#FIREBALL– Nineteen Fireballs made the trip to Killaloe for the season opening Munster Championships of the 2012 Irish Fireball regatta season. As one of the few locations outside the greater Dublin area to have a resident Fireball fleet, the venue has been a permanent fixture on the Fireball circuit for quite some time. In addition to their easy access to the racing area, the host Fireballers always make their visitors very welcome and the attraction of the area with its scenery and the immediacy of Killaloe and its eating and drinking locations normally means there is a good turn-out.

This year, in an effort to promote the older Fireballs, the Munsters were chosen to host a Classic Fireball Regatta. In the rules for the event, a Classic was deemed to be a boat with a sail number lower than 14600. Four of these appeared with Neil Colin & Margaret Casey foregoing their Winder to add to the numbers.

On Saturday, four races were sailed in dull misty conditions with winds around the 8 – 10kts range. It had started slightly breezier but dropped off as the day wore on. This introduced some significant shifts.

Noel Butler & Stephen Oram dominated Day 1 winning the first three races while behind them the other podium places were being shared out between Barry McCartin & Finbar Bradley, Neil Spain & Hugh Butler, Louis Smyth & Joe O'Reilly and Niall McGrotty & Neil Kramer. McCartin/Bradley took the fourth win of the day, followed home by Spain/Butler with Andy Boyle & Barry Hurley pushing Butler/Oram into an uncharacteristic 4th.

Thus after a four race programme, the overnight situation was as follows;

1st Noel Butler & Stephen Oram 3pts

2nd Barry McCartin & Finbarr Bradley 6pts

3rd Neil Spain & Hugh Butler 8pts

In the Classic Challenge, Neil Colin & Margaret Casey were comfortably ahead of Jim Ryan & David Tanner, while Cariosa Power and Marie Barry were in control of the Silver fleet.

On Day 2, the wind had eased off again with marginal trapezing being the order of the day. McCartin/Bradley continued where they had left off the evening before by taking Race 5, followed by Colin/Casey and Spain/Butler. Regatta leaders Butler/Oram slumped to a seventh, most unusual territory for them in an Irish context! However, in Race 6, order was restored when Butler/Oram won comfortably from McCartin/Bradley, Spain/Butler, McGrotty/Kramer & Laverty/Butler. This left a finishing order of;

1st Noel Butler Stephen Oram 15061 Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club 8pts

2nd Barry McCartin Finbar Bradley 14820 University College Dublin SC 9pts

3rd Neil Spain Hugh Butler 150** Howth Yacht Club 14pts

4th Niall McGrotty Neil Kramer 14938 Skerries Sailing Club 23pts

5th Louis Smyth Joe O'Reilly 15007 Coal Harbour 26pts

Classic Neil Colin Margaret Casey 14330 Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club 40pts

Silver Cariosa Power Marie Barry 14854 Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club 51pts

Class Chairman Neil Colin, in his report to this correspondent advised that the event was a great success and was run very well. In particular, he noted that Race Officer, Geoff O'Donoghue, from neighbouring club, Lough Derg Yacht Club, ran an exceptional regatta with races started promptly and all under the regime of the "Blue Peter".

Three boats from Killaloe contested the regatta while the event also saw Michael Murphy from Waterford contest the event with his UL-based crew Alex Voye make their seasonal debut.

#FIREBALL – On the opening day of the Irish Fireball season, Noel Butler & Stephen Oram set the pace, bagging three race wins from four races and effectively continuing where they finished off in the Frostbite season writes Cormac Bradley.

19 Fireballs have made the trip to Killaloe for the Munster Championships and the Classic Fireball Championship. Sailing in dull misty conditions the day started in winds of about 15 knots which gradually dropped to 8-10 knots with big shifts.

In overall terms the 1-2-3 is as follows;

Noel Butler & Stephen Oram 3pts

Barry McCartin & Finbarr Bradley 6pts

Neil Spain & Hugh Butler 8pts

In the Classic challenge, Neil Colin & Margaret Casey are fighting it out with Ciaran Harken. Colin/Casey have forgone their usual steed, 14775, in favour of 14330 in order to show his commitment to the cause of the promoting the older boats.

