Viking Marine Frostbite Series 2 at Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club - Day 12
by Cormac Bradley 22 Mar 14:38 PDT
19 March 2023
Light weather conditions for ILCAs at the weather mark - Viking Marine DMYC Frostbite Series 2 day 12 © Ian Cutliffe
The film "Everything, Everywhere, All At Once" dominated the Oscars on the Sunday prior to our second last Frostbite Sunday, and the Frostbite community on Sunday past might have enjoyed an amendment to this film title, along the lines of Something, Somewhere, Just For An Hour!
Two forecasting apps suggested that wind of the order of 6 - 8 knots would be SSE moving to the South as the afternoon progressed. Met Eireann apparently wasn't so sure about that and the reality was that on arriving in the race area, what wind there was, was blowing from a northerly quarter, though the smoke from the Incinerator was suggesting a westerly of varying strength.
Interestingly, the incinerator smoke blew that way all afternoon, though to varying strengths. The committee boat took up station off the end of the Carlisle Pier which would have given a windward mark position in the proximity of the end of the West Pier.
However, as soon as the weather mark went in, the wind started moving, initially to the end of the East Pier, then progressively eastwards until the weather mark would have gone in between the end of the Carlisle Pier and the wall of the East Pier, giving a beat of 50m. That necessitated a change to the committee boat position and after one further change, the committee boat ended up north of the western breakwater just off the end of the breakwater.
A triangular course was set of two laps, with the weather mark about 80m on the seaward side of the East Pier bandstand, a gybe mark in the middle of the harbour and a leeward mark close to, but outside the committee boat. As RO, my prayer was that the wind would stay in the "right" direction to get the three starts away, as it was already moving around.
Given that this was a three-day weekend for the St Patrick's Day holiday on Friday there was a good turnout of boats across the three starts - PY (16), ILCA 7s (6), ILCA 6s (17) and ILCA 4s (3).
Thankfully all three fleets got away first time with only an individual recall in one start to blot the copybook. And for the first leg, there was a good resemblance to a beat, admittedly in lighter airs than had been forecast. However, the top end of the course was not as genteel on the competitors and boats were soon sailing at a variety of angles and tacks trying to get to the gybe mark and, subsequently, to the leeward mark.
Out of this situation the boats to show first were the Fireball of Alastair Court & Gordon Syme (15167), the Aero 7 of Stephen Oram (3288) and the Finn of Brian Sweeney (1620). Indeed, at the gybe mark, an ILCA 7 was mixing it with the PY fleet who had started 3 minutes before him.
Spinnakers were being flown along parts of the second and third legs of the course but not to best effect and not continuously. Indeed, the majority of the fleet had to beat in part to get to the leeward mark.
At this stage as RO, I had to debate whether the race was still fair (doubtful) and whether it should be abandoned altogether. However, having 42 boats on the water committed to a race, meant it would be rather unfair of me to simply abandon the whole thing. I decided that a suggestion from my weather mark RIB to finish at the weather mark was a suitable compromise that gave everyone a race and a finish to reward them for their perseverance.
And so, flying a shortened course signal at the weather mark, proceedings were brought to a close, with no sign that any better conditions were likely to arrive. There were lots of empathetic comments from boats finishing that a race had been achieved in the prevailing conditions.
Court & Syme won the race on the water with a finish time of 31:25, but the Finn of Brian Sweeney was only 1:43 behind them. The Aeros of Noel Butler and Roy van Maanen finished at 33:38 and 35:56 respectively while Patrick Hassett was a slightly distant finisher at 37:16. However, on computation with the handicaps the 2.4m of Hassett won by a fine margin of 23 seconds.
Frostbite Mugs for the day were awarded to Dave Coleman (ILCA 6s) and Roy McKay (ILCA 7s) who just missed the photographs. The prize-giving for Series 2 and the Overall Series will take place after racing next Sunday, 26th March, in the DMYC clubhouse.
With only one Sunday left and the prospect of two races, the overall situation in Series 2 is "cut and dried" in all but one class, the ILCA 7s, where two points separate 1st and 2nd, 8 points cover 1st and 3rd and twelve points cover 1st and 4th.
Day 12 - PY Fleet:
1. Patrick Hassett, 2.4m
2. Noel Butler, Aero 6
3. Brian Sweeney, Finn
4. Roy van Maanen, Aero 6
5. Alastair Court & Gordon Syme, Fireball
Day 12 - ILCA 7:
1. Sean Bowden
2. Theo Lyttle
3. Chris Arrowsmith
Day 12 - ILCA 6:
1. Sean Craig
2. Alison Pigot
3. Darren Griffin
4. Barry McCartin
5. Shirley Gilmore
Day 12 - ILCA 4:
1. Zita Tempany
2. Sam Legge
3. Sergei Vasilev
Series 2 so far - PY Fleet:
1. Noel Butler, 29pts
2. Stephen Oram, 82.5pts
3. Roy van Maanen, 105pts
4. Sarah Dwyer, 110pts
5. Stuart Harris, 114pts
6. Alastair Court & Gordon Syme 132pts
Series 2 so far - ILCA 7:
1. Gavan Murphy, 71pts
2. Theo Lyttle 73pts
3. Conor Byrne, 79pts
4. Sean Bowden, 83pts
5. Chris Arrowsmith, 100pts
Series 2 so far - ILCA 6:
1. Sean Craig, 34pts
2. Darren Griffin, 61pts
3. Conor Clancy, 71pts
4. John O'Driscoll, 128pts
5. David Cahill, 141pts
6. Shirley Gilmore, 166pts
Series 2 so far - ILCA 4:
1. Zita Tempany, 31pts
2. Patrick Foley, 35pts
3. Grace Gavin, 40pts
4. Sam Legge 42pts