The Wineport Lodge Irish Moth Inlands at Lough Ree Yacht Club
by Annalise Murphy 15 Apr 2014 07:58 BST
12-13 April 2014
The Irish Moth Tour continued at the weekend with its third ever event in Lough Ree! The regatta comprised of a combined Moth and Waterwag event, the inspiration of Wag sailor Cathy Mac Aleevy. The Irish Moth fleet which has swelled to 12 boats over the past 12 months were delighted to sail and socialize alongside the oldest one design dinghies in the world.
Arriving mothies such as Ronan Wallace, Ryan Seaton and Annalise Murphy all told stories of passers by asking what kind of airplane was on the roof of their cars! A pre event dinner was kindly hosted by Glassin Golf Club on Friday evening before going back to the Killinure Chalets where all mothies had taken up residence in the 17 man house!
The next morning we had a short briefing where Con Murphy told the Wag and Moth fleet that the plan was to do 3 races off the marina before racing downwind to The Wineport Lodge for lunch, followed by another 3 races in front of the Wineport and a race home! After one rather hairy race where nearly everyone manage to crash into the rushes at some point we headed off downwind to the Wineport which turned out to be a real adventure sailing through small cuts and around islands! Once we arrived down to the area in front of the Wineport Lodge, we did another 2 races, Rory Fitzpatrick was in good form so far winning 3 out of 3!
A fantastic lunch was generously hosted by the event sponsor 'The Wineport Lodge' where Wags and Mothies were treated like kings, and had an amazing selection of soup, sandwiches, chicken wings and chips all while in our wetsuits!
Both fleets relaunched afloat for more racing and it had got a bit more patchy so looking for wind was what proved to be important (and not capsizing). In race 4 Rory crashed out meters from the finish line and watched Ryan, myself (Annalise) and John all speed by him. Race 5 was Ryan's race finishing close to a leg ahead of the rest of us! Race 6 was a quick upwind to the windward mark then a fast reach across to the cut then a 20 tack upwind back to Quigley's Marina. Rory, Ryan and I all managed to get through the cut in the rushes foiling and we then met up with Gavin Doyle who had chosen the more sensible route home! It was then a battle of fitness and boat handling all the way back to the marina..
After an exhausting day 1, moth newbie Neil O'Toole had a quick blast in John's boat before we all headed to the Killinure Chalets Pub for dinner.
Sunday kicked off looking like a nice medium day but by the time we were launching it was up to 20 knots gusting 25 sometimes, so Con made the call to race us just of Quigley's marina again! In some of the gusts downwind we were hitting 25-28 knots and trying to turn up at that speed is extremely difficult but luckily we had a good incentive to get the turn ups right given the proximity of the reeds at the side of the lake! Race 7, race 8 and race 9 were won by Rory with Ryan and John Chambers taking second in one a piece. In the last race of the day Rory and I were neck and neck all the way around and after an out of control round up I managed to get just ahead of him to win by a boat length!
Rory retained the teapot trophy, with Ryan in second, John and Annalise finished on equal points and then Ronan, Gavin and Neil. We all had a great weekend and would like to thank Quigley's marina for letting us launch from there, The Killinure Chalets for the great house, The Wineport Lodge for the amazing lunch and letting us sit inside their restaurant in our wetsuits! The Wag class for showing us they are definitely the class who has the most craic! But particularily to Con for being OOD and Eddie and Dara for helping out on the committee boat! Clara for the photos and not getting irate over the amount of cardon chat that happened at the weekend, and last but not least Cathy for organizing everything! It really was a brilliant weekend!