The penultimate monday.com-sponsored Autumn League race-day at Howth on Saturday experienced a brisk and mostly sunny west to nor’west wind of 15 to 20 knots, with two Windward/Leeward races smoothly run by the race officer Derek Bothwell in the offshore fleet, and Scorie Walls supervising the inshores.
In a series which has experienced two weekends of frustration, this brought the number of races completed up to four, and with the discard kicking in it made for some significant changes in the overall leaderboards. These were also affected by the fact that some key crews were away in Paris for the rugby, while others were in Dromineer for the Keelboat Freshwater Regatta on Lough Derg.
In Class 1, the fleet started Race One in a 20-knot westerly breeze with Checkmate XX and Indian both over, and having to return and recross the line. At the top mark, Ghost Raider was first around followed by Snapshot for a run to the bottom mark while dodging the starting boats from following classes. Snapshot broached and made a less-than-perfect rounding, allowing Storm to pass and eventually go on to win the race, with Ghost Raider finishing second.
Race Two was a clear start in 20 knots once more, and was a close battle with Snapshot taking first position followed by Storm and Ghost Raider. Indian had a consistent two fourth positions and Checkmate had a retiral due to spinnaker issues.
Class 2 - Race one started in a gusty North Westerly with a strong ebb tide running. All boats elected to hoist Number 3 Headsails except Maximus, who chose to go with a bigger headsail - the correct choice as Maximus rounded the weather mark in first place and kept her lead to the finish, scoring a firsts on IRC and HPH. Dux recorded a second on IRC with Impetuous holding on to take thirrd.
Race two saw Dux lead the fleet from the start recording her first “Gun” of the series. Maximus kept her composure to finish in second on IRC with Impetuous (having changed up to a Number 1 headsail, battling on for the third slot on the IRC Podium. Maximus now holds a lead overall in IRC on 5 points, with Dux and Impetuous both on 7 points. Maximus also holds the overall HPH on 4 points with Impetuous on 7 points and No Excuse on 8 points. All to play for on October 21st in the Class 2 Fleet.
Deilginis – seen here heading at speed for the Fastnet Rock during the Howth 17s’ 125th Anniversary Cruise-in-Company to West Cork at the end of June – now leads the class overall. Photo Howth 17 Association
In Class 3 Race 1 for the day saw a large shift in the breeze prior to the start leaving the beat one sided to benefit boats that started at the committee end. It was also the first week of racing for Howth’s K25 team with Kilcullen, and they pushed hard in the breezy conditions. IRC was won by Insider (Stephen Mullaney) with Kilcullen (HYC K25) second and Gecko (Kevin Darmody) third.
On HPH, Kilcullen were first from Malahide Yacht Clubs Shenanigans (Lee Douglas & Aidan Keane) and Insider in third. The breeze remained for Race 2, with IRC producing the same results as Race 1, with Insider first, Kilcullen second and Gecko third. Again on HPH, Kilcullen were first from last year’s HPH winner Kahara (Russell Camier) and Insider third.
Overall, Insider leads with 4 wins on IRC and Gecko leads on HPH with Malahide’s Kahera only two points behind.
Non Spinnaker classes – Splashdance continued their unbeaten record with four first places to lead class 4 on IRC. In the HPH fleet, Changeling & Splashdance are on equal points on HPH going into the last week. Class 5 on HPH is being led by Mary Ellen who has shown consistent performance followed by Demelza and then Bandersnatch going into the last week of racing.
Puppeteers - Trick or Treat with two race wins on Saturday is leading the Puppeteer fleet from the next two boats in joint second place. Commodore Neil Murphy in Yellow Peril is tied on 7 points with Ian Dickson in WeyHey. In the HPH fleet Ghosty Ned (Donal Harkin) and Snow Goose (Sarah Robertson) are tied going into next Saturday’s last day of racing.
Howth YC Commodore Neil Murphy’s crew preparing for the turn aboard the Puppeteer 22 Yellow Peril in Saturday’s distinctly Autumnal breeze. Photo: HYC
This week there were no Squibs on the starting line as most of the Squib class decamped to Dromineer for the Open Freshwater Keel Boat regatta.
Howth 17s The last Class to start on the inshore course were the Howth 17’s. Although 11 crews went out on the launch to prepare to race, given the wind speed and gusts 3 crews returned to shore and so they had eight boats on the start line. With winds of up to 20 knots from the north west there was a clean start to race 1 of the day. No. 11 Deilginis (Skipper Luke Massey) crossed the line first with No. 3 Leila (Skipper Roddy Cooper) taking second place with a battle for third position between No. 18 Erica and No. 17 Oona -however as they came up to the line Erica (Skipper David Nixon) went ahead and crossed the line 23 seconds ahead of Oona.
The second race Started - No 11 Deilginis and No 18 Erica reached the 1st windward mark a good 4 minutes before the next boats arrived - and that is how it stayed, a battle between the two for the rest of the race with No 11 Deilginis taking 1st place and Erica second - No 16 Eileen (Skipper Rima Macken) managed to secure third place finish on the final beat onto the line - All boats returned home to port with no damage reported
Team Competition: Provisional results shows no change in the leaders of the team prize. The leading TEAM is “Stormed Inside Erica” made up of Storm in Class 1, Insider in Class 3 and Erica in Howth 17s. Second are the Snappers (Yellow Peril, Dux and Snapshot ) and then DO-Not-Touch ( Deilginis, Toughnut, Trick or treat). Team results are published near the entry portal rather than in the normal results section.
Everyone is looking forward to an exciting finish next week followed by Prizegiving, dinner, the match and DJ & dancing.
Jill Sommerville
Results Here: https://hyc.ie/results
