After losing the first two races of the 2015 Dublin Bay Sailing Club Turkey Shoot Series, team Irish National Sailing & Powerboat School on board their 1720 Sportsboat Oi! were keen to get racing last Sunday. With a less than favourable forecast, but more manageable conditions on the day, race officer Henry Leonard & event organiser Fintan Cairns made the call early that we were going racing!

With 11 1720s entered, there were only five who made it to the start line of the first race. Oi! (Team INS&PS Skipper Kenneth Rumball) took the committee boat end of the line with Déjà Vu! (Skipper Ben Cooke) and Lady A (Skippered by RIYC Instructors) taking the pin end, at first it looked like Oi! may have made the right call but Déjà Vu! and Lady A got the early cross ahead of Oi!. By the weather mark, Déjà Vu, and Lady A had a comfortable lead over Oi!, Key Events was not far behind with George (1720 IRL 1780) a little bit late for the start but now in the mix. Down the first run, Déjà Vu and Lady A headed out to the right of the course while Oi!, took an early gybe out to the left of the course into a big gust where the team jumped on the 1720 express train down to the bottom mark where they had closed the gap between them and Lady A to only a few boat lengths. 2 more laps of the gusty windward leeward saw Déjà Vu extend their lead while Oi! managed to overtake Lady A on the last downwind and then extend upwind.

All in all a great windy days racing with a great course and sensible shortening by the race committee.

In what has turned out to be an inauspicious start to the 2015 DBSC Turkey Shoot series, organisers seek to get their first race this Sunday after two cancellations – and no racing so far – for the 53–boat fleet. Undaunted by this weekend's breezy forecast DBSC will not give a cancellation notice on Saturday (like last weekend) but instead are to make a call from the race course on Sunday morning, all in the hope of getting the first race of the series underway.

Racing starts and handicaps for Sunday's racing are downloadable below.

Meanwhile the winners have been announced for tonight's DBSC prizegiving at the Royal St. George Yacht Club. All the winners are listed here

Strong wind warnings issued for Dublin Bay tomorrow have led DBSC to cancel the DBSC Turkey Shoot series for the second week running. Organsiers took the decision to cancel early rather than leave it until tomorrow morning. 
'This is a great pity as we had the totally opposite last week' said DBSC's Fintan Cairns.

Dun Laoghaire's winter sailing fixtures nearly fell victim to the fine weather yesterday but 'miraculously', according to the Fireball facebook page, DMYC race officer Stuart Kinnear got two races in for the opening of the DMYC Frostbites.

Unfortunately, the DBSC Turkey Shoot sailors were abandoned yesterday morning even though an impressive 50–boat fleet had assembled in otherwise beautiful conditions off the West Pier. Yesterday afternoon the DMYC harbour frostbites for PY, Laser, RS (200&400) and Fireballs got away in only light winds but just enough to set a harbour course. In the Fireball class race mug winners were Noel Butler and Luke Malcolm for race one and Frank Miller and Cormac Bradley in race two.

Cormac Bradley of the Fireball class adds:

Two races, 6 boats, 16 degrees. Mirror conditions initially but light breeze developed from west for first race. 3 lap trapezoid. Frank Miller & Cormac Bradley led the fleet to the first mark but were overtaken on the second spinnaker leg by Noel Butler and Luke Malcolm. Places remained this way to the finish with Alistair Court and Peter Doherty.

Wind swung for 2nd race and a new course was set. Miller/ Bradley went right on the first beat while the balance of the fleet went left. Miller/Bradley led by a modest distance and stayed ahead of the pack until the last weather mark when Butler/Malcolm briefly took the lead. However Miller/Bradley sailed through their winward side to retake the lead which they held to the finish. Butler/Malcolm were then put under pressure by Cariosa Power and Marie Barry who had closed up on the second placed boat. Ultimately, the ladies succeeded in taking secobd place in a very tight finish.
Given that the conditions looked so unfavourable at the start of the day, Race Officer Stuart Kinnear and his team did exceptionally well to get two races in – the 45th Frostbite Series is under way.

Squibs, 1720s, A35s, an X–37 Sport, a Farr 42 and a First 50 are just some of the 53 yachts entered for Sunday's first race of the DBSC Turkey Shoot Series on Dublin Bay. Handicaps and Start times for the Rathfarnham Ford sponsored event have also been published and are downloadable below as excel files. The sailors have received a warning to steer clear of submerged rocks near Dalkey Island.

#dbscturkeyshoot – The forecast leading up to the final race of the Dublin Bay Sailing Club Rathfarnham Ford Turkey Shoot Series was not looking overly promising writes Kenny Rumball! Windguru was showing gusts of 37kts for Sunday morning. Regardless of this, the INSC made preparations for the forecasted conditions by digging out and dusting off some of the older 'working jibs' a smaller headsail for the 1720s should we be sent racing on the Sunday morning. The reality on the Sunday morning was of a much more sedate wind as the two teams were rigging up which prompted skippers Kenneth and Alexander Rumball to opt for the usual headsails and getting the crews to rig up to more powerful and bigger mast head spinnakers!

The decision as the teams sailed out appeared to be the right one with boat boats taking a spin upwind and then sailing back downwind with the big chutes up. However once these had been dropped, conditions changed dramatically! The beginning of the 37knot forecast ripped down the race track. There was enough time to change the spinnakers to the more manageable fractional kites but the larger jibs had to stay in place...

