With the shortest day of the year only a fortnight away, winter leagues at a number of centres in Ireland can already look back on a satisfying collection of good races which somehow hit on magic days between storms such as Arwen two weeks ago, and the steadily approaching and rapidly deepening Barra.
At Howth yesterday (Sunday) for the long-running Bright Motors Brass Monkeys Autumn League and the even-longer-running KeyCapital Laser Frostbites, PRO Derek Bothwell and his team had found themselves actually wondering at dawn if an obliging high pressure ridge, which was bringing in a classic pet day, might overdo its benevolence to provide a calm.
But as Race Team Management member HYC Vice Commodore Neil Murphy tersely reports of the racing: “Sunshine, wind approx 15 knots from 290, and a very big spring tide running on the ebb. Twenty-one boats racing across the three keelboat classes”.
A neat start by Steffi & Windsor in the veteran Club Shamrock Demelza……..
Warbling wordsmiths might add that the air was like well-chilled champagne, though the keelboat numbers (mainly Howth, but from four different East Coast clubs in all) don’t reflect the initial more numerous series entry, as some boats which weren’t in with a final podium chance had seen key elements of their afterguard press-ganged into shoreside Christmas-tree acquisition and gift-buying duties in a pre-emptive move in face of Tuesday’s approaching restrictions.
But for those who did sail this fifth race to keep the series on programme, the conditions were perfect, and in Class 1 HPH Peter & Declan McCabe’s Arcturus (HYC) confirmed a solid overall lead with another win to put her on 7 pts OA to the 15 of Joe Carton’s Dehler 34 Voyager (HYC) and the 18 of Helm’s Deep (Paul Harrison, Skerries SC).
Class 2 HPH has Pat O’Neill’s J/80 Mojo maintaining the winning form she was showing in Denmark back in the summer, for although third in this fifth race (which was won by Simon Knowles’ J/109 Indian), Mojo has never been below 5th to put together a useful series pattern in a 13-boat entry, and thus she lies on 17pts to the 21 of Mark McLoughlins J’us, with Holly Quinn racing the family’s J/97 Lambay Rules equal on 21 points, but back a place on the tie break.
Simon Knowles’ J/109 Indian, winner on Sunday, sweeping through Howth Sound on the sluicing ebb.
Special interest is added to Class 2 as all five HYC-owned J/80s are racing under charter to likes to the likes of Darren Wright and Dave Cullen, who have learned on some of the breezier days that’s there’s more to keeping a fully-clothed J/80 under her mast than there is on one of their own Classic Half Tonners.
As for Class 3 HPH, the veteran Club Shamrock Demelza (Steffi & Windsor HYC) has been winning for more than forty years in both Cork and Howth, but although - despite a neat start - she finished second on Sunday, when the winner was Kevin O’Byrne’s Mary Ellen, Demelza continues in a shared overall lead with the Douglas/Keane Shenanigans (Malahide YC) with both on 12 pts, while the 50-years-racing classic Swan 37 Bandersnatch (brought new to Howth in 1971 by Ross & Peter Courtney) is on third at 21 points for longtime owner Kyran O’Grady of Wicklow SC.
The keelboats Brass Monkey series changes to Saturday for their final race of Series 1 this weekend (Saturday, December 11th) followed by the socially-distanced prize-giving (the traditional lunch would have been a Cheltenham-standard super-spreader), but the Lasers will keep going for another week.
Laser ding-dong – overall leader Ronan Wallace (Wexford, 166313) keeping tabs on Dan O’Connell (Derrynane perhaps?)
LASERS BUSY
While the keelboats may have felt quite pleased by drawing in an entry from four different clubs, they are only in the ha’penny place compared to the Lasers, whose long-running annual winter series (it goes back to 1974) has this time round drawn in entries from eleven Leinster clubs, and the first eight in the Standard Division reflect this. The current clear leader after nine races is Ronan Wallace of Wexford on 7pts, second is Daragh Kelleher of Skerries on 15, Conor Murphy maintains the honour of the host club with third overall for Howth (23 pts), Tom Fox of Rush SC is fourth on 28, Dave Kirwan (Malahide) is fifth on 34, Dan O’Connell (ISA) is 6th on 45, and Richard Tate (RStGYC) is seventh on 52 before another HYC sailor pops up with Conor Costello eighth on 53.
However, the Laser Radials are HYC all the way, with Charlie Keating leading from Fiachra Farrelly and Cillian Twomey, giving a glimpse of the future which is also reflected in the provision of racing for the RS Aero, where John Phelan leads from Paul McMahon and Daragh Sheridan.
A long way from Derrynane – Dan O’Connell on the run at Howth
Quite how things will be next weekend in the aftermath of Barra heaven only knows, but Howth’s Happy Race Team can already claim “We have a series, we have a result”.
(Photos by Neil Murphy & Aideen Sargent)
Details here
The RS Aeros are also racing, and Paul McMahon (photo) currently lies second overall
