With the halfway mark passed, Day five of the RS400 Frostie Series began with a cold morning in the dinghy park at Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club on Belfast Lough.
The woolly hats were donned as the mist across the lough was lifting. Rigs were tuned and adjusted to suit the light 6-8kt breeze coming out of Belfast.
The low tide also made sure that RO Gerry Reid and his committee boat were hurried to launch in plenty of time – giving ample opportunity to lay a perfectly square course for today's racing… As the first race got underway, patchy breeze meant getting clear air of the start and being able to stay clear of other boats stacked up around marks paid well with Gareth Flannigan and Knox Wilson making it to the top mark first and maintaining their lead around the subsequent legs, giving them first, closely followed across by Liam Donnelly and Katie Nelson in second with Luke McIlwaine and his substitute crew, Jake Miller in third.
Day five of the RS400 Frostie Series on Belfast Lough
As the day progressed, the wind kept shifting left, making the pin end more favourable than before. Typical RS400 jostling led to many boats over at the start of the second race.
This resulted in a general recall – much to some boats' relief. This led to Gerry flexing his RO muscles and quickly laying up the black flag for the reset. With the wind in its current format and the course in another, large dividends were made by getting a clean start to your race and not being entangled in some of the pile-ups along the line. With nobody falling foul to the black flag, those at the pin end with an early take made huge strides to the first mark leaving much of the fleet in their rear-view mirror.
Liam Donnelly and Katie Nelson's second in the first race fired them up for the rest of the day with a bullet in this one, making sure to remind the young ones of how he used to do it every week in the 1960s – back when spinnakers only used to come in black and white. Followed in by Robert Hastings and Sam McLearnon and Peter Kennedy and Stephen Kane respectively to complete the podium spots.
The last race started with the wind going further to the left, resulting in half the fleet deciding to start on port tack.
A good start by Ross Kearney and Andrew Vaughan meant they rounded the windward mark with the Peter Kennedy and Stephen Kane duo hot on their heels.
On the next lap, with the wind continually backing and dropping, a few boats had to take a few stabs to get around the top mark as everyone else sailed over them, with William Findlay and John Gabbie having to put a couple of tacks in on the spreader leg to ensure they would successfully round the wing mark.
Ross Kearney slipped down a few spots with Peter Kennedy capitalising on this, to move into pole. At this point, it was a long drag race on starboard gybe to make the bottom mark, with many boats funnelling in at once towards the busy preferred gate mark, before an early tack back to start/finish.
Peter Kennedy and Stephen Kane stretched their lead and finished their race with half the fleet still on the downwind with Luke McIlwaine and Jake Miller, coming on second and Jocelyn Hill and Rowan Berry in third.
Today's results saw more of the top spots be passed around the fleet in comparison to previous weeks, with a couple of teams achieving line honours for the first time this series. Following the completion of the 11th race of the series we see a discard come into play in the overall results with many positions still to fight for, up and down the fleet. With another three weekends to go and whatever the weather has in store for us, the competition will only get tighter.
Download results below.
