Another Sunday, another good turnout for the HYC Dinghy Frostbites. A hint of sunshine and a gentle southerly breeze with slowly clearing skies welcomed 28 boats to the race course, as race officer Neil Murphy sent the fleets on two races around windward-leeward courses. The breeze brought plenty of shifts, gusts and lulls, while a flooding tide - the exact opposite of the previous weekend - encouraged most sailors close towards the shore for rock-crawling or sand-shuffling to get up the beats in the slackest water. And with the tide-imposd discipline, all the starts got cleanly away.
Time is whistling by, and now only three Sundays and six races remain in this series which is noted - so far - for the regular completion of its full weekend programme in 2023, regardless of the winter weather being experienced elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere. Admittedly hints of a "Beast from the East" meteorological experience in the next two or three weeks may upset the current clear picture, but already the leaderboard has a meaningful set of results in place. Thus all hope for the best in the three weekends between now and the Big One, the season-closing Round the Island Race on Saturday 11th March for which we are told there'll be a fleet of "ludicrous variety" added to the seasoned campaigners emerging from this current Spring Series.
On Sunday, the ILCA 7s saw Dan O'Connell of Cobh and Rory Lynch of Baltimore returned after their St Brigid's Bank Holiday Weekend absence - presumably home in the Rebel County - and both came back with a bang with a win each. Conor Murphy rounded out the top spots of the day, taking whatever podium places left from the other two. Dan, taking his first win of the series in the second race of the day, now leads the series overall with 24 points. Ronan Wallace of Wexford, Rory Lynch, Conor Murphy and Oisin Hughes fill out the rest of the top 5 for the series. With only 4 points separating 2nd to 5th, and one more discard to come, expect plenty of position changes over the next few weeks.
Let's hear it for the Rebel County! Dan O'Connell of Cobh has his first race win in the Spring Series at Howth on Sunday, but thanks to consistency he now has a narrow overall lead. Photo: HYC
Marco Sorgassi (RStGYC) returned to the top of the ILCA 6s with two clean wins, sailing fast and rubbing shoulders with the ILCA 7s most of the way around the course. Fiachra Farrelly and Darragh Peelo swapped second and thrrd in each race to fill out the rest of the podium places. Marco leads the series with an impressive 9 points after 12 races, but only one point separates Howth's Fiachra Farrelly and Malahide's Darragh Peelo, so this one might go to the wire.
Marco Sorgassi (RStGYC) consolidating his overall lead in the ILCA 6. Photo: HYC
The ILCA 4s had two new race winners in MYC's Glenda Gallagher and HYC's Des Turvey. MYC's Viktor Samoilovs continues to rack up some great results, and clinched the remaining podium places for the day's racing. There was even a photo finish required for the second race of the day,
as Viktor and Des crossed the line together after two complete laps of the windward-leeward course. With the race committee ultimately unable to separate the two, both were awarded 2.5 points for the race. Aisling Kelly leads the series overall, but Viktor is only 0.5 points behind in second and Riaghan Boardman (Rush) is only another 3.5 points behind him in turn.
The PY fleet and their growing numbers earned them their own start again this week. Another impressive display from Alan Blay in his GP14 saw him take two firsts, firmly unseating Daragh Sheridan's long streak of winning at least one race each weekend in his RS Aero. Conor Twohig and Matthew Cotter's GP14 swapped second and third with Daragh Sheridan's RS Aero with nail-biting margins - separation of 2 seconds and 4 seconds on corrected time in each race.
Three more weekends, six more races, and if the weather holds up there's no reason to not continue the brilliant quality of racing achieved this weekend. Full results from this weekend are available here: www.hyc.ie/results
Everybody is at it - Stephen Quinn, better known for campaigning his J/97 Lambay Rules, keeps himself ahead of Daragh Sheridan's RS Aero. Photo: HYC
