Whatever about weather extremes being experienced elsewhere in the world, Howth is apparently in its own little magic microclimate. January has served up four Sunday mornings on the trot with good racing for the MG Motor "Sailing Club of the Year 2023" and its current Spring Series section, with fleet numbers building steadily as the different classes get into the countdown for the Mother-of-all-Concluding Races, the annual scramble around Ireland's Eye on Saturday, March 11th, with its added spice of circuit direction being an option for each competitor.
Sunday's fourth week of the Spring Series welcomed some new faces to the mix. Regular competitors were joined by yet another GP14 entrant, building the growing numbers across the classes.
A strong westerly breeze, accompanied by a strengthening flood tide going in largely the opposite direction, made for a race-course with a variety of conditions across it. After a quick postponement, two races were completed around triangular courses, with only one individual recall for the mostly well-behaved fleet. The three ILCA classes started together, with the growing PY fleet starting immediately afterwards.
Cork-Wexford ding-dong - Dan O'Connell of Cobh just managing to keep his wind clear to lee of Wexford's Ronan Wallace. Photo: Harry Gallagher
The ILCA 7s saw Ronan Wallace and Dan O’Connell fighting for the lead around the race course as usual. While it was neck and neck at the beginning of the third lap of the first race, Dan had to take a penalty, while simultaneously, Ronan’s kicker failed. The Wexford helm managed to make it to the top mark in the lead, and limp his boat home even while the Cobh sailor reeled him back in. Ronan did well to just about hold onto the lead crossing the finish line.
Conor Murphy got his first podium of the season, but couldn’t get close enough to take advantage of the difficulties in front of him. Then some quick jury-rigging between races gave Ronan a makeshift kicker, and he went on to win the second race as well. Richard Tate and Andrejs Samoilovs swapped 5th and 6th in each race, while Oisin Hughes took home fourth in both races, and a guest appearance from Conor Gallagher added an international element to the day’s racing.
The ILCA 6s saw Marco Sorgassi (RStGYC) deliver two convincing wins, beating not only the rest of the ILCA 6s, but also most of the ILCA 7s! Dave Kirwan of Malahide again opted for the ILCA 6 instead of the 7, and was a close second in the first race, while in the second race, an individual recall and a capsize allowed Dan O’Hare to take seconnd . Marco has a 6-point lead in the series after 8 races, and with 10 more races to go, there are still plenty of opportunities for the fleet order to change.
Looking good and going very good....Marco Sorgassi (RStGYC) is so dominant in the ILCA6s that he frequently finishes in the middle of the ILCA7s. Photo: Harry Gallagher
The ILCA 4s were fresh from some training on Saturday with HYC’s Aoife Hopkins, although there were very different conditions between the 2 days! Charlie Keating improved on his showing of last week with two first places, while the rest of the fleet swapped places between the first and second races. In the series overall, Aisling Kelly maintains her lead over Riaghan Boardman of Rush and Viktor Samoilovs. Time will tell if some of the more recent entrants can climb the leaderboard by the end of the series.
The PY Fleet grew again with the addition of Puppeteer 22 ace Alan Blay’s GP14 from Sutton Dinghy Club. However, Blay could only manage send in both races against Daragh Sheridan, who made the most of the breeze to blast down the reaches and runs in his RS Aero to take two 1sts. Matthew Cotter was joined by Aoife Hopkins (now very much back tp private sailing) in their GP14, but gear failure on the water prevented them from competing in the racing.
"The Men Upon The Wire" - Mike Evans and Troy Hopkins racing the former's RS800. Troy's daughter Aoife, having stood down from public full-time international competition, went very private on Sunday with a spot of GP14 crewing. Phoo: Harry Gallagher
Mike Evans’ RS800, Peter Boyle’s GP14 and Jeremy Beshoff’s B14 rounded out the rest of the fleet.Full results from the day and series are available here [1]. There are 5 more Sundays and 10 more races in the series, as well as the annual Round the Island race on Saturday 11th March, so be sure to join in the growing winter Dinghy fleets.
