Multihull Northern Championship at Ballyholme Yacht Club
by Richard Swanston 28 May 2015 16:51 BST
23-24 May 2015
Great event at Ballyholme Yacht Club this weekend. Superb race management as usual form Robin Gray. Exceptional lines and tight courses made for testing start techniques, just what our World F18 travellers needed.
Competitors from all the cat clubs came to the event, to have some great racing over short course format with multiple (8) starts. Saturday dawned with little and fickle winds and sore heads, but when the SW building breeze settled we were treated to 5 competitive races. Adrian and Barry were in dominant form with five wins.
A great challenging NW breeze of 15kts – 22 kts met us on Sunday to test every one with very fast downhill rides. Adrian and Barry again won the races, but with all five leading F18's hitting the top mark together in a wall of spray and curses racing was very competitive!
Wyatt Orsmond in his new Goodall C2 from Blessington Sailing Club was however biting at his heels finishing 2nd. overall and is sure to provide stiff competition in the events to come.
Maxie who was put in at the deep end with Biddy from Swords Sailing Club may well have wished for a softer introduction to Catamaran F18 sailing but finished extremely well in third place. Jenni Brittain sailing with Swannie in her first Irish event counting only a few hours F18 sailing experience had some very encouraging results and began to show some form even in the big breeze, finishing on joint points with Biddy and a very bruised Maxie, loosing out on discard to 4th place
Congratulations to Adrian Allen and Barry Swanston on winning the event with bullets all the way. Particular thanks to all in the race team at Ballyholme and members that helped or enjoyed the event with us.