#DBSC – Light air dinghy skills were a pre-requisite to success on Dublin Bay tonight where the biggest waves were those from the wake of a passing lifeboat. Neil Colin was top in the Fireball class (read Cormac Bradley's observations below). Pierre Long's Dart was at the top of the IDRA 14 fleet. Full Dublin Bay Sailing Club results for 8 May are below:

FIREBALL - 1. Elevation (N.Colin/M.Casey), 2. Blind Squirrel (Frank Miller), 3. Winder (E.Butler/O.Laverty)

IDRA 14 FOOT - 1. Dart (Pierre Long), 2. Dunmoanin (Frank Hamilton), 3. Squalls (Stephen Harrison)

PY CLASS - 1. Gary O'Hare (Laser), 2. C Arrowsmith (Laser), 3. Hugh Sheehy (OK Dinghy)

And the first shall be last ........and the last......shall be first!

Tuesday night DBSC racing is always a time challenge – to get away from the office in time to get down to the Club, get changed and rigged and then to sail out to the start area. Invariably the challenge is worth it, if only to get the chance to get out on the water writes Cormac Bradley.

Tonight, the challenge was magnified when the wind that XC Weather had forecast for this evening didn't materialize. A suggestion of 7kts gusting to 10kts going from NE to N simply didn't happen – the wind was very light and was more easterly that anything else. Competitors and race management alike (Flying Fifteens) had challenges galore.

With an ebbing tide would it pay to go out to sea – DEFINITELY NOT! Would the slight breeze stay long enough to get a race in – ONLY JUST – thanks to a shortened course and even then some of us were too far behind to stay within the time limit for finishers.

Six Fireballs started within a reasonable time period of the start signal and one Fireball was very late. Of those who were in the start area at the start signal, Neil Colin & Margaret Casey were easily the last to arrive. Everyone else was already there, Frank & Grattan, pin-end on port, Glen & Dave, Mary & Brenda, Owen & Conor, and Louis & Cormac, the last combination having arrived in the start area in good time relative to their scheduled start.

A slow departure from the start line prompted the idea of going out to sea for this last combination. After all, the tide was going out and there was nothing to specifically suggest that there was less wind there than anywhere else on the course. A fatal mistake that saw the remainder of the fleet sail off over the horizon, never to be seen again!

Neil and Margaret sailed quietly into 2nd place behind Frank & Grattan, followed, I think by Owen/Conor, Brenda/Mary and Dave/Glen. The 2nd beat of the windward/leeward course saw the fleet head to shore to various degrees and Neil & Margaret sailed serenely into a huge lead. The masters of light airs had struck again.

Thereafter, the pecking order was – I think – Frank & Grattan, Brenda & Mary and Owen & Conor. Louis & Cormac? So far behind they were timed out!

And the first shall be last and the last shall be first!

#SAILING NEWS – Stormy weather continues to frustrate early season sailing schedules. Wind and waves that produced spectacular trawler photos off Howth last week abated sufficiently to get Saturday morning's first ISORA race away and on Dublin Bay the second race of the Saturday afternoon series took place in excellent surfing conditions.

The strong winds have returned this morning though leaving anyone planning a trip across the Irish sea, be they coastal rowers, tall ships or dinghy experts, with a reminder about how rough things can get. From San Francisco, a survivor of the yachting tragedy there has spoken out about the need for tethering.

Yesterday afternoon the first race of the revised SB3 season on Dublin Bay was scrubbed and in other small craft news the Fireball class held its annual training clinic. Royal Cork Optimists are heading for Waterford in a strong position. A Portrush man is heading to Spain to defend his kayaking title and in rowing news Monika Dukarska came out on top after a battle with Afloat's Rower of the Year Holly Nixon.

And is adventure sailing a new tack for declining dinghy numbers?

All this and lots more on Afloat's home page this morning!

#FIREBALL – The perennial primer for the Irish Fireball regatta season took place last weekend, 21/22 April in Dun Laoghaire when Adam Bowers brought his expertise, good humour and unique style of coaching to an eleven-boat audience writes Cormac Bradley.

Blessed with significant wind for the first time in his trips to Ireland (the fourth, I think), Adam was able to concentrate on additional aspects of racing that the presence of breeze facilitated.

As ever, there was a significant focus on starting with classroom emphasis on controlling position in the end stages of the countdown to the start and a demand that boats be accelerated off the start line rather than accelerating. The consequence of this requirement, Adam stated, was the early achievement of "gorgeousness" within a short distance of crossing the start line.

