The purple arrows were out in force on Day 3 of the Beshoff Motors Autumn League at Howth, though the heaviest of them passed to the north of the race area. The purple arrows are the ones that indicate squalls, and at one time during the race period, there was one over nearby Dublin Airport indicating a westerly bullet wind with low speeds of 14 mph and high speeds of 32 mph. Up at the airport, this must have made for some quite lively landings on the new runway, but for skippers at sea level with specialist vintage craft testing over-supple new masts, it was sometimes rather too much of a good thing, even if their friendly neighbourhood sailmakers could see it all as a good thing, period.
Yet generally, conditions were moderate to fresh, and the strongest squall was seen as being between 20 and 30 knots. Thus there was ample opportunity for good tactical racing and a reading of the sky to weather, though those who briefly looked leeward to seaward noticed that some of the more obtuse squalls were only getting going as they crossed Howth’s sheltered racing waters - out in the Irish Sea, the purple was becoming black.
Sports fishing or sailing? With a very supple new mast to test, the Howth 17 Erica (David Nixon) has to let sheets fly when a bullet squall strikes.
Nevertheless for much of the time there was sunshine near enough, and Howth’s very focused Race Officer squad were determined to get at least one more race in the can at this halfway stage to achieve four races and have a refreshing discard to throw into the mix.
CLASS 1
Evidently God was in his Heaven above that swirling sky, as Stephen Quinn was back on form to take first with the J/97 Lambay Rules, Richard Colwell and Johnny Murphy in the J/109 Outrajeous getting second. However, the possibility of a J Boat cascade was seen off by the biggest boat in the fleet, the First 50 Checkmate XX (Nigel Biggs and Dave Cullen) loving the brisk going to take third. However, with the mercy of the discard, the Evans brothers were able to drop their fifth on the day with their J/99 Snapshot, and on points overall they now emerge as second, Lambay Rules once again leading, with Pat Kelly’s J/109 from Rush currently third on the leaderboard.
Believe it or not, this was the same afternoon – the First 50 Checkmate XX was in the frame with third in Class 1
CLASS 2
The fourth race greeted the starters from Class 2 with a blustery westerly breeze which at times was hitting 20Kts +, albeit with plenty of sunshine (reports Fergal Noonan)
Following an AP for gusting conditions, the Race Officer picked a Round the Cans course that was to test all crews. With #3’s the order of the day for the start, a change to #1’s for the last fetch/beat to Viceroy Mark made for exciting and wet conditions for the lucky foredeck crews.
The cream of the crop……Pat Kelly’s team from the horticultural heartlands of Rush are always there or thereabouts in the J/109 Storm in Class 1
From the start gun, both Maximus and Dux chose the favoured Committee Boat end while Xebec, No Excuse and Viking ran down the line towards the Pin end. At the first mark, Dux had established a marginal lead over Maximus, which she was to hold all the way to the finish, beating her rival X302 by 40 seconds.
A Port and Starboard incident halfway up the first beat between Xebec and No Excuse allowed Impetuous to slip into the third slot at the weather mark, only to lose out to a determined No Excuse team around the race track.
Silhouette sailing was just part of the variety the afternoon provided
With four races now completed, Maximus (Paddy Kyne) continues to hold a slender one point advantage in IRC over Dux (Caroline & Nico Gore-Grimes) with Impetuous now in third. In HPH, Maximus are building a commanding lead.
CLASS 3
Race 4 saw strong conditions again, with the fleet bunching towards the committee boat for the start and Lee Douglas’s Shenanigans leading the fleet away (reports Stephen Mullaney). At the windward mark, it was the Sigma 33 Insider from Shenanigans from Pepsi, the heavier breeze suiting the bigger heavier boats with many boats having reefs in their mainsails. The whole fleet took caution for the downwind with no spinnakers being flown.
On the next upwind, Insider led but with many position changes throughout the fleet, and at this stage, the wind had begun to drop with most of the fleet hoisting smaller heavy weather spinnakers.
