#fireball – With the first of the DBSC races behind us – last Saturday's blow-out and Tuesday evening's sunshine session – thoughts will start to turn to the regatta season which gets underway in two weeks' time with the opening event, the Ulster Championships in Ballyholme on the shores of Belfast Lough. A club with a long tradition of sending members to the Olympics – Bill O'Hara (Finn, Team Manager & Regatta Official), Jackie Patton (470 crew to Cathy Foster) and, most recently, the 49er pairing of Ryan Seaton & Matt McGovern, to name but a few - the club were very hospitable when we were there in 2011. The race area is a short sail from the club and the open waters of Belfast Lough are very attractive for racing.
Ulster Championships May 17th & 18th Ballyholme Yacht Club
Open Championships June 14th & 15th Clontarf Yacht & Boat Club
Munster Championships July 19th & 20th Wexford Harbour Boat & Tennis
Club
National Championships Sept 12th – 14th Lough Ree Yacht Club
Leinster Championships October 4th & 5th National Yacht Club.
The "scene" then moves to Clontarf for the Open Championships in mid-June to coincide with the Battle of Clontarf celebrations, taking advantage of a festival that will be on that weekend. In July, we make a significant departure from the usual roster of clubs that host the class with a visit to Wexford Harbour Boat & Tennis Club for the Munsters.
Late July sees the Fireball Europeans being hosted in Lerwick in the Shetlands and in August the UK Fireball Nationals will be in Tenby, South-West Wales between the 16th and 22nd.
Consequently, and in another departure for the class, the Nationals will be held at a freshwater venue, with a three day event, as usual, hosted by Lough Ree Yacht Club in September. We had an excellent regatta in Lough Ree last year with a six-race programme completed by 13:00 on the Sunday afternoon. Granted the breeze was very cooperative, but Race Officer John Leech was also very efficient on the water. John has now been upgraded to National Race Officer which allows us to go back to this popular venue with its very impressive clubhouse for the Nationals. We will share the venue with the Wayfarers.
The season finale, the Leinsters, will be another shared venue, the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire, on the first weekend of October, with the Flying Fifteens.
As in recent years the committee have tried to organise events at venues that are within easy driving distance of the Dun Laoghaire base of the Class or venues where there is an existing class that needs some moral support by way of numbers. Ballyholme and Lough Ree are probably within 2.5 hours drive of Dublin and the other three venues are either on the doorstep of Dun Laoghaire or just a stone's throw away.
Numbers for Ballyholme are encouraging at this stage with two weeks to go, so if you haven't entered yet, please do so as soon as you can.
All of the above events count towards the Travellers' Trophy and some discussion on the format of this season-long competition was had over the winter. However, no proposals for changing the format have been received to date and the one analysis that has been undertaken revealed that with six or seven different models used to score the event, no changes in the 2013 finishing order of the top five materialised.
