#fireballsailing – For the second Tuesday in a row the Tuesday night Dinghy DBSC racing was kept inside the Dun Laoghaire harbour, for the same reasons as last Tuesday (24th) – light winds and a strongly ebbing tide.
Light winds are also afflicting one half of the Tuesday night kings as Noel Butler and his crew battle their way around Ireland in the J109, Adelie. Having started last Saturday afternoon, leader-board predictions are that Noel will only reach the finish line sometime tomorrow.
Five Fireballs answered the starter's call last night with Frank Miller, crewed by Francis Rowan (14713), Conor and James Clancy (14807) and Louis Smyth & Cormac Bradley (15007) bunched tightly on the line. These three worked the middle and left of the projected four-lap triangular course which had a weather mark under the east pier and a gybe mark close to the end of the west pier at the harbour mouth. The leeward mark had a minimal amount of water surrounding it so close was it to one of the inner breakwaters – a fouled spinnaker drop could not be contemplated!
The other two Fireballs, Margaret Casey & Joe O'Reilly (14775) and Louise McKenna and Hermine O'Keeffe (14691) worked the middle and right hand side of the first beat. For those who are familiar with Dun Laoghaire harbour you will know that there is a busker who plays the banjo at the end of the east pier. The wind was so genteel last night that we could hear tunes such as "Boolavogue" and other favourites from his repertoire as we approached the weather mark and went down the first reach.
Team Clancy, probably the lightest of the all-male crews took the lead at the first weather mark and pulled away from Miller & Rowan down the first reach. "Pulled away" in this instance only means opened a gap because with the light winds there was no speeding on this course. Smyth & Bradley rounded third and chased the other two without making any real headway. Louise & Hermine rounded fourth with Margaret & Joe fifth.
On the second beat, Team Clancy seemed to increase their lead but the downwind leg of the sausage became a challenge to stay in wind rather than a tactical challenge. This had the effect of prompting early gybes to take boats in directions away from the leeward mark or further to the right hand side of the course towards the harbour mouth. But at the leeward mark, at the second time of rounding, the order was still the same, though the distances between the leading three had reduced.
On the third beat, Team Clancy and Miller & Rowan went left towards the harbour mouth. Smyth & Bradley went hard right and at one stage looked very good, seeming to have more breeze and better boat speed than the other two on the opposite side of the harbour. Team, Clancy bailed first to come back towards the middle, but Miller/Rowan went as far as they could while still keeping inside the confines of the harbour. While Smyth & Bradley were being lifted on port tack, the challenge was to cross the harbour to get to the weather mark. When this latter passage was undertaken, the gap to Clancy was substantially reduced and Miller/Rowan only reached the weather mark a boat length ahead of them.
Clancy got away again on the first downwind leg of the triangle – calling it a reach would be too prescriptive and a transgression of the "Trades Description Act" and initially Miller & Rowan got a couple of boat-lengths up on Smyth & Bradley. An early gybe was executed by the latter two to get into a little better breeze and this had the effect, with a second gybe, of the two boats approaching the gybe mark on opposite tacks. Miller & Rowan gybed again leaving them as windward boat and outside boat at the mark giving water to Smyth. They continued outwards towards the harbour wall (west pier) while Smyth & Bradley came back inside the course towards the breakwater. With the blue flag flying from the committee boat to indicate it was on station for a finish, the shortened finish line then became "no-go" territory. Thus, the two boats approached the leeward mark from either end of the finishing line...........except that going so close to the wall had left Miller & Rowan with less breeze than Smyth & Bradley who rounded the leeward mark in relative comfort with a short hitch to the finish for 2nd place.
Casey/O'Reilly & McKenna/O'Keeffe kept a close watch on each other down the two downwind legs of the second triangle and found themselves on the left-hand side of the committee boat on their approach to the leeward mark. Casey & O'Reilly did not look to be in a particularly favourable position but the results show that they got themselves out of that precarious position to finish behind Miller & Rowan in fourth place.
Officials results posted on the DBSC website show that Team Clancy did not get the first place they had on the water (as they are not registered for DBSC), so everyone gets a paper bonus of an elevation of one place.
DBSC Tuesday Night: Series 2, Round 3, 1st July 2014
1 Louis Smyth & Cormac Bradley 15007 Coal Harbour
2 Frank Miller & Francis Rowan 14713 DMYC
3 Margaret Casey & Joe O'Reilly 14775 DMYC
With three races sailed in Series 2 and absentees due to holidays, the Round Ireland Race and line duty commitments (your correspondent last Tuesday), the overall situation is quite surprising;
DBSC Tuesday Nights: Series 2, Three races sailed, no discard. Pts
1 Frank Miller & Grattan Donnelly & Francis Rowan 14713 DMYC 9
1 Neil Colin & Margaret Casey & Joe O'Reilly 14775 DMYC 9
3 Louise McKenna & Mick Creighton & Hermine O'Keefe & Joe O'Reilly 14691 RStGYC 11
4 Mary Chambers & Brenda McGuire 14865 DMYC 14
5 Louis Smyth & Cormac Bradley 15007 Coal Harb. 14
6 Noel Butler & Stephen Oram 15061 NYC 17
7 Cariosa Power & Marie Barry 14854 NYC 26
Saturday 5th July's focus will be the Royal St. George Yacht Club's Regatta which is the fourth and final summer regatta of the four waterfront clubs. The Fireball turnout for the last two regattas, the National Yacht Club Regatta and the Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club's Regatta has been five boats and there is a distinct possibility that there will be a similar turnout for the RStGYC. Louis Smyth & Cormac Bradley have taken two titles, the Royal Irish and the DMYC while Louise McKenna and Hermine O'Keeffe took the NYC event. Two of the three events were decided by tie-break and Conor Clancy must feel hard done by as he lost both tie-breaks.
Thereafter, the Fireball scene will take us to Wexford Harbour Boat & Tennis Club on the weekend of 19/20th July for the Munster Championships. This is a new(ish) venue for the fleet as we haven't been there for quite some time.
