win and Graham Elmes/Aidan O'Connell 3rd in Trade Credit Brokers.
The Volvo DLR, as everybody now knows, was an awesome few days, nowhere more so than on the SB3 course, where 44 boats tore into each other and also onshore where the craic was mighty. The George kindly provided a free keg of beer and SB3 Ireland provided two more for a super SB3 social night in the club-room. George boats showed well in the racing with Sean Craig coming 2nd overall just losing on tiebreak with Kiwi Ben Duncan, John Sheehy/Marty O'Leary were 4th and Elmes/O'Connell 6th.
Another really notable performance by a club boat was Andrew Algeo and Ben Cooke who finished 2nd overall with Flutter in the Southern Championships at Baltimore.
Nineteen RStGYC SB3s (yes, 19!) went down to Crosshaven for the Nationals in September. The total turnout here was 47 boats and we claimed 2nd (Craig), 9th (Algeo) and 10th (John O'Driscoll) overall. The racing was incredibly tight as the light to medium conditions meant very little separation in the fleet, plus of course these truly one-design boats all go almost exactly the same speed!
Late October saw the final event at the George's 'home-from-home' Lough Derg Yacht Club in Dromineer. Another big contingent of club boats travelled to this Midlands Championships but alas none finished up 'in the chocolates'. On the subject of travelling, our highest mileage was definitely recorded by Peter Lee and Marty Cuppage in Seriously Bonkers (pictured above) who also took in the British Championships in June.
Next year's schedule is taking shape nicely and it is our club that will lead off by hosting the 2010 East Coast Championships on April 24/25. Over the coming months our members will also be planning for mouth-watering overseas events like the Euro-Cup in Brittany in late May and the Worlds in July on glorious Lake Garda. Also worth mentioning is that the George intends to pitch a bid for the 2013 European Championships and the very positive experience for all at the Nationals in 2008 (turnout 80 boats) should greatly help our case.
The George continues to be the national epicentre of the incredible growth of this exciting one-design class. The sailors really appreciate the support of the club.
