#fireball – The penultimate Sunday of the DMYC Frostbite Series, 16th March, saw another two races sailed in a brisk Westerly which gave all the crews a good work out. The turnout may have been influenced by the fact that it is a three day weekend here in Ireland, today being St Patrick's Day - a Bank Holiday & public holiday. 9 and 7 boats contested a 4-lap and a 3-lap race respectively.
Louis Smyth & Cormac Bradley (15007) worked the left hand side of the course and were rewarded by rounding first followed closely by the Rumball brothers, Kenneth & Alexander (15058) and Noel Butler and Conor Kinsella (15061). Team Rumball nudged ahead on the spinnaker leg only to take an early bath before they got to Mark 2. That gave Smyth & Bradley the lead back again though due to their immediate proximity Messrs Butler & Kinsella might contest that claim.
The early section of the leg from Mk 2 to Mk 3 was complicated by the gantry for the HSS with the leading two boats sailing towards it on starboard with Butler outside Smyth, who felt obliged to gybe away following a hail from Butler. A discussion later with Butler suggested that wasn't what he was asking for!
By Mk 3 Butler & Kinsella were just ahead and went on to lead the rest of the race, extending their lead as the race evolved.
The pressure on Smyth & Bradley in 2nd came from Alistair Court & Gordon Syme (14706) with the former appearing to be faster upwind while the latter closed the gap offwind.
The wind stayed steady direction wise but was squally leading to some of the top spinaker leg being two-sailed rather than three-sailed as the race progressed.
Team Rumball charged back into the reckoning, appearing on Smyth's transom after Mk 1 for the last time. They took second place as the lap progressed and Smyth was also put under pressure by Court until a capsize under spinnaker put an end to his podium challenge.
Race 11: Butler & Kinsella (15061), DMYC, Rumball & Rumball (15058), INSC, Smyth & Bradley (15007), Coal Harbour, Luke Malcolm & Shane Diviney (14790), HYC & Eamonn Bourke & Robert Slater (14817), HYC.
In the interlude before Race 12 of the series the wind got up in strength but dropped off again as the start sequence was initiated. All seven Fireballs were stacked at the committee boat end of the line in a very competitive start. At the top end of the beat, at Mk 1, the rounding order was Butler, Rumball and Smyth with Frank Miller and Ed (14713) in fourth.
The course symmetry had been tweaked so the duality of approach after Mark 2 was reduced. The first three boats weren't really challenged but the group behind were having their own challenge - Messrs Miller, Malcolm (14790) and Bourke (14817) enjoyed a full race in every sense of the word.
Race 12: Butler & Kinsella, Rumball & Rumball, Smyth & Bradley, Miller & Ed (14713), DMYC, Bourke & Slater (14817), HYC.
The only Mug for the day went to Cariosa Power and Peter Doherty (14854) in the first race.
With 12 races now completed and three discards coming into play, the overall position is as follows;
1. Kenneth Rumball & David Moran/Alexander Rumball, INSC, 11pts.
2. Noel Butler & Stephen Oram/Conor Kinsella, DMYC, 17pts.
3. Luke Malcolm & Shane Diviney, HYC, 39pts.
4. Louis Smyth & Cormac Bradley,
Coal Harbour, 52pts.
5. Neil Colin & Margaret Casey, DMYC, 54pts.
Sunday 23rd is the last Sunday of the Series and the prizegiving wil be after racing in the DMYC or if racing is cancelled, at 15:00 in the clubhouse..
