#flyingfifteen – Frank Burgess and Brian Maguire sailing Flying Fifteen 3747 lead all three Mitsubishi Flying Fifteen DBSC races on Saturday. In a startling contrasting day, launching in a 5 to zero knot breeze, 17 Flying Fifteens ventured out on to Seapoint bay for the day's racing , to be totally becalmed at one stage.
Then at about 2.20 a radio message came up from Scotsman bay that the forecasted wind from the south was on its way .
Race 1. Our esteemed DBSC OOD Jonathan O'Rourke, set Course X3, a windward / Leeward Course and a clean start at first attempt and off the 17 FF's went up the beat. Burgess/Maguire FF 3747 were pushed out to sea and the still flooding tide by Mulvin/ Beirne FF 4028 , while the majority of the fleet went in shore to get out of the tide. But due to a lifting wind and good pressure Burgess/ Maguire FF 3747 got round the windward mark in first place.
Burgess/ Maguire FF3747 lead for 3 rounds but like all good sailors did not read the course card and were coming to the finishing line, downwind, and saw no blue flag . Course X3 has 4 rounds. So a really tactically race ensued, with Mathews/ Poole FF 3864, commencing a tacking duel (as Poole indicated afterwards, to see if they could break Burgess). And lone behold they did and down the run Mathews/ Poole FF 3864 overtook Burgess/ Maguire FF 3747 and got the gun . A real race for 2nd then ensued between Galvin / Galvin FF 3757 and Burgess/Maguire FF 3747, which the latter won by a nose.
Race 2 Quickly followed , Course T2, was set by the OOD Mr J O'Rourke. This being an Olympic Course we later learnt. Off the fine fleet of Flying Fifteen went up the beat in 12/15 knots of breeze. As the tide had turned Burgess/Maguire FF 3747 did not mind been pushed again out to sea by FF 3970 Mulligan/ Green and again rounded the weather mark in first place , and hoisted the spinnaker very efficiently and set a course for Howth and the gybe mark. They were quickly followed by the rest of the fleet , but could not find the gybe mark.
Out to sea we all went, it was a beautiful sight to see the FF fleet in full flight with spinnakers flying and no where to go . So Burgess made a prat of himself and for all of Dublin Bay to hear, radioed the "FreeBird". and requested "where was the Gybe Mark "
To be informed that, "It was an Olympic Course and read your fleet card" . As the fleet were now racing towards about 30 cruisers , the race was abandoned.
Our OOD Jonathan O'Rourke later informed us , there was no Gybe mark set and he truly thought he had set W2, a windward / Leeward Course. ( He should have gone to SpecSavers). He forgot to put on his glasses. We can all make mistakes.
Race 3 followed within a few minutes and all was forgiven , as we had an excellent race in a shifting southerly breeze , lead all the way by Burgess/ Maguire FF 3747, who to the delighted of our excellent OOD Mr J O'Rourke and his fantastic support race team, gave the leading boat FF 3747 Burgess/Maguire the gun and a rapturous applause which was returned with gusto .
The real race was down the fleet where , FF 3757, Galvin/Galvin, FF 3970, Mulligan/Green fought it out for 2nd and 3 rd place.
As Burgess/Maguire FF 3747 had a 2nd and 1st and FF 3684 Mathews/Poole had unfortunate gear failure, Burgess/Maguire FF 3747 were delighted after some excellent race management and great competition from a super fleet of Mitsubishi sponsored Flying Fifteen's, won the day.
DBSC results here.
