Howth Yacht Club's Autumn League is renowned for enjoying, on occasions, some of the best sailing weather in a single season and the penultimate day of this year’s event, sponsored by Team PR Reilly (with its WD-40 brand) was just one of those occasions.
Pleasant sunshine, a flat sea, a moderate 15-knot westerly breeze and a fleet of 150 boats enjoying themselves was the order of the day for race 3 in the series which saw a distinct pattern in three classes where the winning boats were recording hat-tricks of success.
Stephen O’Flaherty’s elegant ‘Bond’ boat ‘Soufriere’ led the Class 1 fleet home but it wasn’t enough to prevent Pat Kelly’s ‘Storm’ registering its third win in a row on IRC and so stretch its overall lead over nearest rival ‘Crazy Horse’ (Chambers/Reilly) to seven points. ‘Tiger’ (Harris/Hughes) continues to impress on ECHO with a third successive win and so stay six points ahead of ‘Storm’.
Another treble winner was Anthony Gore-Grimes ‘Dux’ in Class 2 in IRC, just ahead of Ian Byrne’s ‘Sunburn’ but opening up a 6-point margin over second-placed ‘Indigo’ (Ritchie/Eadie) overall, although those placings are reversed on ECHO after the third race which was won by ‘C’Est la Vie’ (Flannelly & Others).
It’s tight at the top of Class 3 now, with the Race 3 results having a significant influence on the overall standings. ‘Wild Mustard’ (P&D Coyle) won the IRC day from ‘Goyave’ (Camier/Fitzpatrick) from Malahide but series leader ‘Quickflash’ (Alfred Mayrs) from Antrim was back in 4th, meaning there is now only one point separating the two visitors. ‘Goyave’ had the added satisfaction of winning on ECHO and now heads the table by a point from Ed Bourke’s ‘Starlet’.
‘Empress III’ (Fitzpatrick/Glennon) took the ECHO honours in Class 4 by just 17 seconds from ‘White Lotus’ (P.Tully) from Dun Laoghaire but it’s ‘Sojourn’ (Lacy/Blandford) that has the advantage going into the final day by quite a margin. ‘Flashback’ (Hogg & Others) won on IRC but its ‘Bite the Bullet’ (Colm Bermingham) and ‘Changeling’ (Kieran Jameson) who lead the fleet overall.
In something of a repeat of last year, the smallest boat in Class 5 – ‘Demelza’ (Ennis & Laudan) – is again showing the way and a double success on both handicap systems has given the veteran Shamrock a five point lead on ECHO over ‘Alphida’ (Harry Byrne) and second overall behind that rival boat on IRC by a single point.
In the one-design classes, Jay Bourke in ‘Dirty Protest’ continued his domination of the Etchells racing, posting his third win on the trot, this time ahead of ‘Gelert’ (J.Flynn) to stretch the overall lead to six points over ‘Glance’ (O’Reilly/Dix).
After missing last Sunday because of the ISA All-Ireland Sailing Championships at Lough Derg, J/24 National Champion Flor O’Driscoll (‘Hard on Port’) got back to winning ways in his own class, with a 30-second lead over Chris Shackleton’s ‘Johnny Bravo’ from Malahide. With the last weekend to go, two points separate the top four, with O’Driscoll sharing the overall lead with Mossy Shanahan’s ‘Crazy Horse’.
It was a very good day for the Walls/Browne partnership on ‘Gold Dust’ in the Puppeteers. Not only did they win on the double (scratch and handicap), in both cases ahead of Neil Murphy’s ‘Yellow Peril’, but the success also saw them assume the leadership in the overall standings on both tables.
There was a new winner in the Squibs, with ‘Chatterbox’ (J. Kay) heading Emer Harte’s ‘Puffin’ by less than 30 seconds (she won on HPH though), but it wasn’t enough to upset ‘Kerfuffle’s’ (Craig/Ruane) overall lead on both scratch and handicap.
Peter Courtney’s winning streak in ‘Oona’ was halted by Roddy Cooper’s ‘Leila’ who also won on handicap but he still has a comfortable lead overall on scratch while his HPH lead has been whittled down to a single point by Rear-Commodore Brian Turvey in ‘Isobel’.
The Autumn League comes to a close next Saturday with two back-to-back races to determine the outcome of the 10 competing classes.