By the third round, most thought the breeze had abated, and for the final downwind leg, Insider hoisted their large spinnaker and was the only boat to hoist. This proved the be the wrong answers as the gusts built, culminating in Insider demonstrating a Chinese gybe - and dunking the helm in the water - but they were able to recover by the leeward mark.
Definitely, the only boat in the fleet to have sailed up the Grand Canal in Venice, under sail the whole way to the Rialto Bridge. Yet this is what Harold Cudmore did with Silver Shamrock after winning the Half Ton Worlds at Trieste in 1976. These days, she’s the family boat for Conor Fogerty, but he now appears to be superfluous to requirements – in Conor’s absence, Suzanne Ennis Fogerty helmed Silver Shamrock to another second overall in Race 4 of the Beshoff Motors Autumn League
At the finish, Insider was first on the water and on IRC with Suzanne Ennis Fogerty helming on the vintage Silver Shamrock to prove that Conor’s absence for the race wasn’t an issue, as they posted another second. The J/24 Kilcullen team showing the benefits of One Design, as they jumped straight from their under-repair boat into Scandal with their sails, and posted a third on IRC. On HPH Doug Anderson’s Pepsi made it a pair of wins for Sigma 33s in Class 3 by taking their first win followed by Kahera in 2nd and Insider in 3rd.
Overall, Insider leads on IRC and Kahera on HPH, but the Sigma 33 Pepsi, having discarded their DNF from week one, sits just one point behind, with Billy Whizz third.
CLASS 4 (WHITE SAIL)
It was a day for the bigger boats, and Stephen Harris with the First 40.7 cruised round to take IRC, while Kieran Jameson with the Sigma 38 did likewise on HPH. David Greene of Malahide with White Pearl was best across both systems with a third and a second, and overall is poised to be challenging as the fleets gear themselves for the second half of the series.
One Design is good….the J/24 Kilculllen crew transferred the sails from their damaged boat to Scandal, and logged a third on IRC
CLASS 5 (WHITE SAIL)
Big is best was again the mantra as the vintage First 38 Out and About (McCoy-Cregan) took HPH, but under IRC Windsor Laudan and Steph Ennis won again with the Club Shamrock Demelza.
SQUIBS
The Squibs - smallest boats in the fleet - took full cognizance of the gloomy pre-weekend forecasts, and only two boats turned out for what was hoped to be an afternoon of one-on-one match racing, but looked more like a game of last crew standing, writes Thomas O’Reilly.
Conditions were too wild for even Slipstream’s Fiona to make herself heard, so a game of boat-to-boat charades helped establish that neither boat had an appetite to fly kites. Then at the start, Slipstream cruised down the empty line on port, pointing up at the gun to comfortably pass over the top of Cool Beans.
However, Cool Beans recovered quickly to round the windward mark first, and both proceeded kite-less to the first leeward mark with Slipstream recovering some ground. Both kept it tight rounding but Slipstream quickly found the groove leaving Cool Beans for dust. For the final part of this beat the two boats separated, SS going right, and Cool Beans regained the lead.
With conditions improving, Cool Beans prepped the spinnaker pole looking back to see if they could coax Slipstream into flying theirs. With Slipstream now hoisting, Cool Beans continued with putting theirs up. Big mistakes by Cool Beans. Slipstream proceeded to reel her in, and was hot on ithe Beans’ heels by the second leeward mark.
Slipstream put the foot down and had taken the lead by the last windward mark, deciding to fly kite on the final downwind leg. With lump in throat, so did Cool Beans. Slipstream went broad, Cool Beans went directly downwind and quickly decided to take its kite down. After a kite tangle during a gybe, Slipstream decided to drop it to avoid ending up with two kites.
Slipstream led by two boat lengths and headed for the island by the last leeward mark. Cool Beans opted to sail on but found herself in a lighter breeze. Slipstream cruised around the Martello Tower to the finishing line with Cool Beans dispatched. Another win for the visitors from Killyleagh….
