The final races of Kinsale's Spring Series, sponsored by Ron Holland Design, were sailed on Sunday in trying conditions for both competitors and race management alike. The wind, what little of it was there was from a south westerly direction, originally at 8 knots writes Keith O'Riordan.
Bob Bateman's photos from Sunday are here.
Classes 0,1 and 2 had a windward leeward course officiated by Principal Race Officer Alan Crosbie, while Jeanot Petch looked after classes 3,4 and the White
Sail fleet, who had an around the cans course.
The breeze was light and shifty with a strong ebb tide and it says a lot for the race management that both fleets got off the line on time. Classes 0 and 1 got under way on their beat up towards Black Head with Anthony O'Leary's Antix leading the way from Dave Dywer's Marinerscove.ie and Gloves Off (Kieran and
Brian Twomey). This was the way the positions stayed with the sports boats in command throughout. On handicap Marinerscove.ie took first position and thereby the series with 8 points overall. Antix came in second overall on 10 points with Gloves Off in third position.
In ECHO 0 Tom Roche's Meridian took first place followed by Johnny Godkin's Godot in second and Freya(Conor Doyle) in third place. This gave Freya the win overall in ECHO 0 with Marinerscove.ie and Antix in second and third respectively.
Freya again featured in the top three in the IRC Restricted Class, in second place. This was won by Nagle/O'Malley's Jelly Baby and David Scott's Eos in third place.
In IRC 1 the day's race was won by Jelly Baby from Derry Good's Exhale in second and Dan Buckley's Justus in third. This gave Jelly Baby pole position in the
overall standings with Eos in second place and Exhale getting on the podium in third.
In ECHO 1 the day's racing was won by John Downing's Samba, from Indulgence (Aidan Heffernan) and Exhale third. Overall the top prize was taken by Exhale from Eos in second and Indulgence in third in an extremely tight finish to the Series.
Class IRC 2 was dominated throughout by the consistency of Jerome McCarthy's Harmony, and it was therefore fitting that he took the top overall prize.
Thunderbird, Denis Coleman's Corby 25 chased hard but could only manage second place with Clem McElligott's Sea Hawk squeezing into third place overall.
In ECHO 2 Y-Knot took a second in Sunday's race to give them the overall win .In second place overall was Mark Mendell's Wicked with No Gnomes (Leonard Donnery) in third position.
Classes 3,4 and the White Sail fleet were on the Round the Cans course which was slightly more inshore and consequently had a bit more breeze. These Classes managed to get a second race in after a short break. Conditions during the break were more akin to an arctic ice shower than a first day of summer!
In class IRC 3 Ian Traver's Bandit came into the last day with a practically unassailable lead and didn't make any mistakes, winning both races and the
series. Pathfinder owned by Alan Bateman had 2 seconds and second place overall followed by Powder Monkey(Liam Lynch) in third place.
ECHO 3 was won overall by Monkey Business (Bill McConnell) followed by Tony & Alice Kingston's Away On Business, with Powder Monkey coming in third place.
In IRC 4 it was Mike Sexton's consistency, with 5 firsts and 2 seconds which gave him the overall win on Granny Knot. Sundancer (Alan Mulcahy) came up with second place overall from Paul Swanton's Go Kart in third. Two of these boats were also to the fore in ECHO 4. This was won overall by Go Kart from Sundancer in second with third place going to Guinness Kann (C Forde/G Good).
The White Sail Class also got two races, which were both won by John Whelan's Wheels. This gave Wheels the Series overall from Dave O'Sullivan's Cimmarron VI with Dave Akerlind's Beneteau 47 Paragon in third place overall.
