Seven Fireballs headed out last night for the ongoing Tuesday DBSC series. The meagre wind faded as the boats reached the start area, wisely set inside the harbour by the race committee. A triangular course was set and in due course a start sequence got underway for the first "Slow PY" fleet. These boats struggled to get off the line in the zephyr however and the Fireball fleet, next in the queue, found a raft of slower boats spread out along the line. As the bias had shifted to the pin Frank Miller/Grattan Donnelly went for a port approach, sailing down the line of rafted boats and found a gap and slipped through. Barry McCartin /Teddy Byrne, sailing the good ship Clancy, started on starboard but found enough space to put in an energetic roll tack and also got cleanly away. Noel Butler/Stephen Oram got pinned by Dara McDonagh and had to bail out, and the rest of the fleet struggled to disentangle from the raft.
Thus Miller/Donnelly led till halfway up the beat, when McCartin/Byrne tacked towards the harbour mouth and somehow found an improvement in pressure. They rounded the windward first and were never caught. Miller/Donnelly held their lead on the chasing pack to retain second in a race which was shortened to a downwind finish at the line.
Butler/Oram closed the gap but a quick gybe rather than a bear away at the gybe mark, which initially looked promising, ultimately failed to produce results. To add to their woes veteran Fireballer Louis Smyth, sailing with Joe O'Reilly slipped through them by the finish to take third place. Although this kind of racing leaves a lot to be desired it was still an entertaining evening's competition and full marks to DBSC for getting the race away and finished in the conditions.