The achievement of "gorgeousness" has also to be matched with a significant injection of "WUMPETA" – energy and earnestness in the execution of boat and sail trim and helming to get the boat travelling at its fastest in the shortest possible time.

The recurrent theme of proper rounding of the leeward mark is another Bowers "hobby-horse". Adam perceives the leeward mark as a gateway to escaping from the boats immediately around you who have been tardy in their mark rounding. The quests for clean water and clean wind and the commensurate rudder movements at the leeward mark were drummed into his audience.

Held over two days in strong winds on the Saturday and more moderate wind on the Sunday, the session concluded with the "Porsche Cup" – a three race, no discard series, triangle-sausage-triangle course, sailed under black-flag conditions with a five-minute countdown.

Noel Butler & Stephen Oram successfully defended their trophy, with Luke Malcolm & Shane Diviney second and Frank Miller & Susie Mulligan third.

Thanks are due to Marie Barry (Treasurer) who made the arrangements for getting Adam across from the UK, Marie and Stephen Oram who hosted Adam and rib drivers and assistants in the persons of Neil Colin (Chairman), Mick Creighton, Alistair Court, Hermine O'Keefe and others.

A favourable window of glorious weather which started earlier in the week extended into the weekend and the final Sunday of the Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club's Frostbite Series. The author of these reports was yet again unable to sail the event but acquired enough information to post this report when he went to pick up results for this column.

Blue skies and a slight haze on the horizon were more symptomatic on a Sunday in June/July before a sea-breeze kicks in than the second last Sunday of March when we all lost an hour in bed due to the clocks going forward. Still nobody could possibly have begrudged the loss of an hour in bed in lieu of the day that evolved. Crowds thronged the piers of Dun Laoghaire as everyone took advantage of the sunshine and the daylight addition to the evening. The ice-cream vendors were in danger of running out of stock such were the crowds.

The Fireball fleet responded to the weather and the close of the series, one assumes, by mustering 17 boats for the day. Two races were sailed outside the harbour in what I believe were near perfect conditions....apart from an adverse tide that necessitated a slightly conservative approach to the start.

Race 1 was started under a General Recall while Race 2 prompted three black flags when people who should know better failed to restart when they were adjudged over the line. A healthy South-Easterly of 15knots (or thereabouts) gave the fleet just about perfect conditions and with the added bonus of being outside the harbour is sea-swells it must have seemed as if summer had come early. Indeed, Valerie Kinnear, part of the committee boat team told me that it was quite lumpy outside.

I can't give you a blow by blow account but I can tell you that one of our most intense, but friendly rivalries, (intense on the water, friendly off it) in the fleet ended as "honours-even" over the day's two races. Mick Creighton & Frank Cassidy are great mates who enjoy nothing more than baiting each other on the water and then adjourning to a nearby watering hole to conduct a post-mortem on proceedings. Yesterday, Mick was crewed by Ciaran Hickey, no shrinking violet himself, while Frank would have had his long-standing crew John Hudson on board. All four have contributed to the camaraderie of the Irish Fireball fleet and have provided the rest of us with lots of entertainment along the way.

At the "business end" of the day's proceedings, the race wins were shared between Neil Spain & Hugh Butler (14807) and Owen Laverty & Ed Butler (14990). Behind them, the runaway leaders in the series, Messrs Butler & Oram and Rumball & Moran scored two 3rds and two 2nds respectively, probably more content to watch each other than worry too much about race wins. Andy Boyle & Barry Hurley also had a consistent day with 2 x 4ths, while the 5th places went to Laverty/Butler in Race 1 and Louis Smyth & Joe O'Reilly in Race 2.

The days' mugs went to Dave Coleman and Glen Fisher in Race 1 and Cearbhaill Daly & crew in the second!

The day's events concluded not only the second series but the Frostbite season, though in truth, the weather over the period has been exceptionally good. We didn't lose any races to severe cold weather as we have done in recent years and any races lost to strong (or once, no wind) were recovered by having two races on the subsequent Sunday.

Reporting consistently on a set of races such as this can't be done single-handedly and I would like to thank, in this concluding report, Louis Smyth, Neil Colin, Noel Butler, Kenny Rumball, Hugh Butler and Mick Creighton for providing me with information for the column.

