Fireball Leinster Championships at Howth Yacht Club
by Cormac Bradley 19 Jul 2010 15:07 BST
17-18 July 2010
Hat-trick of wins for Butler/McCarthy!
Noel Butler and Shane McCarthy picked up their third regatta win of the Irish Fireball season when they won the Leinster Championships which were exceptionally well hosted and managed on the water by Howth Yacht Club over this past weekend.
A five race series was completed and the Dun Laogahire/Greystones pairing won three of the five races to end up with an 8-pt advantage over the second placed boat. Despite this seeming dominance of on-the-water proceedings, Noel Butler would be the first to admit that the competition level at the front end of the fleet is improving all the time. This correspondent spent a larger than normal part of the regatta at the front end as well and can confirm that Butler/McCarthy had their work cut out to win in all three races. What is most encouraging is that the challenge is coming from the younger Fireballers, the likes of Kenny Rumball and Simon McGrotty. Ed Butler, taking a break from 49ers, also contested this regatta and got some low numbers on his score card.
A fleet of 30 Fireballs took to the waters north of Howth Yacht Club under the expert race management team of (International) Race Officer Dave Lovegrove – a very successful past campaigner of Fireballs himself! For these Leinsters Championships he brought out his A-team, who will run the Etchell Worlds at the same venue next month. He set exceptionally good courses, turned races around very quickly, and when the wind decided not to co-operate he made good decisions to get the fleet off the water. Howth have been keen to host a Fireball event and their hospitality and co-operation in putting this event together was exceptional. Emmet Dalton couldn’t have done enough for us in organizing this event and an entry of 30 boats, prompted and prodded by Neil Colin and Marie Barry of Irish Fireball, was a fitting testimony to the efforts of the whole regatta organization.
30 boats meant that we saw some faces for the first time this season! Mike Murphy (Waterford) and Alex Voye, taking a break from two-handed big boat sailing showed that they hadn’t lost their touch, by posting two second places on their way to 4th overall. Alastair Court & Gordon Syme had two top-ten finishes to reward themselves for coming out of retirement. Team “Clontarf “ was also represented with three boats and Brian Nolan and Billy Winter were rewarded for their efforts by taking 2nd place in the Silver fleet. Ciaran Hickey and son, Leo, had a 6th in the final race and it was great to see Eddie Ferris on the water for the first time in nearly two years.
An additional feature of this regatta was the on-the-water videoing of the racing by Adam Bowers of the RYA as part of a coaching session that ran the entire weekend, including a session on Friday. Adam has been a regular visitor to these shores over the past couple of years and has become an adopted part of the Irish Fireball family. Adam ran a debriefing session on the Saturday night and a debrief of Sunday’s racing immediately after the prize-giving on Sunday which enjoyed an almost 100% turnout of the competitors.
Three races were sailed on the Saturday in fresh trapezing conditions. Dave Lovegrove and team set very good Olympic courses for races 1 & 2 which gave challenging conditions on the top reach, particularly in the latter stages of the second race when the breeze started to move round a bit to the south. 6 boats fell foul of a black flag on the first race which left some hard worked crews rather deflated when they realized their error. It allowed Butler/McCarthy a psychological advantage over their potential rivals as they scored a first on the water. Murphy/Voye took second with father and son, Ed and Ed Butler in third.
Race 2 saw Kenny Rumball and David Moran put their black flag score behind them to take the second race of the day, but it was very tight with Butler/McCarthy on the finish line. Neil Spain and Seamus Moore from the host club scored a third.
A windward/leeward was set for Race 3 and Butler/McCarthy took this one with a degree of comfort. Butler/Butler took second while Simon McGrotty and Ruairi Grimes took third.
A shifting breeze caused the Race Officer to call quits on the day’s proceedings so when the fleet retired to the clinic to be run by Adam Bowers, the overall 1, 2, 3 stood as follows; Butler/McCarthy (4), Butler/Butler (11), Murphy/Voye (12). Some of those with low scores in Races 2 and 3 were undone by their black-flag transgression in Race 1 to drop down the overall ranking on Saturday night.
Adam’s clinic then used race-course video footage to highlight the good, the bad and the downright ugly, though to give him his due there was very little of the latter. The clinic ran for just over an hour and a half and concentrated on the areas of starting, course selection, rounding of the leeward mark, the eternal quest for clean water and clean wind and the development of one’s “circle of awareness”. An advocate of minimal rudder, he emphasized the importance of big rudder movement in only one specific location………the leeward mark. Interactive, entertaining, accommodating and knowledgeable, Adam has endeared himself to the Irish Fireball fleet.
Sunday’s wind started from the same direction as Saturday morning but it didn’t have the same “oomph” about it and as the morning progressed it swung and started to fade. Nevertheless the race management team got in two races before a switchy squall came in and with the cut-off of 14:30 for race starts approaching, racing for the day was canned.
McGrotty/Grimes were paying most attention to Adam the evening before and put all his recommendations into place to win comfortably from Murphy/Voye and Rumball/Moran. In the post race debrief, Adam highlighted a single manouevre by the Skerries pair that allowed them to go from third to first and control the race thereafter. Bowers was as proud as the parent of a graduate on graduation day when he closed the day’s proceedings.
The final race of the regatta was as challenging as any race can be and even from the comfort of the coach-boat, Bowers was at pains to work out a water-tight strategy for the race. As usual Butler/McCarthy made the most of the complexities to win from Rumball/Moran and Andy Boyle and Bryan Byrne.
The Silver Fleet saw some new action with four boats from the host club and an overall winner in Diana Kissane and Conor Kinsella. For anyone who follows the Irish sailing junior and youth scene, Diane Kissane is a name that is synonymous with success. The injection of participation from Clontarf was a welcome development and the dependable from Dun Laoghaire helped to boost the numbers.
A number of combinations put together a good series, apart from those already mentioned in the text of this report. Niall McGrotty and Robert Mahon had a very good Sunday with a 4th and a 6th to finish 7th overall. Louis Smyth and Joe O’Reilly had a better Saturday than Sunday with three top-ten finishes to take 8th overall. Neil Colin and Margaret Casey had a mixed bag by their recent standards, but closed out the top ten on discard from Stephen Oram who had three top ten results.
Commodore Peter McKenna presided over the prize-giving and thanked the Fireballs from coming to Howth. In truth we should thank him for the hospitality shown to us. Individual members of the club provided bed and breakfast to the visitors, the club provided Adam Bowers with a rib for his use and there was a very good meal available on Saturday night. The race management team laid good courses and made good timeous decisions with respect to the weather.
It has been some time since Fireballs visited Howth, it will be a much shorter return period!
Overall Results:
1st Noel Butler and Shane McCarthy, Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club, 5pts
2nd Kenneth Rumball and David Moran, Royal St.George Yacht Club, 13pts
3rd Simon McGrotty and Ruairi Grimes, Skerries Sailing Club, 13pts
Silver Fleet
14th Diana Kissane and Conor Kinsella, Howth Yacht Club, 59pts
18th Brian Nolan and Billy Winter, Clontarf Yacht & Boat Club, 70pts
20th Leo and Ciaran Hickey, National Yacht Club, 73pts
The Irish Fireball regatta scene takes a short break now (after consecutive weekends in Skerries and Howth) before the Nationals in Baltimore over the last weekend of August.