After last week's cancellation, Dublin Bay Sailing Club's third AIB Thursday evening race of the 2024 season was another gentle affair in light southerly winds where results were marred by plenty of retirals.
On the North Bay race course, in division zero, there was only one finisher, the Royal Irish Yacht Club (RIYC) JPK 10.80 champion Rockabill VI (Paul O'Higgins) with clubmates Sean Lemass's First 40, Prima Forte, Kyran McStay's X-Yacht D-Tox and Royal St. George Yacht Club's Chris Power Smith's J122 Aurelia all retiring.
In a ten-boat IRC One turnout, Barry Cunningham's J109 Chimaera took the gun in a corrected time of 1 hour 44 minutes and 31 seconds from clubmate Philip Byrne's XP33 on 1:46:41 corrected. Unfortunately, the rest of the fleet either retired or did not finish. Overall this means Byrne's X-yacht now leads from Cunningham's J-boat in DBSC's hottest cruiser division.
There were no finishers In Cruisers Two IRC or Cruisers Three IRC or IRC Five, but RIYC's Rodney and Sally Martin Sun Odyssey 32 Gemini managed the only finish in Cruisers 4B.
A long last leg on a failing wind and building tide spelt the end for many competing boats.
There were some one-design class finishes on the Scotsman's Bay race area, with Philip Lawton's Puffling winning from Neil Colin's FFuzzy. Alastair Court's ffinisterre was third in a 14-boat turnout for the Flying Fifteen classes where five of the local fleet are competing at the European Championships in France.
National Champion Michael O'Connor of the Royal St. George was the 7-boat SB20 winner from Richard Hayes in Carpe Diem. Third was Grzegorz Kalinecki's SportChip.ie
Dublin Bay 21s Tuesday Racing Gets Underway
After several cancellations, the first DBSC Tuesday race for the Twentyones took place on May 7th. Nineteen crew members and all four boats took part. The lighter winds facilitated a lovely sailing experience for the newcomers to the fleet. Geraldine won from Estelle. Garavogue was third, with Naneen in fourth.
Dublin Bay 21 Garavogue pictured on Tuesday (May 7th) in a light airs DBSC race Photo: Gary O'Sullivan
Summer racing continues on Dublin Bay with DBSC Saturday racing in the club's 140th season this weekend and also the first ISORA Irish cross-channel race of the season on Saturday morning at 8 am with a bumper 21-boat fleet in prospect.
Results in all classes below
