Impatience with the ongoing pandemic has led the Irish Fireball Association to bring forward its first coaching session of the season with Barry McCartin. The session will now take place as a Zoom Webinar on Thursday, March 4th.
The plan is to go divide up the typical race elements into segments with Barry emphasising the key actions in each phase to improve speed and position. Each short segment will be followed by a question & answer session and will be interspersed with video clips and illustrations. While the focus will be on getting around the course fast in a Fireball amongst the topics to be addressed will be – On Land Preparation, Pre-Start, Start and First Beat, First Reach Speed using Shifts, Gybe and Broad Reach, 2nd Beat and Run.
A highly experienced coach, McCartin, with crew Conor Kinsella has proved to be the fastest Irish International Fireball helm in recent years, scoring a top ten position in the 100-boat World Championships in Carnac in 2018 and a fourth and several race wins in the 2014 Europeans.
As well as Fireballs McCartin has coached 420s, Lasers and also races an RS400. While the virtual coaching session will be Fireball specific the tips and guidance may well be of interest to other fast dinghy classes and subject to number limitations guests are most welcome. The webinar, supported by Irish Sailing, will take place via Zoom at 8.30 pm, Thursday, March 4th.
Fireball sailors will receive an automatic invitation through the usual class channels but interested sailors from other classes should email class secretary Frank Miller [email protected] for an invitation.
