A miserably wet early morning on Sunday, Jan 18th, turned into a ‘must-do’ two hours of crisp racing with bright sunshine and 12 – 16 knots of wind laid on for the Howth YC Dinghy Frostbite fleet.
The 24-boat fleet enjoyed two races over different course layouts in a southeasterly breeze that made its way to the race area after rolling down from Howth Head and across the Harbour. This resulted in lots of shifts and strength variations across the race area and put a premium on anticipating where to go next.
For the first race, a Windward Leeward, the ebb tide was just starting to run and most of the fleet avoided the potential OCS consequence of arriving too early on the start line. In the PY fleet, Daragh Sheridan again took first place on corrected time in his Aero 6, 24 seconds ahead of the Melges 15 of Cormac Farrelly / Justin Cullen while Alan Carr and Orlaith Connolly took third place in their IDRA 14. In the ILCA 7s, Dave Kirwan of Malahide YC sailed a great race to finish first with Max Tipp-McKnight taking second from his Rush SC clubmate, Tom Fox. In the ILCA 6s, Stan O’Rourke won with Darragh Peelo and Alex Marsh taking the minor places.
A broad view of the Howth YC Dinghy Frostbite fleet racing in fresh, shifting conditions, with boats spread across the harbour as sunshine followed a wet winter morning Photo: Neil Murphy
For the second race, the course was changed to a triangular format to acknowledge the increased strength of the current running down Howth Sound as the ebb strengthened. The flow across the start line made avoiding an early start a major challenge and the ILCAs got away on their attempt, a U Flag helping their focus on being behind the line. After suffering an OCS in the first race, Harry Dunne judged his positioning to perfection and shot into the lead off the line to lead the ILCA 6 fleet to the finish, followed by Darragh Peelo and Stan O’Rourke. In the ILCA 7s, Dan O’Connell regained his primacy to score his third win of the series with Dave Kirwan and Tom Fox behind. The PY fleet, after chilling out (literally) while the ILCAs practised starting, then saw two of their own falling foul of the U flag. The reaches on the triangular courses well suited the asymmetric spinnakers of the Melges 15s and they took three of the first four places on corrected time. Matthew Cotter/Oscar Langan won with Daragh Sheridan’s Aero in second place and Cormac Farrelly/ Justin Cullen took third place.
In the bragging rights hunt amongst the Classes best represented in the PY fleet, Alan Carr / Orlaith Connolly took IDRA 14 honours in both races while, in the Melges 15s, the glory was shared by the Cotter / Langan and Farrelly / Cullen crews, each enjoying a first and second.
For those who appreciate the beauty of timber dinghies, Sunday saw three fine examples afloat, each of them testament to how well these boats last with the right amount of TLC. Whilst Alan Carr’s IDRA 14, built in 1962, takes pride of place in the birth cert race, Tristan Nelson’s International 14 from the 1970s and Conor Costello’s Enterprise from the early 1980s are all well into middle age but still looking and sailing as well as ever. They have all clocked up lots of time afloat, given loads of enjoyment and continue to benefit from the superb craftmanship that went into them and ensures their continued competitiveness and good looks - encouragement for all those with boats from the same eras who are thinking of getting them afloat again.
