Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

#fireball – After two weekends of multi-day regattas, at the Nationals in Dunmore East (10 boats) and the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta (8 boats), six Irish Fireballs had a genteel evening of racing inside the harbour last night.

XCWeather was projecting winds of 4/5 knots from the East and by the time I took up my station, the weather station adjacent to the HSS berth was showing a modest 6 – 8 knots from a direction of 106˚.

Noel Butler & Stephen Oram (15061) played the part of the rabbit to the other five greyhounds on the course, but the light winds/breaths meant that none of the speed we would associate with greyhounds was in evidence. The right hand side of the beat was favoured by all except Neil Colin & Margaret Casey (14775) who worked the harbour mouth side of the course. Going round the weather mark the order was Butler & Oram, Louise McKenna & Hermine O'Keeffe (14691), Colin & Casey, Mary Chambers & Brenda McGuire (14865), Louis Smyth & Crew (15007) and Cariosa Power & Marie Barry (14854). Downwind the leaders indulged in a series of gybes to stay in what little breeze there was. McKenna stayed on the outside of the course, while Colin gybed immediately to work the inside of the course. Chambers played the rhumb line and this paid off when she closed on Colin as they approached the leeward mark. Power closed on Smyth as they sailed similar courses, but while five of the fleet rounded the leeward mark for another upwind leg, Smyth went through the separate finish line, leaving him at a disadvantage.

On the next beat, the lead two worked the right hand side whereas Colin tacked immediately, heading for the harbour mouth. Chambers stayed right until half-way up the course and Power and Smyth stayed right. Colin's hitting the harbour mouth side of the course paid dividends as he rounded behind Butler at the last weather mark, ahead of McKenna. Initially they all stayed right on the downwind leg before McKenna broke rank and went to the inside. On the water she drew up to Colin in terms of a line drawn between their respective bows, but Colin was much closer to the finish line and thus was able to claim a comfortable second place behind Butler.

A second race was signalled in what were very fickle conditions. Four of the six Fireballs congregated at the pin end of the line while a fifth boat started about halfway down the line and Colin started on the committee boat end. Thus, all six boats sailed up the first part of the beat on port tack, with Colin furthest to leeward. The fleet were not in light airs mode, each attempting to throw a hypothetical "6" to gain an advantage over the other five. Butler looked to be in a prominent position, but Smyth was close on his heels. Power seemed to gain a temporary edge, before Butler put in two tacks to sit in the preferred position again.

At this stage, with the fleet just over half-way up the beat and before the 1st boat of the 1st start had reached the weather mark, the committee boat "upped anchor" and relocated itself off the weather mark. Once in position, a shortened course was signalled.

With the fleet sailing away from my station on starboard tack before putting in tacks onto port to cross the finish line, my ability to read numbers was put under pressure, so the finishing order in this race is taken from the DBSC website this morning. My reckoning of positions was badly out!

A very short race in rapidly fading conditions!

Series 2 now has nine races complete