#flyingfifteen – It's for days like this that we sail, a sunny afternoon with a nice force 3/4 on excellent Flying Fifteen DBSC courses set by Suzanne McGarry and her team on Freebird. There were two races, the first a windward leeward course won by Ian Mathews & Keith Poole in Gruffalo and the second an Olympic triangle course won by Alan Green & Chris Doorly in Frequent Flyer. The wind was forecast to be from the SW but it was mainly westerly and was very shifty, the tide was ebbing.
After last weekend's great racing at the Northern Championships many in the fleet upped their game and racing was extremely close, the Cahills, McCambridge & Murphy and Coughlin & Marshal were in great form sailing particularly well.
In Race 1 Mathews was out of the blocks quickly and lead all the way, behind it was a closer affair, Green had a poor start and was at the left side while those who started adjacent the committee boat and went right had more pressure, Tom Murphy and Tom Galvin along with Coughlin and McCambridge were also doing well as they approached the weather mark. There was plenty of action as the wind strength increased, Fraser Mitchel fell out of his boat, Galvin had to do turns, other came in on port and didn't give way to starboard boats (this should not happen!) while Green did a quick gybe set that kept him in touch with the leaders. On lap 3 Green finally got passed and pulled away from Mulvin and the Cahill brothers to take second place, Galvin was third with David & Valerie Mulvin fourth.
Race two was just as exciting, the committee boat end was favoured, Mathews, Tom Murphy and Tom Galvin were the first group at the weather mark and they went in towards the shore, those on the right were not far behind, positions changed on the tight reach with Mathews leading Green second and Galvin third., again McCambridge in Hi Fibre and Coughlin in Ash were not far behind. On the next beat the right paid but it was shifty, Mathews went more left and Green took advantage in the shifts to get the lead, a lead he was to keep till the gun. On the final reach Mathews and Galvin had spinnaker troubles but Galvin managed to sort himself out to finish second, Mathews was third, McCambridge fourth and Tom Muprhy fifth.
It was great to see so many boats out racing. This Thursday the DBSC series continues this week.
Saturday's DBSC results are here
