Ballyholme Yacht Club Spring Open Meeting Overall

The multihulls were out in force for the first of Ballyholme's open meetings and especially welcome were those who travelled from Skerries and Swords near Dublin for the event. Also up on last year was the PY dinghy handicap fleet and here too there were visitors from the Dublin Bay area.

Conditions were perfect with sunshine and on the Saturday a force 3 North Easterly, and on the Sunday slightly less breeze but still some of the best dinghy sailing in Belfast Lough for a long time.

Johnny Mullan and Ian Wilson did something of a clean up in the multihulls, proving hard to catch on handicap and winning all four races in the Hurricane 5.9. Elaine and David Taylor in another Hurricane counted three seconds to finish 3 points behind and nine ahead of the third placed multihull, a Dart 18 sailed by Stephen Polly and Deirdre Coffee. They were lucky to count a retirement for sailing the wrong course as a discard. All three were from the home club. Best visitor was the fourth placed Hurricane 5.9 from Swords with Simon O'Gorman and Anne Kinsella on board. They had mixed results =, the best being a third and fourth in the lighter breeze of the second day.

The Lasers were topped by young Mathew McGovern from BYC and an RYA NI youth squad member, who won tow races and came second and sixth in the others, beating the long established Gareth Flannigan by two points. Mathew's brother, Russel, took third slot. The Radials had only two out and here Conor Walsh took first place.

With several Toppers away at the British Inlands, the fleet was small and here Nadia McMinn was first of three, winning the tiebreak with Katie Gracey.

The Dinghy handicap attracted an assorted fleet of 29ers, Laser 11s, GP14s, a Firefly and an Enterprise. The local Bob Espey and Jeremy Tomalin in the 29er dominated with three firsts, and second was the Laser2 of Michael Ennis and Gavin Doig from Royal North. Maureen Miller and Diane Nelson put in a good show coming fourth in the Firefly.

Overall Results:

More Information:

• Ballyholme Yacht Club

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