You know you're sailing in classic heatwave conditions when the morning's cooling haze melts away such that, by the time the last race of the day finishes in a mercifully adequate breeze, you and your shipmates are thinking of sails as being sunshades as much as sources of power.
The kind of weather when sails double-job as sunshades
The two-days Puppeteer 22 Nationals at Howth over the weekend saw PRO Harry Gallagher and Class Captain Ian Dickson presiding over an entry of fourteen boats that included the new blood which has re-invigorated the class recently. Inevitably, attention focused in particular on No 21, Nimon, sailed by Nigel Biggs of the First 50 Checkmate XX offshore racing fame, and campaigned in partnership with Johnny Sargent and David Johnston.
The mist becomes haze, the sun strengthens, and we're on count-down
Odyssey, Trick or Treat and Yellow Peril get away with it at the pin end.
It looked as though the Nimon team deserved the attention from the get-go, but a seemingly stellar performance in Race 1 was dumped on by an OCS. All the excitement was in the next three places, as Puppeteer super-veteran David Clarke in Harlequin tied for first on an elapsed dead heat time of 0.50.09 with old salt Puppeteers Neil Murphy and Con Costello in Yellow Peril, while Paul & Laura McMahon in former champion Shiggi-Shiggi were third 53 seconds astern.
There was wind to be found, if you could just get to it. Garret May's Honeybadger comes to life
Veteran skipper David Clarke in Harlquin was among the early leaders
With nothing to lose and everything to gain apart from no longer having a discard, Nimon went into Saturday's second race with a flourish, but even so her win from Yellow Peril was by only 18 seconds, with Harlequin third 50 seconds behind.
Saturday's final race saw things being shaken up somewhat with the win taken by Shiggi-Shiggi by 27 seconds from the consistent Harlequin, with Nefertari (Dylan & John Murray) third and Nimon fourth.
Nimon (left) works her way back into contention while Gold Dust works on spinnaker optimisation
Despite Sunday morning's cool haze persisting, enough breeze was getting through to have racing under way by 10:40, and Nimon put a firmer grasp towards the championship with another win, but with Shiggi-Shiggi, Yellow Peril and Harlequin second, third and fourth, it still seemed an open result in prospect with some excellent racing.
Former HYC Commodore Neil Murphy negotiates a flat patch.
But Nimon had found her groove, she won races 5 & 6 to take it overall by 8 points to the 11 of Shiggi-Shiggi, which had a scoreline of 3,(8),1,2,3,2, while Harlequin came in on third overall with a discarded tenth in the final race.
Nimon's potential will need a bit of taming under HPH, as she was going so increasingly well that she took second on the Performance Handicap, the win going to Nefertari with Yellow Peril 3rd and Wey Hey (Ian Dickson) fourth.
Gold Dust is clearly ahead and on starboard, but is Trick or Treat on the winning tack?
Nefertari was winner of HPH, and placed seventh in Scratch.
As for the class generally, the photos speak for themselves – the Puppeteer 22s are thriving mightily in their defined little world at Howth, for it's rarely that any of them are seen south of the Baily or north of Lambay, yet the dedicated helms include people of proven international standard.
Results below.
Trick or Treat to provide an evocative memory when winter is upon us.