With a laid weather mark and using the yellow outfall as the gybe mark followed by the pin end as a leeward mark, Fintan Cairns and his team laid an excellent course once again of a triangle, sausage, triangle. The wind being from the West gave a flat sea which the 1720s are much more comfortable in allowing them to power up through the fleets. Initially, INSC1 (Kenneth Rumball), INSC2 (Alexander Rumball), Lady A (Colin Byrne RIYC) and Brian Matthews and team all went out to the left of the course while Martin Byrne and Niall O'Neill both sailing from the Royal st George, took a track out to the right handside, the advantage were minimal but the rounding order at the top mark was Matthews followed by Martin Byrne, INSC2, INSC1, Niall O'Neill &team, Lady A.

With the breeze hard on at this stage none of the 1720s flew kites on the triangular course, few place changes took place up the next beat, however INSC1 which had been struggling for pace up the beat needed to catch up and so threw caution to the wind and hoisted their fractional spinnaker! Niall O'Neill and INSC2 followed suit and the three boats took off, powering their way downwind and reeling in the leaders.

The last beat saw a tight battle at the front with Martin Byrne and Brian Matthews duking it out all the way to the finish! INSC2 came home, 3rd 1720 across the line with INSC1 5th 1720 across the line.

What is fantastic is the majority of crew on both INSC boats were mainly inexperienced racers with little to no experience on race boats or having raced and pushed a performance boat so hard in the extreme weather. All participants on the INSC boats were blown away by the experience with all exclaiming how much they learnt over the 7 weeks of racing and the training day.

With competition amongst the 1720s in the DBSC winter racing hotter than ever, the INSC race training programme is really proving its worth for customers in boats where there is 'no where to hide'. Both INSC boats are planning to compete in the Spring Series so if you want to improve your crewing skills, there is no better racing programme to sign up to.

#dbscturkeyshoot – A break in yesterday morning's westerly gale gave a 61–boat  Rathfarnham Ford–sponsored DBSC Turkey Shoot fleet the chance to sail its final race of the seven race series. The Beneteau 50, Mermaid IV (Seamus Fitzpatrick) emerged as overall winner for the second year running, only narrowly beating the Mustang 30, Peridot by half a point. In third place was the Poolbeg based J109 Wakey Wakey on 66 nett points. 

Winds gusted up to 44–knots during yesterday morning's racing but the 43–starters who braved the gusty conditions enjoyed a shortened course over two beats and two high speed runs with plenty of surfing opportunities. 

#frostibtes –Strong and gusty westerly winds gusting to over 30–knots at times put paid to both cruiser racing and dinghy competitions from Dun Laoghaire today writes Cormac Bradley.

First to be scrubbed was Rathfarnham Ford's DBSC's Turkey Shoot series for 59–cruisers this morning.

Racing's 'flags of surrender'to the elements, N over A, were flying as early as 12:30 this afternoon from the yardarm of the DMYC signalling that no Frostbite racing would be taking place. 

From an earlier view from my office windows, the sea conditions didn't look that bad but the absence of the bigger boats from the waters of Dublin Bay gave the game away. Even the INSC's white-sailed Squibs seemed to take an early relief from the conditions.

While it is still a cloudless sky here in Dun Laoghaire, the forecast is for westerlies of 18/19 knots gusting up to 29 knots – as advised by both the XCWeather website and the Windfinder App – with a projected air temperature of 6˚.

This leaves the Frostbite Series with a single race left for 2014 as, traditionally, there is no racing on the last Sunday before Christmas.

#dbscturkeyshoot – One could have been forgiven for having a severe case of déjà vu yesterday morning as the DBSC Turkey Shoot had almost the exact same conditions as in the previous weeks racing writes INSC's Kenneth Rumball. The wind was from a similar direction, however this week being more westerly than southerly and also a change in race officer with Henry Leonard taking the reins this week. A similar course was laid, to last week with a short beat to a laid weather mark followed by a short reach to the yellow outfall mark and from there to another laid mark in Scotsman's bay and then down to the Muglins Island again before passing the other marks in reverse order back to a finish at the outfall mark.

The startline was a much more disciplined affair in the third fleet as opposed to the last two weeks with the entire fleet getting away cleanly. The 1720s mostly took a course in towards the Harbour to gain a valuable windbend up the course. A tight weather mark saw Brian Matthews and team round first with the remaining 1720s separated by inches bow to stern along the top reach. With such a tighly packed fleet, the hoist at thenext mark was going to be crucial, tack lines pulled on too early saw the RIYC's Lady A and Brian Matthews pair trawling for some Dublin Bay Mackerel.

Slowing these tow boats down and with some start 2 traffic, 6 1720s were neck n neck racing down the West Pier INSC1 and INSC2 Kenneth and Alexander skippering each were praising their crews on the race training programme for providing excellent spinnaker handling and trimming to keep the boats up at the top of the fleet.

The initial downwind saw the boats stay quite tight until the mark set just off the 40 foot where the fleet split, the Royal St George's Merlin and Lady A from the RIYC went out to sea in search of more wind while Brian Matthews kept close to shore. INSC1, INSC2 and Niall O'Neills 1720 kept to the middle putting in a few more gybes than the rest. At the Muglins, It was apparent that hugging the side was the right call with Brian Matthews rounding first, followed by the RIYC's Lady A, Merlin, INSC2, INSC 1 and Niall O'Neill and team popping around.

A long beat upwind saw little place changing with the final finishing order in the 1720 fleet with Brian Matthews and team claiming the win.

With two more races to go, the racing is intense as ever across the Turkey Shoot fleet.

#dbsc – With three races to go in the Rathfarnham Ford DBSC Turkey Shoot series, the 67–boat fleet is preparing for light winds this Sunday. The latest starts and handicaps have been revealed by the organisers and are downloadable below. Overall results to date that show Mermaid IV leading are here.