The Water Wag club has a long tradition of single-handed races as is shown by this picture above. Ideally, the weather for a single-handed race should be an evening with not too much wind, and not too many waves. On 25th June, in Dun Laoghaire Harbour had perfect conditions, twenty-two degrees air temperature, four to five knots of wind and sunshine.
Con Murphy with his able team of assistants: Carol O’Rourke and Judith Malcolm laid a windward-leeward course for the fifteen Water Wags which turned up at the start line. Before the start Bairbre Stuart’s needed to do some tuning on ‘Freddie’, so she dropped her yard, found a desert island at which to undertake her modifications. By the time the yard was rehoisted, and everything was ‘Bristol fashion’, Bairbre arrived at the start line a mere fourteen seconds before the gun. As can be seen in the picture below, Vincent Delany’s ‘Pansy’ was somewhat premature, and had to start again.
Cathy MacAleavey's 'Mariposa' starts at the committee boat
A close finish between ‘Barbara’ and ‘Marie Louise’
The jury is still out as to whether it paid to sail towards the harbour mouth with an incoming tide or towards the marina wall. At the end of three laps the winning order was:
1. Guy Kilroy’s ‘Swift’
2. Marcus Pearson’s ‘Little Tern’
3. Bairbre Stuart’s ‘Freddie’
4. ‘Pansy’
5. ‘Mariposa’
6. ‘Barbara’
7. ‘Marie Louise’
8. ‘Skee’
9. ‘Dipper’
10. ‘Polly’
11. ‘Scallywag’
12. ‘Sara’
13. ‘Chloe’
14. ‘Good Hope’
15. ‘Coquette’.
Fifteen boats is a world record for single-handed Water Wags in Dun Laoghaire Harbour. Congratulations to the Wags and the weather gods!