Thanks must also go to Olivier Proveur and his team for providing the racing over the winter. The Frostbites may be a staple of the Irish Fireball scene but it still needs volunteers to run it every Sunday – Cormac Bradley

#FIREBALL – The penultimate race in the Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club's Frostbite Series was a sustained session of snakes and ladders for most of the fleet who took part in the 6-lap race writes Cormac Bradley. A reduced fleet, due probably to it being a Bank Holiday weekend with St Patrick's Day on Saturday and Mother's Day on Sunday, was set a six-lap course with the weather mark under the wind shadow on one of Dun Laoghaire's piers.

Noel Butler & Stephen Oram got to the first weather mark in first place and proceeded to do a "horizon job" on the rest of the fleet, winning by over a leg at the finish. During the course of the race, Kenny Rumball & Dave Moran worked their way into second place by the end of the third beat and they too disappeared generating a one-leg margin on the third-placed boat, Neil Colin & Margaret Casey. Despite being one of two boats over the line early, Neil & Margaret worked the port-hand side of the course to good effect on the first two beats to get into second place. The other starting miscreants, Frank Cassidy & John Hudson, were also rewarded for doing the right thing and restarting when they picked up the day's mugs.

The race was sailed in 10-12 knots, a marginal trapezing breeze under sunny conditions but with a chill in the air. Louise McKenna & Hermine O'Keefe got intimate with the weather mark on their first rounding which left them with work to do to catch-up.

Mick Creighton secured fourth place over the line and were followed home by Andy Boyle & Barry Hurley.

After the race the fleet retired to the DMYC lounge to watch Ireland play Korea in the final of the Olympic Men's Hockey qualifier. Despite Ireland going into the lead twice, Korea won the game 3-2 with the winning goal coming with 2 seconds to spare. This qualified Korea for the Olympic tournament later in the year and provided Irish supporters with their second disappointment within 24hrs, after the rugby debacle in Twickenham.

#FIREBALL – The boat (below) on the left sailed by Ian Pinnell and Daniel Cripps won the 1994 Worlds in Durban South Africa. The boat on the right was sailed by Tom Gillard & Sam Brearey to the World title in 2012, in Mandurah, Western Australia.

So, they are both World Championship-winning boats to the same design, but separated by 18 years....which makes GBR 14415 a Classic Fireball.

This year the Irish Fireball Association intends to promote the Classic Fireballs in our midst by starting the regatta season with a dedicated regatta for them at Killaloe on the weekend of May 19th & 20th, coincident with the Munsters. Additionally, the best placed "Classic" will pick up a "Classic" award at the Nationals to be held in Howth at the end of June.

For the purposes of this regatta, the class is defining the Classic Fireballs as those boats with a sail number earlier than 14600.

The hope is that by having a dedicated Classic Regatta for the older Fireballs we might give encouragement to the owners of these beautiful wooden boats to come and join the regatta circuit on a season long basis.

The Association wants to promote and encourage the Classic fleet using with two approaches;

• Encourage owners of "Classic " boats to attend regattas and participate locally and regionally

• Encourage crews with newer boats to beg or borrow a "Classic" with the view to tuning it up to current standards, thereby demonstrating to its owners that their boat is competitive

The focus on "Classic" is also intended to encourage lower budget completion and make the class more affordable for potential competitors.

Get those wooden beauties going...

#FIREBALL – For the Irish Fireballers sailing in Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club’s Frostbite Series, the morning of Sunday 11th March might as just as easily have been Sunday 10th June such was the weather – clear blue skies, temperatures to 14 degrees and a very light breeze writes Cormac Bradley. This correspondent was able to finish off washing the car in shirt sleeves such was the balminess of the day.

However, as the afternoon approached the blue skies gave way to grey clouds and the temperature, while still pleasant for March, dropped off, to the extent that my stroll to the harbour to view the racing was undertaken with a hat and gloves.

Fourteen Fireballs took to the water in very genteel conditions, though the consensus in the bar of the DMYC afterwards, where we watched the 2nd half of France versus England from Paris – “Allez les Blancs” – was that the breeze was very twitchy and that it was quite cool.

The shiftiness of the breeze was certainly confirmed for me as an observer on the shore when not only the beats but the two reaches seemed to promote lots of place changing. I watched the middle two laps of the 4-lap race and could see that the decision on the beat was whether to take a hitch to the left at the leeward mark and then sail up to the weather mark on port, or sail up to the weather mark immediately, leaving the starboard hitch to the end of the leg. In the two beats I watched both approaches paid for different individuals on successive betas.

