Irish perspective on the Willowbrook Organic Island Farm Flying Fifteen British Isles Championship
by Cormac Bradley 3 Jul 2024 13:28 BST
Flying Fifteen British Isles Championships 2024 at Strangford Lough © Simon McIlwaine /
www.wavelengthimage.com
A 41-boat fleet of Flying Fifteens assembled at Strangford Lough Yacht Club, Whiterock, this past week to contest the British Isles Championships. This event was last held in these waters in 2018 when the regatta was condensed into three short races on the Saturday morning after a "no-show" by the wind on the first two-and-a-half days. A race was started on the Friday afternoon but was abandoned as being unfair when there was a significant wind change with a popular Dun Laoghaire Fifteener, sadly no longer with us, leading the race.
This year there were no such complications, though we did have some light wind races and changes of wind direction but Race Officer Ruan O'Tiarnaigh (Royal Ulster Yacht Club), very ably assisted by Lawrence Ballham (Donaghadee Sailing Club) manged the conditions superbly to make sure the races stayed fair. At the briefing in advance of the regatta, he advised the fleet that if the Race Team were at fault, he would go to a postponement, but if the fleet was at fault, he would use the "U" flag first and then the black flag in order to get races away.
Over the four days he used all three options, but the first dismissal for improper starting, under a black flag, only occurred in Race 3. O'Tiarnaigh was also able to keep the fleet informed by way of his radio transmissions of how he was amending the course in accordance with the conditions. These measures included leap-frogging the spreader mark over the weather mark to keep the beat true, lengthening the course and shortening the course with ample use of the "C" flag, moving the weather marks, again with a prominent "C" flag and tweaking the pin position on the start line when wind shifts defied his line setting.
Later in the series there would be OCS declarations challenged in the Protest Room, but in a fleet of 41 very competitive boats, over four days of racing, only three protests were registered - the fleet having listened to the plea of Regatta Organiser, Roger Chamberlain to "keep things clean".
Prominent sailmakers were represented with Hyde Sails (Ben McGrane), Pinnell & Bax (Ian Pinnell), HD Sails (Shane McCarthy) and Impact Sails (Andy Tunnicliffe) in attendance. There were also a lot of North Sails on spars, but I am not au-fait with North's representative in this fleet. Ovington Boats (Chris Turner & Nathan Batchelor) were also "on-site" with Nathan being very upbeat about orders for new boats. And in terms of the competitor attendance, it was a "Who's Who" of the UK fleet.
The Irish contingent was made up of 19 boats with visitors from Dunmore East (1), Connemara (2), Dun Laoghaire (7) and the balance coming from clubs on Strangford Lough and Belfast Lough. Visitors from the UK came from the South Coast, Hayling Island and Lyme Regis, the North - Tynemouth, Bassenthwaite, Ullswater and Grafham Water, and other parts of the UK, Chew Valley, Draycote, Nottingham, Northampton and a sole entry sailing with a Spanish sail number.
Wednesday morning dawned with sunshine and a light breeze and there were some premonitions of a repeat of 2018, but RO O'Tiarnaigh was having none of this pessimism and advised the fleet that they should launch for the scheduled start which was "post 12 noon", especially given the tidal constraints of the day which meant we would have to be ashore before 17:00 or wait until 19:00.
Subsequently, a ten-race series was achieved with a lighter wind start to the week and more breeze over the latter two days. For the Irish contingent, the lead boat in overall terms was Shane McCarthy & Hugh McNally (4116) who scored 5,6,6,8 and 13 over the first two days to comfortably be the leading Irish boat. In contrast, our National Champions Niall & Ronan O'Briain (4092) had a poor first day by their standards scoring a 24 and a 34, but by Day 2 were showing better form with a 10, 3, 5. In general however, the Irish fleet were struggling with higher scores than they might have expected in the first two days. The reality was that there was very little "give and take" in the middle and lower parts of the fleet where the waters were slightly more crowded.
As the regatta progressed, McCarthy found himself counting double digit scores and ultimately had his worst day on Saturday when he scored a 23 and a RTD. In contrast, the O'Briains, with one exception, counted single digit scores for the balance of the week to progress up the overall rankings.
The final overall results saw two Irish boats finishing inside the top ten, the best result at this regatta for some time. Niall and Ronan saw much better results on the water after a first day horror show (by their standards) and on the final day a 5,2 hoisted them to just below the podium places. Shane and Hugh had a better first half but dropped down the order as the regatta progressed, but still finished inside the top ten. Another high point was an Irish boat, Tom Galvin & Cormac Bradley (3757) getting a third place in Race 9, only for the National Champions to surpass that with a second in Race 10.
Seven Irish boats finished between 10th and 20th with Peter Kennedy & Stephen Kane (3920) 12th, Andy McCleery & Colin Dougan (4120) 15th, Peter Lawson & Chris Hannon (3893) 16th, Dermot Flaherty & Joe McDonagh (4083) 17th & winners of the Green fleet, Philip Lawton & Neil O'Hagan (3802) 18th, and Trevor D'Arcy & Alan McLernon (3782) 20th and second in the Green Fleet.
21st, 22nd, 23rd, 25th, 28th, 32nd, 34th, 35th, 37th, 38th & 39th overall places were also occupied by Irish boats.
Strangford Lough Yacht Club were superb hosts and Roger Chamberlain and his team worked very hard during the regatta to run a tight ship. Dinner at the club was provided every evening of the regatta with a curry night on Wednesday, a BBQ on Thursday and a slightly more formal dinner on Friday night. While protests were being heard on the Saturday afternoon, soup and sandwiches were served to the competitors. The whole fleet responded to Roger's appeal to "muck in" with the launching and retrieval of boats and the best record of the week was retrieving 41 boats in 20 minutes.
While there had been a daily prize-giving on each of the preceding days, Saturday's prize-giving saw fleet prizes, Red, Blue and Green, awarded as well as a number of perpetual trophies.
A special trophy was awarded to principal sponsor, John McCabe (Willowbrook Organic Farm) who expressed his joy at being able to sponsor the event citing the Association's support for his attendance at previous World Championships (in an earlier era) - his philosophy being that he had got a huge amount out of sailing Flying Fifteens and he was only too happy to pay that back in the form of sponsorship.