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#fireball –  Cariosa Power and Marie Barry (14854) took the last set of Frostbite Mugs to be awarded for the 2012 half of Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club's 42nd Frostbite Series which concluded yesterday, Sunday 16th December writes Cormac Bradley. Tacking immediately on the start line to go to the right-hand side of the course, they rounded the first weather mark in 2nd place to mix it with the likes of Rumball & Kinsella, Butler & Oram and Team Clancy. They sailed well throughout the race to only concede ground to these three plus Colin & Casey securing fifth place, the day's Mugs and 10th place overall in Series 1 of the 2012/13 Frostbite season. At the Series 1 prize-giving, held after racing in the warmth of the DMYC clubhouse, with food served for the attendees, Frostbite Master of Ceremonies and Principal Race Officer for the event, Olivier Proveur, teased that this report should give proper credit to this performance. By dedicating this opening paragraph of the report to the performance of Cariosa and Marie, I will hopefully avoid excommunication from the Frostbite fraternity.

Early morning sunshine gave way to grey clouds by the time the 12 boats of the Fireball fleet were getting ready to go on the water. It was a milder day than some of the Sundays we have had and although we had a short rain shower in the middle of the race, conditions were generally favourable for the business of the day. The wind was blowing from the SSE (160º) with the committee boat tucked under the West Pier and the weather mark (yet again) just to windward of the ferry gantry. The limit mark for the start/finish was to starboard of the committee boat, due probably to a lack of sea-room relative to the harbour wall. For the first couple of laps of the 5-lap race the winds were strong enough to provide marginal trapezing conditions. The right hand-side was paying and at the first weather mark there were some newcomers in the leading bunch. The afore-mentioned Power/Barry and Eamon Burke & Robert Slater (14719) were mixing it with the perennial front runners Noel Butler & Stephen Oram (15061), Kenny Rumball & Conor Kinsella (15058), Conor & James Clancy (15***), with the likes of Neil Colin & Margaret Casey (14775), Alastair Court & Gordon Syme and Frank Miller & Grattan Donnelly (14713) not very far behind. The first weather mark was as close as this correspondent got to the lead bunch as we had a "bad day at the office" with boats behind us being counted on one hand.

Rumball/Kinsella and Butler/Oram pulled away from the fleet and at times seemed to be sailing a match race all of their own so close were they to each other, particularly on the upwind legs. Downwind Rumball appeared to be that little bit faster as there was more distance between them on these legs. Team Clancy comfortably slotted into third place, while behind them there seemed to be some place changing as Colin/Casey and Power/Barry sorted out the running order. Further down the fleet one wag explained the day's proceedings as the battle of the "old guys" as Mick Creighton & Joe O'Reilly (14937) and Louis Smyth & Cormac Bradley vied with each other to stay ahead. A good third beat for the latter combination which saw places recovered was undone when approaching the weather mark on the port layline when they had to give way to two starboard tacked Lasers and the three Fireballs they had managed to overtake on the beat, leaving them again with a "one-hand count" of boats behind them.

The wind went slightly further south as the race progressed to turn the first reach into more of a run with the consequent tightening up of the second reach. However, when the rain shower came in it had the effect of reducing the wind strength and with that the requirement for trapezing. Roll-tacking techniques became more of a requirement. By now the place changing seemed to be over and the fleet went around the course in an orderly manner. The first five boats home were all easily identified at the finish but I understand that from 5th to 8th the finishers may have been overlapped as they crossed the finish line.

This concludes the first half of the 2012/13 Frostbite Series where we have managed to sail all the races on the Agenda. Indeed, we may have sailed extra races as there were two races of each of the first two Sundays of the Series. Nine races have thus been sailed in a series that saw a maximum of 17 starters on the second Sunday of the season and a smallest fleet of 12 boats yesterday. It has seen some new combinations on the water and a refurbished wooden Fireball competing as well. It also attracted a visitor from Waterford.

At the Series 1 prize-giving there was a healthy attendance of Fireballers and sailors from the other two Frostbite fleets, Lasers and the PY Class (1 x 470, 420s, Laser Vagos, RS400s, IDRAs, 1 x OK, 1 x GP14, 1 x K1).

Frostbite racing re-commences on Sunday 6^th January 2013!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS & A PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR FROM THE IRISH FIREBALL FLEET!!!!!!