HOWTH 17s
With a wind range of 20 to 30kts and shifting left and right from the west, the Howth 17 fleet of 10 starters were well tested by what was an excellent course with three beats and runs, including a gybe at the Island mark (writes Marc Fitzgibbon). Deilginis went left and then right on the break to take a lead at the weather mark that she held all the way to the finish, when she was 30 seconds ahead of the Turvey brothers on Isobel.
The Seventeens get down to business, with Orla (Marc Fitzgibbon & Daragh Gallagher) bang on the gun at the Committee Boat
Behind them, the places chopped and changed with the shifting breeze. Oona crashed out with a broken boom and Hera fell back with a moving spider band, so that David Nixon on Erica came right back to take third, his brother-in-law David Jones with Rosemary finishing on the water to win on handicap, but Rima Macken’s Eileen - who stayed well up in the fleet - maintained her overall lead in the HPH division by securing second.
PUPPETEERS
After lead-in days of ‘will we or won’t we’ weather forecasts, the westerly wind on the way to the start was benign enough to hide any warning of the impending ‘Sailmaker’s Special’ conditions – initial wind speed of 20 knots down to 8 knots a third of the way into the race to encourage a change to bigger headsails, but quickly back up to 20 knots plus with no time to change down again writes Neil Murphy.
Little choice after that but to hard work to keep the boat moving and somewhat upright whilst listening to the flapping of quickly depreciating sails and thinking about the sailmakers’ current Autumn discount offers. With the leaders taking an hour and forty-five minutes to sail the course in the very testing conditions, bodies, sails and boats were well tested, but there was no doubt about the race being entitled to go on the list of Autumn League crackers.
Changing situation early in the Puppeteer’s race, with the wind backing ahead of a developing squall, and the port tack red boat (Shiggi Shiggi) suddenly looking at being able to cross the starboard tack Yellow Peril
With all opting for their smaller headsail in the sturdy conditions at the start and only one OCS boat, by the first windward it was Yellow Peril (Murphy / Costello) in the lead and the first boat to decide whether fly the kite on the broad reach to Island mark in the by-now “very sturdy” breeze and building sea. After a pause for consideration, up it went and after a further pause while the chasing Shiggi Shiggi (P&L McMahon) and Harlequin (D Clarke) waited to see if the leader stayed vertical, theirs followed suit.
With a gybe needed at Island mark and a closer reach out to Osprey to follow, Yellow Peril went back to whitesails before gybing but their pursuers took the braver choice, got through their gybes and were looking good on the reach until the wind freshened and veered to make whitesails the more attractive option. The easing breeze on the next windward leg slowed progress and tempted many to change up to big headsails during the subsequent spinnaker reach.
However, the breeze quickly climbed back up to the low twenties after the leeward mark, making it a struggle to go forwards rather than sideways. The leaders kept station until the second long beat, when Yellow Peril and Shiggi Shiggi went left, Harlequin went right, and Trick Or Treat (Pearson / Blay), winner of the first three races, went even further right. By the windward mark, Trick or Treat were up to first with Harlequin rounding second, the left-siders back in the minor placings and HoneyBadger (G May) becoming a contender.
A broad reach brought the fleet back to Dunbo, the last turning mark, and Trick Or Treat was looking good for a fourth win. However, choosing the layline to clear the north-west corner of Ireland’s Eye in the ebbing tide was the final hurdle of the day. Harlequin judged their course to perfection, inspecting some lobster pot floats in the process, and passed Trick Or Treat, slowing them enough to allow Yellow Peril also squeeze past to grab second, a dramatic end to a dramatic race. On the HPH results, Weyhey (I. Dickson), Sanderling (B. Jennings) and Ghosty Ned (D. Harkin) took the podium places.
TEAM PLACINGS
The Inter-Squad Series-Within-a-Series for three boat teams, each from a different class, now appears to be virtually settled even at this halfway stage, with the TITs (Tiger, Insider and Trick-or-Treat) recording another three wins.
Photos by Robert Orr, Pat McCaughey, Paddy Judge & Harry Gallagher
