Whitesail 1 and Whitesail 2 together with Classes 3 and 4 were sailing in the harbour today and after a somewhat quiet start the wind built from the south south west during the day and remained steady throughout racing in the O'Flynn Exhams sponsored league. With the enthusiasm there is now for whitesail 1 and whitesail 2 and the consistent increasing of numbers in these classes it is obvious they are going to have a major part to play in future events. In Class 4 it was interesting to see Michael Murphy's Shelly D taking first in IRC on the day as it is something he always maintained couldn't be done. In Class 3 the rivalry between the Dorgan family's No Half Measures and Ian Travers' Bandit was renewed, Bandit getting the better of the Dorgans on the day.
Although Afloat's photographer Bob Bateman was not on the rsce course today he flew over it on a separate assignment in the area and managed a brief bird's eye view of the racing.
Outside the harbour midway between the Harp Mark and Roche's Point Pascal Healy's committee boat was on station with Race Officer Richard Leonard and they were half way through the sequence when the wind shifted and there was a postponement while they altered the course. Here the wind was building during the day to between 18 to 20 knots causing some of the yachts to change to number 2 headsails.
At the time of prize giving Yanks $ fFrancs and No Excuse were in the protest room so that result has been held over until next week.
It has been confirmed that last week John Downing's Samba lost portion of her rudder and it appears likely she will miss the remainder of the series. That's tough at this stage but, as miracles do sometime happen, perhaps he may be lucky and get back in time. All will be known tomorrow when she will be lifted out for inspection.
In IRC 0 Jump Juice with Conor Phelan on helm got the better of Kieran and Brian Twomey's Gloves Off while the in the 1720 extremely competitive class Brian Hassett's Dark Side got the better of Denis Murphy's Aquatack and in IRC 1 David Scott's unstoppable EOS got the better of Martin Darrer's True Penance.
