47th Frostbite Series 2 at Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club - Day 2
by Cormac Bradley 15 Jan 2018 12:29 GMT
14 January 2018
47th Frostbite Series 2 at Dun Laoghaire day 2 © Bob Hobby
For the second round of Frostbite racing in Series 2, Race Officer Cormac Bradley set the 31-boat fleet a triangular course and with the assistance of one of the competitors tried to make sure that the top reach was able to be sailed as a spinnaker leg!
Having watched the weather forecast on XCWeather from the start of the weekend, the wind situation inside the harbour wasn't quite what was predicted. The forecast was for 14–17 knots across the afternoon with guts in the range 20 – 28knots. However, on arriving at the scene the flags inside the Coal Harbour were not suggesting those sorts of strengths. The direction of SSW was in accordance with the forecast.
31 boats took to the water, nearly 25% up on the previous Sunday but still with lots of room for more boats to join in. All the usual suspects were in attendance in the Slow PY Fleet; Shane McCarthy's Solo, the two KONA windsurfers of Robbie Walker & Des Gibney, a second, club Wayfarer from the DMYC helmed by Dave Colman joined the regulars in Monica Schaeffer & Miriam McCarthy, the Feva of Conor Galligan was out along with Odhran Prouveur & Helen Sheehy in the Hartley 12.2 and Frank Hamilton was the sole IDR14.
Twelve Lasers took to the water with Conor O'Leary making his 2018 debut after missing last week when taking his recreational activities to Europe.
In the Fast PY Fleet there was a 2018 debut for Hugh Sheehy in the Finn, Noel Butler & Marie Barry and Frank Miller & Class Chairman Neil Cramer and the Keegans, David & Michael in the Fireball Class and a total turnout of ten boats.
With the committee boats situated just to the West of the harbour entrance, the beat was to a mark in the approaches to the marina and a gybe mark that was to the east of the former docking facility of the high speed ferry but towards the middle of the harbour. Amazingly for the first couple of rounds, the wind appeared to be reasonably steady at 190°.
Off the start line, the trend across all three fleets was to start on starboard and work one's way to the left-hand side of the beat before taking a long port tack into the mark. In this respect, the Solo led the Slow PY fleet and rounded first followed by the KONA of Walker and the Wayfarer of Schaeffer. These three occupied the first three slots all the way round with the KONA working its way into the lead. The Solo and the Wayfarer had a closer race but the Solo eventually won out but only by a margin of 10 seconds – 39:30 to 39:40 after five laps.
In the Laser fleet there were also three boats that were jostling for the podium positions throughout the race – Justin Geoghegan (165512), Sean Flanagan (177854) and Conor O'Leary (190745). Until, that is the final approach to the leeward mark when O'Leary went through the start/finish line and decided that he had to unwind himself. That dropped him to 6th with Geoghegan taking the win, followed home by Flanagan and Alan Hodgins.
The Fast PY fleet had an OCS in the form of Fireball 14706, Alistair Court & Gordon Syme and like the previous starts, the trend was to go left first before working the middle to left of the beat to get to the windward mark. Neil Colin & Margaret Casey (14775) did that to best effect to lead at the weather mark and retained that lead to just before the first leeward mark when taking a more upwind line, Noel Butler & Marie Barry (15061) powered over the top of them to take the lead. They subsequently "walked away" from the fleet, leading by just over a leg and 3:44 at the finish. Behind them, the places seemed to be in a constant state of flux, with Court, Miller & Cramer (14713), the "pink ladies", Louise & Hermine (14691) changing places all the way round. Court & Syme recovered from their premature start to claim second place on the water followed by Colin & Casey, McKenna & O'Keeffe, Miller & Cramer, the Finn of Sheehy and the 470 of Ryan & McAree.
In Frostbite Mug terms, the Fast PY award went to Niels Warburton in the RS400, to Shirley Gilmore in the Lasers and to the Enterprise of Bernadette Fox & Aidan Geraghty in the Slow PY Fleet.
Series 2 Day 1 Results:
Pos | Helm & Crew (Boat Type) |
Slow PY |
1 | Shane McCarthy (Solo) |
2 | Conor Galligan (Feva) |
3 | Monica Schaeffer & Miriam McCarthy (Wayfarer) |
4 | Robbie Walker (KONA) |
5 | Frank Hamilton & Crew (IDRA14) |
Lasers |
1 | Justin Geoghegan |
2 | Sean Flanagan |
3 | Alan Hodgins |
4 | Gavan Murphy |
5 | Shirley Gilmore (Radial) |
Fast PY |
1 | Noel Butler & Marie Barry (Fireball) |
2 | Alistair Court & Gordon Syme (Fireball) |
3 | Hugh Sheehy (Finn) |
4 | Neil Colin & Margaret Casey (Fireball) |
5 | Louise McKenna & Hermine O’Keeffe (Fireball) |