#fireball – The decision by the Race Committee to set a windward leeward course for tonight's DBSC race for the dinghies was probably the first overt sign that we were likely to have a difficult night! A practice downwind leg also showed that the angles we were sailing to didn't quite fit in with the symmetry of the course as laid at that stage. XCWeather has suggested SSW winds in the late teens with more substantial gusts, but the wind on the course was much less than that, though some trapezing was required on the way out to the race area.
The start was clean and three of the four boats went inshore, in theory out of the incoming tide. Early on in the first leg it appeared that the fourth boat had got it "more right" than the others by going out to sea – Louis Smyth & Cormac Bradley (15007) crossed ahead of the other three on their first shoreward hitch. Louise McKenna & Joe O'Reilly (14691) took their prompt from Smyth's forward position to go out to sea. Shortly thereafter Frank Miller & Grattan Donnelly (14713) did the same thing to leave the four boats sailing a parallel course with Noel Butler & Stephen Oram the most inshore boat of the group. At this stage the breeze was coming off the shore in pockets of slightly stronger gusts and Butler and Smyth took advantage of same to round first and second respectively. Miller & McKenna ended up sailing the great circle route to the weather mark in third and fourth. The first three boats headed out to sea to take advantage of the tide. McKenna took the inshore route. Miller closed on Smyth who closed on Butler and all three headed inshore towards the harbour wall with the boats stacked leeward to windward as Butler, Smyth and Miller, though this was also the straight line order in their approach to the wall.
Tacking onto starboard they kept company with each other for a short time before Smyth squeezed out from underneath Butler to open up a gap. Miller ended up outside Smyth, on the sea side of the beat. Meanwhile McKenna, who had rounded some distance behind the first three and tacked immediately, tacked again to join the other three. Smyth and Miller escaped from the other two to chase each other towards the weather mark.
Meanwhile...........Neil Colin & Margaret Casey (14775) who had been very late starters had rounded the first leeward mark and were closing the gap on the other four. In fact, about halfway up the second beat, the impression was that they had passed both Butler & McKenna.
Back at the front of the fleet, Smyth was picking up lifts to get inside the starboard layline to the weather mark. However, the lifts were spread out time-wise! Miller took a slightly looser approach to the "beat" and was unable to climb as high as Smyth. He would soon have his revenge!! Smyth rounded the weather mark without having to tack again, Miller had to put in another tack. Surely this would give Smyth an edge on distance. It did, but almost immediately on rounding Miller got into a completely different wind pattern and sailed away from Smyth under spinnaker, never to be seen again. Smyth was safe in 2nd as Butler in third was a long way back. Colin had closed on McKenna and they kept each other company down the 2nd downwind leg.
On their approach to the second leeward mark, Flag "V" was flying again – proceed directly to the finish. It seemed simple enough as the wind appeared to have filled in at this bottom end of the course. But first Miller & Donnelly and then Smyth & Bradley found that the combination of light winds and flooding tide made getting over the finish line was quite a challenge. They got there but it was a slightly odd sensation that it took as long as it did!
DBSC Fireball Series 3, Round 4
1 Frank Miller & Grattan Donnelly 14713 DMYC
2 Louis Smyth & Cormac Bradley 15007 Coal Harb.
3 Noel Butler & Stephen Oram 15061 DMYC
4 Neil Colin & Margaret Casey 14775 DMYC
5 Louise McKenna & Joe O'Reilly 14691 RStGYC
