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#fireball – Six Fireballs came out for this evening's DBSC Series 3 race but only five of them made it to the start line by the scheduled time writes Cormac Bradley. 

Initially all five boats went off the line on starboard tack, but Louise McKenna & Hermine O'Keeffe (14691) took a modest hike inshore before returning to sail a parallel course to the rest of us. With the tide going out it seemed like the right thing to do – to stay left. Reading from right to left across the beat it was McKenna/O'Keeffe, Smyth & Bradley (15007), Miller & Donnelly (14713), Chambers & McGuire (14865) and Butler & Butler (Hugh) (15061).

Miller & Donnelly initially shot out from underneath the lee of Smyth & Bradley. Ditto Chambers & McGuire. Butler² seemed to be sailing a bit looser in the slightly lumpy conditions so therefore gave the impression of dropping off to lee. McKenna caught up with and passed Smyth who was enjoying lifts coming off the shore to sit inside the layline at times, but ultimately he was forced to take a hitch inshore to clear McKenna. At this stage, the weather mark was sticking with its description of a weather mark, but, as first McKenna and then Smyth rounded the mark, they gybed thus rendering the description of a weather mark as redundant. Miller was next round followed by Chambers which meant that Noel Butler was in a most unusual position for a Tuesday night!

Smyth initially caught, then passed McKenna, but Miller caught up on them both and at one stage, halfway down the second leg, all three were overlapped on each other. Miller dropped spinnaker first but the other two persevered and Smyth was initially rewarded by getting to within a boat length of what could be described as the gybe mark in terms of the original layout of the course. Butler² ghosted inside the four boats ahead of them to present themselves at the gybe mark as the first Fireball on the race track and after a lot of sail flapping by all four boats, the "rounding sequence" at the 2nd mark was Butler², Smyth, McKenna, Miller, Chambers. Almost immediately, McKenna was able to sail that little bit higher than the rest of us, Butler² footed off, as did Miller & Chambers, leaving Smyth to take up the rear. At the approach to the leeward mark, McKenna had the lead, Butler² had enough distance to cross everyone else on starboard. Chambers had outpaced Smyth who then tacked to put himself marginally in front of Miller at the mark.

The Race Committee at this stage gave up the fight against the elements and flying a V flag from a RIB, signaled to the fleet that they should proceed directly to the finish, which at this stage meant a spinnaker leg. McKenna/O'Keeffe and Butler² were comfortably ahead and the only way Smyth could catch Chambers was if she tried to take the OK dinghy from the PY fleet to windward. She didn't! Miller bumped Smyth in the rounding of the mark and graciously took his 720º immediately.

A night that defied the logic of the Race Committee and the aspirations of the competitors!