47th Frostbite Series 2 at Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club - Day 1

A modest fleet of 25 boats opened the second half of the 2017/18 Frostbite Series hosted by Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club on Sunday 7th January.

While XCWeather had a forecast for 14:00 of 11 – 16 knots Easterly with an air temperature of 5°, the weather station inside the harbour was showing 17.3 knots with a maximum gust of 22 knots at 13:45 with a wind direction of 105° and an air temperature of 6.4°. On leaving the my commentary position to repair to the DMYC clubhouse, the wind strength recording was 16 knots gusting 19knots and considering the number of capsizes, I think that this was the more accurate assessment.

Race Officer Ben Mulligan (Flying Fifteens) set a five-lap trapezoid course for the day's proceedings with his committee boat stationed just to the east of the entrance to the marina and a weather mark in the middle of the harbour. No.2 was situated in the middle of the harbour mouth but probably of the order of 60m inside the mouth itself, while No.3 was close to the West Pier and No.4 was about 30m to leeward of the committee boat.

Of the 25 boats on the water the breakdown was as follows – 10 Lasers (of assorted rigs), three Laser Vagos, three Fireballs, two IDRAs, a Solo, a Wayfarer, a 470, a K1, a Kona Windsurfer, an RS400 and the Hartley 12.2.

In the Slow PY Fleet, Shane McCarthy in the Solo led for the majority of the race, losing the lead for a short time to the solitary Kona Windsurfer of Des Gibney. Shane started the race on starboard tack towards the pin but not on it and sailed about half the distance from the pin to the end of the West Pier before working his way up the left-hand side of the beat. The majority of the other Slow PY starters were towards the committee boat end and tacked much earlier to work the opposite side of the beat. For most of them this was as close as they got to McCarthy who led comfortably around the weather mark and proceeded to sail away from the other "Slow PY-ers" with the exception of Gibney. Behind the Solo (5302) the pecking order at the first mark was Monica Schaeffer & Miriam McCarthy in the Wayfarer (11152), Frank Hamilton & crew, Jenny, in the first IDRA (140), Pierre Long & John Parker in the second IDRA (161) and the KONA (2677) of Gibney. By Mark 4 of the first lap, the KONA has risen to second and Hamilton had passed out Schaeffer. The places behind McCarthy remained in a state of flux with Long passing out Hamilton in the duel of the IDRAs before Hamilton regained that lead and Long retired. The Wayfarer exercised caution on the off-wind legs by not flying the spinnaker and this left Gibney as the sole chaser of the Solo. Downwind he was able to close significantly and indeed on the penultimate lap he actually overtook McCarthy, albeit briefly, before McCarthy pulled away over the last lap to win by 2 minutes and twenty seconds. In the Slow PY Fleet the day's Frostbite Mug went to the first Laser Vago, registered to Nigel Russell but sailed by two others.

The Fireball turnout was very modest at three boats – work robbing the fleet of one boat, hospitalisation and holidays another boat and a possible sixth boat not appearing. Despite two late arrivals in the starting area, one of the latecomers seem to get the best start with Neil Colin & Margaret Casey (14775) commanding the committee boat end of the line with Alistair Court & Gordon Syme (14706) to leeward and Louise McKenna & Hermine O'Keeffe (14691) astern. All three headed left initially with Colin going over the top of Court and being the first to tack on to port for a long leg up the middle of the course. Court followed shortly thereafter but now occupied the windward berth relative to Colin. They rounded Mark 1 with Court leading by half a boat-length but neither flew spinnaker down the leg to No.2. McKenna had another challenge with the 470 rounding on her transom and for the rest of the afternoon she was unable to get any significant distance away from the Olympic Class boat. Spinnakers broke out from Mark 2 to Mark 3 but Colin dropped at Mark 3 while Court held it for the early part of the leg, but fell off to leeward relative to the mark as the price. For the second beat all the Fireballs stayed right and left the hitch to the windward mark to much later. By this stage Court had opened up his lead on Colin and both were comfortably ahead of McKenna who was having an alternative race with the 470. No spinnakers featured on the top reach of the trapezoid all afternoon and only sporadically on the bottom reach, with Court the only proponent of that exercise. Court progressively pulled away from Colin who then went swimming on the third lap between 1 and 2 – a squall arriving with not enough kicker released. This prompted an early retirement, leaving the field wide open for Court & Syme. In the Fast PY Fleet the day's Frostbite Mugs went to Gerry Ryan & John McAree in the 470.

The tightest racing of the day was in the 10-boat Laser Class. While the fleet was led all the way round by Sean Flanagan (177854/Full Rig) he was closely chased by Alan Hodgins (175809/Full Rig) with Shirley Gilmore (204762/Radial) lurking with intent in 3rd place. The "lurking with intent" paid off, for although she was 1:57 down on Sean Flanagan at the finish and 1:16 down on Hodgins, on corrected time she finished just 25 seconds behind Flanagan and 13 seconds ahead of Hodgins who recorded the same corrected time as Evan Dargan Hayes in a Laser 4.7 in fourth. Thus, the first four Lasers on corrected time were covered by 38 seconds. The Frostbite Mug went to Sean Flanagan.

Series 2 Day 1 Results:

In elapsed time the Fireball of Court & Syme was the fastest boat on the water, sailing the five laps in 34:40 with Flanagan's Laser taking 38:47 and McCarthy's Solo going round in 39:01. Physically, the finishing order on the water was Solo, Fireball and KONA.

The postponed prize-giving for Series 1, from 17th December, took place in the DMYC Clubhouse after racing with prizes being in the form of calendars with photographs by Frostbite stalwart Bob Hobby. Calendars were liberally handed out to winners and volunteers by "Frostbite Director" Neil Colin – Happy New Year!