#pyfleet – The PY fleet turned out in good numbers for yesterday's DMYC frostbite series and despite the weather had a great day's racing after all writes Hugh Sheehy. Cold water temperatures and winds gusting from 10 knots to 28 knots led to some conservative sailing, but the racing was still pretty full on.
At the end the result continued the recent strong run by the Finns, with Richard Tate leading the way home from Long and Hamilton in the IDRA14s.
Tate started with the main group down at the pin while Des Fortune's Finn timed a gust right and got a big right shift off the boat end right at the gun. Fortune's boat was clearly ahead at the first mark with Tate and Long chasing hard back in from the left. It was PUFFY under the weather mark.
Careful sailing was the order of business down the run with booms not let too far out and some spinnakers not-flying. Tate and Fortune's Finns started to pull clear on the 2nd beat before Fortune's boat retired leaving Tate to sail out to victory. A nice win, although not by a big margin, with Long only 20 seconds behind on corrected time. And although Hamilton was a full two minutes further back he only had ten seconds over Tom Murphy in the K1.
The most notable result was the one second difference between Devaney and Lordan in 5th and 6th. Tight times!
PY and Laser fleets each had 13 boats on the water, with the RS and Fireball fleets disappointed to see only 5 boats in each class. But it was a good day.
A good day! And a good day to have a good wetsuit too!
