Dublin Bay entries from the National Yacht Club are poised to win big in the major cruiser divisions of the 2025 Scottish Series in Tarbert this UK Bank holiday Monday (May 26th).
Brian and John Hall's J109 Something Else won the Coastal race on Sunday (May 25th), marking a sixth victory in her highly competitive class.
With only two possible races left to sail on Monday, she has secured the overall win in her class with a day to spare, as only two more races are planned. There will be two discards once eight races have been completed.
This class features the last two winners, 2023 and 2024, so having won every race to date apart from one in such a competitive environment is a significant achievement for the Dublin Bay crew, who are regulars on Loch Fyne.
Sunday's race was intense, with gusts of 38 knots putting pressure on both boats and crews. The Coastal and IRC One classes raced the same course. Something Else claimed overall victory, with her National Yacht Club clubmate John Treanor's J112e Valentina finishing in second place.
Treanor's J112e Valentina secured her third race win in the six-boat coastal fleet, comfortably leading her class going into the final race on Monday.
Brave calls and record speeds make the winning difference on windy penultimate day
Strong, gusty winds which peaked at nearly 40 knots curtailed the programme for the third day of racing at Jura Scottish Series. Safety first was the call for the One Design, Restricted Sail and 2 handed classes which stayed tied to their docks in a breezy Tabert Harbour. The IRC divisions and CYCA Classes 1 and 2 were sent on a simple – if slightly breezy – course to the south of Loch Fyne, passing round Inchmarnock Island to starboard. The lack of racing for CYCA two handed was hardly welcomed by legendary veteran yacht desinger, surveyor and prolific author, 1989 winner of the Scottish Series Trophy Ian Nicolson who at 96 years young was ready and raring to go with a double reefed mainsail at the ready!
The grouped, reaching starts set the tone for a fun, challenging day on the water. The teams which prospered were those which best anticipated the sudden, dramatic changes in the weather, whether that be the huge, chilly frontal squalls which blasted over the Kintyre peninsula to send swathes of the fleet into simultaneous broaches, or the return to lighter spells in the lee of the island.
The Scottish Series fleet here had a cracking ‘Inchmarnock Race’ on the penultimate day. Above is a shot on the start gun of the downwind start of the combined IRC Coastal and IRC 1 fleets with Jonny Treanor's J112e Valentina at the pin (yellow Gipsy buoy) and Brian Hall's J109 Something Else midline Photo: Con Murphy
It was a truly spectacular day’s round-the-buoys racing, set against the magnificent picture postcard island of Arran mountains as the perfect backdrop. With no major dramas beyond a few damaged sails, a just proportional selection of injured egos, it was single, enjoyable race which in a series which offers at least one discard, should neither hamper nor clinch a series win.
The long kite down-wind leg to Inchmarnock then saw the IRC classes taken back up towards a mark at the level of the Kintyre shore which was followed by another real white knuckle ride to turn at the laid S5 mark at Kilbride Bay on the Ardlamont peninsula. The CYCA classes sailed a more direct route to S5 before a beefy upwind to the finish off Tarbert.
Inchmarnock Race Course - The wind was from 270 degrees, 15- 30+ knots, and the course started with an 8-mile downwind spinnaker run from the start off Tarbert Harbour to the south of Inch Island. The finish line was off Tarbert Harbour, giving them a tight fetch back
Racing at the four-day regatta concludes Monday when the overall Scottish Series Trophy winners will be decided. The top award goes to the crew which, in the opinion of a panel of officials, has delivered the most outstanding performance. Primary determining factor is usually a fistful of firsts which most often means a clear class win and in that respect being in a class which has completed a bigger number of races usually trumps a perfect scoreline in a fleet which has only had a smaller programme.
In that respect another win today for Brian and John Hall’s Irish J/109 Something Else in IRC Class 1 maintains a claim to the top award if they can carry on in the same winning vein Monday. Their tactician is Irish four times Olympian Mark Mansfield who made the key decision to go left upwind on the beat up to the cardinal S2 mark.
Augmented by a fast and furious run back downwind during which they too set a new speed record for the boat – 16.2kts – they won by one minute and five seconds.
“We saw 38 knots but based on our wind instruments I am sure it was more than that. So it was hairy but we mostly managed to keep control. We had two big broaches I think. The downwind back across from S2 to S5 was a fantastic run, it was great. The first run towards the island was close as there was not much separation in the fleet and then going across the loch it was a bit of a slog but the wind was building, the boats which went left did well. And then around S2 there was the opportunity to hoist the kite again. We decided to go for it. Half the crew wanted to hoist and half didn’t but we did and we just about got away with it. So winning today was worth all the hard work and we are looking good but there is still another day to go and anything can happen.” Said Alan Daly of Something Else.
Something Else finished fourth in class to Andrew Craig’s Chimaera when their compatriots won the Scottish Series trophy in 2019.
Also adding another race victory were the young Aitken brothers Jack and Finn racing with their crew on the Impala Arcade. The 2023 overall Scottish Series winners took the CYCA Round the Island trophy for the best corrected time in the CYCA fleet. Like Something Else it was their deployment of their spinnaker which Jack Aitken considers was key. And they, too, achieved a new speed record for their Impala which they restored to immaculate condition after it seemed bound for an ignominious end in a skip somewhere, Jack Aitken enthused at the daily prizegiving “It really was absolutely mental today. We came off the start line and when everyone was quite hesitant to put up their spinnakers because of the crazy winds, but my foredeck told me to ‘go for it, stop messing around’ and we had a spectacular downwind and a brutal upwind. But altogether it was a great day. We are going well in this class. There is more of a mixture of a different boats in this fleet and so we keep just trying to get a decent result each day. We should probably have put a reef in the main today but we were ballsy getting the spinnaker up and 100% that made the winning difference. We hit a new high speed. We have never been over 10 knots in the Impala but today we got more than that today.”
Aitken brothers Jack and Finn racing with their crew on the Impala Arcade Photo: Patrick Condy
He tells of the restoration of Arcade, “The boat when we got it was only really good for the skip but we work in the industry and figured we could make a nice job of it. James Miller helped us paint it and so credit to him. We might go and race in Strangford Lough where there is now a good fleet of Impalas and they keep asking us to come over, so we are considering it.”
In IRC Coastal Johnny Treanor’s Irish J/122 ValenTina is unbeaten, going three in a row with a comfortable cushion of 13 minutes over Ian and Graham Thomson’s Swan 40 Sloop John T. Ewan Mackay’s Dehler 36 Diatas Air was a long way ahead today to win CYCA 1 and so they and the Dunnet family’s Swan 36 Valhalla of Ashton are now tied on 11 points in the quest for the class title. Alan Mcleod’s Samurai J triumphed in IRC Class 2 today but the Ovington Boats team on the half tonner Head Hunter still lead the division by six points.
And while the One Design classes did not race today a final day of race wins might see Eddie Batchelor’s Tsunami 2, outstanding leader in the 18 boats Hunter 707 class might also put themselves in contention for the top award.
Andi Robertson