The first reach looked very tight and I was amazed to see Kenny Rumball & Dave Moran mis-judged the tightness of the leg to lose the lead (at that stage) to Neil Spain & Hugh Butler when the latter pair sailed over the top of them. Tightly sheeted spinnakers were the order of the day for the entire fleet on that first reach.

The second reach saw the fleet fan out across the course, quite a feat considering the shortness of the leg, but it was apparent that there were different streams of breeze across the course. Mick Creighton, sailing with Ciaran Hickey gybed immediately and pursued a course down the middle of the course. Out the other side, Butler & Oram, Rumball & Moran and Colin & Casey sailed past the gybe mark to chase wind on the outside of the course.

Creighton/Hickey certainly closed the gap on the leading boats with this manoeuvre and the lead changed hands with Rumball/Moran losing out to Spain/Butler. Amazingly though, on the very next beat, a decision to take a hitch to the left saw Spain/Butler give the lead back again to Rumball/Moran which they held to ultimately take the race.

By their standards, Butler/Oram had a bad day at the office, which started with the start signal. With a committee boat bias, the fleet had assembled ………at the committee boat and they found themselves shut out. They spent the afternoon sniping at the boats in front of them (while I was watching) fluctuating between 2nd and 4th, while ultimately securing 3rd. Performance of the day must go to Louise McKenna & Hermine O’Keefe who took a very creditable 4th on the water followed home by Neil Colin & Margaret Casey.   

The score sheet reflected that two boats had a head-start on the rest of the fleet so there were only twelve finishers and the post mortem in the bar suggested that one other boat should be considering whether they had adhered to all the rules on their way round the course.

The day’s mugs went to Sligo Yacht Club’s Peter Armstrong (15060) sailing with a newcomer to Fireballs, Oscar McCullough, for whom today was his second sail in a Fireball.

Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club Frostbites; Series 2; 11th March 2012
1
Kenny Rumball & David Moran
15058
Irish National Sailing Club
2
Neil Spain & Hugh Butler
14807
Royal St. George Yacht Club
3
Noel Butler & Stephen Oram
15061
National Yacht Club/DMYC
4
Louise McKenna & Hermine O’Keefe
14691
Royal St. George Yacht Club
5
Neil Colin & Margaret Casey
14775
Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club
 

In Series 2, the competition between 1st and 2nd overall remains a 1pt challenge between Noel Butler & Stephen Oram (15061) and Kenny Rumball & Dave Moran (15058). A similar 1pt gap exists between 3rd and 4th overall where the challengers for the third podium place are Neil Colin & Margaret Casey (14775) and John Chambers/Neil Spain & Hugh Butler (14807). 5th overall are Alistair Court and Gordon Syme who are only 3pts adrift of 4th overall.

Today saw the first posting of the combined Series 1 and 2 scores and here again the margin between 1st and 2nd is down to a single point. 3rd, 4th and 5th overall are secure relative to each other and at this late stage in the competition, with only two races left, the only question to be resolved is; Who will be the 2011/12 Frostbite Champions?

Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club Frostbites; Series 2 Overall
1
Noel Butler & Stephen Oram
15061
9pts
2
Kenny Rumball & Dave Moran
15058
10pts
3
Neil Colin & Margaret Casey
14775
31pts
4
John Chambers/Neil Spain & Hugh Butler
14807
32pts
5
Alistair Court & Gordon Syme
14706
35pts
 

Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club Frostbites
Series 1 & 2 Combined.
1
Noel Butler & Stephen Oram
15061
17pts
2
Kenny Rumball & Dave Moran
15058
18pts
3
John Chambers/Neil Spain & Hugh Butler
14807
50pts
4
Neil Colin & Margaret Casey
14775
62pts
5
Alistair Court & Gordon Syme
14706
66pts

Despite next Sunday being the day after St Patrick’s Day, with all the potential consequences of recognizing our national heritage and the post mortem of England versus Ireland from Twickenham, there will be a Frostbite race, the penultimate of the Series.

#DUBLIN BAY – Although over 40 Dublin Bay Cruisers got some specacular downwind sailing in yesterday morning in the penultimate round of the Dublin Bay Spring Chicken Series the strong north westerlies put paid to yesterday afternoon's DMYC Frostbite racing. The fixture was blown off in blustery conditions about five minutes before the commencement of the start sequence when wind strengths went into the high twenties!

Full DBSC results on this site later.