The internal debate about whether to have a light wind race or no race at all surfaced for the second round of the Viking Marine sponsored Frostbites yesterday. Both “Windy” and XCWeather were forecasting winds of 6 – 8knots from just East of South from Saturday morning, but on arrival at the DMYC just after midday on Sunday, there was little evidence of that on the water.
The Race Management Team went afloat and found that there was some wind, though not what was forecast; and it was a little further east than the forecast as well. A decision to proceed was taken and a Windward-Leeward course was set up with the windward mark and spreader mark set about 60m off the “ferry dolphins” and the leeward gate set in just south of the INSC’s green raft. At this stage the wind was fluctuating between 4 and 5.5knots but holding reasonably steady in terms of direction. And as the fleet came out there was a sense that there was enough to have a race. Certainly, at the top end of the course, the Fireballs had healthy-looking spinnaker sets.
Last Sunday’s 62-boat fleet was exceeded by a further 7 boats, with the makeup of fleets being PY Class 29 boats, ILCA 7s (Full Rig) 8 boats, Laser 4.7s 9 boats and Laser Radials 23 boats.
The first two starts, the PY Fleet and the ILCA 7s and Laser 4.7s both got away cleanly, and most boats seemed to favour going left. One OCS in the PY start took advantage of an empty start line, having gone round the committee boat to restart, to go right and to this observer’s view never got headed thereafter. (The mainsail had a large red ball on it!!)
The Radials were a different matter needing two aborted starts and a “Black Flag Start” to eventually get away – the price paid being a 2-lap race rather than the three laps the other two starts got. This was not vindictiveness on the part of the RO, but rather an attempt to get more time to start a second race, should the wind hold out.
In the PY Class, there was good representation from the Fireballs and the Aeros and one of the three registered GP14s was out (Mulvey & Murphy). A second RS400 and an RS200 joined the fleet, and the Long family (DMYC) had the sole IDRA (Pierre & son) and the sole Mirror (brothers Paul & Yves) on the water. Gerry Ryan and John McAree got the covers off the 470 and Tom Murphy sailed the solitary (double pun) K1.
In the PY fleet, Fireballs were to the fore on the water, with Neil Colin/Marjo, Louise McKenna/crew, Alistair Court & Gordon Syme and Frank Miller and Class Chairman Neil Cramer well to the fore. The Aeros too, kept close company with Noel Butler unusually late for the start but recovering throughout the race.
The wind eased below 4knots for most of the race, but as advised by competitors afterwards, what breeze there was extended across the course – there were no obvious holes. So, while it was light, a race was completed!
DMYC Frostbites Round 2
PY Class
1st Jemima Owens & Henry Start, RS200
2nd Neil Colin & Marjo, FB 14775
3rd Pierre Long & son, IDRA 161
4th Louise McKenna & crew, FB 15106
5th Monica Schaefer & crew, Wayfarer 11299
6th – 9th, Aero 7s, led home by Noel Butler 3289
10th – Paul & Yves Long, Mirror
13th Tom Murphy, K1
15th Gerry Ryan & John McAree, 470 777
17th Brian O’Hare & Lucy O’Donoghue, RS400
18th Ciara Mulvey & Peter Murphy, GP14, 11111
On corrected time, 5 minutes separated the top five boats.
ILCA 7s
1st Gavan Murphy
2nd Owen Laverty
3rd Chris Arrowsmith
Laser 4.7s
1st Zoe Hall
2nd Daniel O’Connor
3rd Donal Walsh
Laser Radials
1st Conor Clancy
2nd Luke Turvey
3rd Brendan Hughes
The Race Officer hung on for a short while to see if the wind which had dropped during the course of the race might come back again, but it became apparent that we were out of luck on that score, so the fleet were sent homewards.
The race results are accessible on the DMYC website and a number of boats will find that they haven’t got a score. This is due to either a) boats missing the spreader mark at the windward mark or b) boats coming through the finish line when the Committee Boat is flying a blue flag to indicate that it is on station for a finish. Neither action is permissible a) is shown on the course card and b) is covered in the sailing instructions. Please read both!!
