Race Officer Neil Murphy and the Green Fleet had a difficult day on the water for Saturday’s DBSC racing.
Initially, the Race Officer took the fleet well to the west of the bay with the bigger boats and a WAZP regatta dictating the availability of the course area. From an early stage, it was apparent that the wind was not going to play ball as it fluctuated either side of 270°. With the WASZPs finishing their racing, the committee boat moved to their location but Neil’s struggles were not over, and the sight of the big boat fleet beating southwards and eastwards and the leaders running back westwards under spinnaker up the bay must have left him thinking he was operating in a parallel universe. That breeze never materialised for the Green Fleet – SB20s, Dragons, Sportsboats, Flying Fifteens, Mermaids, Ruffians and Beneteau's.
A two-lap Windward-Leeward race was commenced with a breeze that changed so regularly that deciding which end of the line was best to start was also a matter of chance. A committee boat start did not look too bright for 4081 (Mulligan & Bradley) relative to 3955 (Dumpleton & Hickey) and 4057 (Tom Murphy & Matt) who tacked onto port almost immediately and shot ahead of the fleet. I am going to assume that 4099 (Gorman & Casey), 4083 (Lavery & Green) and 4093 (Galvin & Poole) were at the other end of the line because these three boats and the previous two formed the core of the head of the fleet. By the latter half of the first beat, Gorman and Lavery were at the head of the fleet with Dumpleton and Murphy thereabouts. Mulligan had a better 2nd half of the beat to close the gap somewhat but the racing was tight down the spinnaker leg.
Dumpleton’s manoeuvres towards the end of the run were unsuccessful as he got dropped by Messrs Gorman and Lavery, having been in a position to challenge them both. The lead group went left but soon found themselves wallowing in no wind. Mulligan, 3753 (Court & O’Leary [with hat intact]) and 4068 (Mulvin & Beirne) having rounded together with 3896 (Cooper & McNamara) then worked the middle and right of the course. Court & O’Leary could have sailed to Clontarf and turned left when they ran out of water, they were so far removed from the rest of us. Cooper also went right but not to the extremes of Court. Mulligan and Mulvin were the most conservative operating in a tight corridor that never completely ran out of breeze, but never had a huge amount either. After one tack, Mulligan was able to lay the weather mark on a huge starboard lift. But that too evaporated!
Court eventually steamed in on starboard tack, reaching in from afar. However, he rounded the mark behind Cooper and with Mulligan on his transom. Court & Mulligan gybed immediately, Mulligan following Court’s lead and these two stayed within a boat-length of each other down the spinnaker leg. Mulvin & Beirne initially gave chase to Mulligan but the latter managed to squeeze out from the wind shadow Mulvin was trying to create.
The “left wingers” managed to get back in the frame by the weather mark as the breeze started to fill a bit more fruitfully across the course. Thus, we had Court, Mulligan and Mulvin working the left-hand side of the run, utilising the breeze that Court had brought in from the Clontarf side. Gorman, Lavery, Dumpleton, Cooper, the Colemans, Niall & Susan (4008) were on the shore side of the first three.
The lead two finished marginally overlapped, with Court & O’Leary taking the gun. Mulvin & Beirne were rewarded with 3rd place ahead of Gorman & Casey, Dumpleton & Hickey, the Colemans, Lavery & Green and Cooper.
It was a day of multiple wind changes and Neil Murphy, visiting the southern portion of the Bay from Howth, had multiple decisions to make to get a race in. A decision to wait until 16:15 to even contemplate a second race was the considered approach and by this deadline there was still no solidity to the wind conditions. The breeze that the big boats enjoyed never materialised on the Green course even though they used a weather mark that was only about one hundred metres away from our start area. The Green Fleet sailed homewards under spinnakers with a breeze that still had a westerly element to it. Inside the harbour the dinghy fleet abandoned their racing.
DBSC Saturday 6th August 2022
Flying Fifteens
1. Alistair Court & Conor O’Leary
2. Ben Mulligan & Cormac Bradley
3. David Mulvin & Ronan Beirne
4. David Gorman & Margaret Casey
5. Ken Dumpleton & Joe Hickey
Saturdays Series B
1. David Gorman & Others 9pts
2. John Lavery & Alan Green 10pts
3. Alistair Court & Conor O’Leary 15pts
4. Ben Mulligan & Cormac Bradley 19pts
5. Ken Dumpleton & Joe Hickey 21pts
Saturdays Overall
1. David Gorman & Others 31pts
2. Ben Mulligan & Cormac Bradley 49pts
3. David Mulvin & Ronan Beirne 72pts
4. Neil Colin & Margaret Casey 83pts
5. Alistair Court & Conor O’Leary 96pts
