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#dbsc – Last night's Tuesday night race in the Fireball DBSC Series was characterized by the fact that four of the five boats racing were subject to an evening of snakes and ladders, while race winners, Noel Butler and Glen Fisher (15061), sailing together for the second successive Tuesday, led from start to finish. On another evening of light winds (south-easterly) with low tide due at around 19:15, the question was whether going inshore to get out of the tide was the preferred option to going offshore to get slightly better wind.

Butler & Fisher went inshore initially along with Frank Miller & Grattan Donnelly (14713) after the latter pair had gone back for an OCS. They were joined by Louise McKenna and Francis Rowan (14691). Mary Chambers & Brenda McGuire (14865) and Louis Smyth & Cormac Bradley (15007) decided to take a hitch to sea first, and the latter pair were then obliged to take another hitch to sea when their first attempt to go back inshore coincided exactly with Chambers & McGuire thinking the same thing!

Having seemingly gone very low on his inshore trek, Butler then went out to the seaward side of the course and was followed by Chambers. Smyth continued inshore and at the weather mark, Butler & Fisher had stretched some distance between themselves and Chambers & McGuire who rounded second. Smyth, McKenna & Miller rounded in reasonably close company but a modest distance behind Chambers.

This order was maintained through the first triangle to the leeward mark. Up the 2nd beat, Butler & Fisher again played the inshore hand and their pursuers followed suit.............with the exception of Miller & Donnelly, who by virtue of having nothing to lose could afford to gamble. It paid off as they closed the gap on the other two half way up the beat. Butler & Fisher were building a horizon special. Smyth and McKenna criss-crossed each other all the way up the beat, and in the last 100m of the windward leg this interaction was joined by Chambers. Miller had dropped back! But in the final approach to the weather mark, a final seaward hitch by McKenna allowed her to open a gap on the other two, elevating her to 2nd place. Chambers went round 3rd, Smyth 4th and Miller 5th.

Second and third went inshore initially, but Smyth was convinced by his crew to go out into the stronger tide and was rewarded with slightly better wind as well. This allowed the three boats to close up on each other, before they diverged again with McKenna and Chambers going into the tide and Smyth inshore. As the leeward mark beckoned, with an "F" flag flying from the adjacent rib, all three were in very close company. McKenna sneaked in front of the other two and Smyth secured the inside boat slot at the leeward mark. Chambers went inshore, the other two went out to sea to varying degrees, Smyth going further. With both boats sailing on port tack and Smyth going for the pin end of the line, McKenna tacked onto starboard and from a lower position crossed and closed the windward-leeward gap between the two boats. A final tack onto port, a boat length ahead of Smyth, was enough for McKenna & Rowan to shut the door on Smyth & Bradley.