Both competitors and organisers were not very optimistic on Friday evening with an ominous forecast on the Windguru web site of gusts up to a maximum of "5 knots". Thankfully even the Internet can get it wrong sometimes and everyone was pleasantly surprised when they were greeted with a steady 12 to 15 knots Southerly outside Greystones Harbour. The blue sky and sunshine providing the welcome bonus of an early sea-breeze.
With a strong tide which apparently runs South for ten hours of every twelve hour tidal cycle, judging lay-lines both up and down wind on the windward leeward courses was tricky to say the least. Though it was fair to say all crews were happy to have the tidal push for the up wind beats as it was full hiking conditions for all of day's four lap races.
In the 400 fleet Liam Donnelly took race one of the day. Greystones SC Commodore Simon Herriott suffered a breakage in race one but recovered in style to win the next two races.
In the 200 fleet Roy Van Maanen posted a perfect score card winning all three races of the day.
On day two a short postponement was followed by two light air races. Finding some pressure and managing to stay in it was the priority. This led to some dramatic place changes particularly on the down wind legs, were calling a gybe at the correct time was the difference between getting to the bottom mark in first or last place.
The sea-breeze kicked in just in time to provide plenty of excitement for the final race of the series. Amongst the 400 fleet there were four boats with the potential to take the event going into the last race. In the end Liam Donnelly and his crew, Andrew Vaughan from the Royal North prevailed in the stronger breeze taking the 400 Southerns trophy North.
In the 200's Roy Van Maanen had the luxury of discarding a 2nd to win the event comfortably. The battle for second was a little tighter with Graeme Noonan taking second place on count back from Sean Clery.
RS400 Results:
1st Liam Donnelly
2nd Simon Herriott
3rd Michael McAllister
RS200 Results:
1st Roy Van Maanen
2nd Graeme Noonan
3rd Sean Clery
Next up for the Irish RS fleet is Newcastle Co.Down. Check out www.irishrs.com for more information or to arrange test sail in an RS200 or RS400.
