National 18 news
The last week has seen the fleet awaken. A very handy 8 boats turned up last wed night. With great conditions at 10-15 kts. all was set for a great evening’s racing. The majority of the fleet however were 2 up as there was a shortage of crew. This did at least level the playing field pretty evenly with the conditions that were in it. The first capsize of the year went to DasBoot. Surprisingly DasBoot were one of the few boats fully crewed, many hands perhaps don’t make light work. I’m sure, though, that Tommy, Peter and Richard were actually deliberately capsizing to try out DasBoot’s brand new full floor. Hope the test run was worth the dip lads.
The first race saw lots of place changing on the first lap with every boat featuring at some point. Badger, D’G, D’B & D’U were next followed by Aqua’s and DasBoot, Happy days, Hatrick et al. With a bit more place changing on the run Aqua’s got to the front and managed to “Get Heavy” for the next upwind. Aqua’s held on to take race 1 with
The Author wasn’t able to stay to play in race 2 but by all accounts the racing was as good as the first. Bendy kindly joined one of the 2 up lads to led a hand and Tommy and Tommy finally, after many years racing on the same course, had a meeting of bows. With Badger turning down wind to meet DasBoot heading in the opposite direction there was nowhere to go for Badger except head on into big green then continue into the tide. Luckily the rigs stayed intact, however, as with all collisions there’s always a risk of injury. Hopefully The badger team will recover from the bruises and be back out soon. The race finally went to Happy days with DasBoot 2nd A third pace for Hatrick had them leading the Mackey at this stage.
Saturday saw the Brooklands trophy raced from Cobh to Ballinacurra. Thanks to MBSC, Dave Barry, Stan Brown etc for running the race on behalf of CSC. The weather was light but dry and warm. A tricky day given the distance to travel. Eight N18’s and a good collection of 5o5’s and cats made the trip. Congrats to Emmett O’Sullivan and team getting their new boat Gembee (373) out for her first splash under her new name. With racing starting on time the fleet headed out for the lap around the cans and then onwards towards the re-start in the river. The early leaders were Ewan and Charlo in the 5o5 followed by D’G, D’B & D’U and DasBoot. It was looking like a long strung out race with the difficult conditions leaving the fleet very spread out. Once past East Ferry however all hell broke loose. The 5o5 stopped and everyone concertina’d. Aqua’s got a luck bit of breeze, and got out of the channel into open water. With lots of tacking for the final run up to Ballinacurra, plenty of sweating and some choice words at times Aqua’s just scraped it followed by the very unlucky 5o5 of Ewan and Charlo. And the equally unlucky 18’s DasBoot (Tommy, Joanna and Kieth) and D’G, D’B & D’U. (Results to be confirmed as I don’t have the details yet)
There was a great bit of craic with food and a few pints in Jacko’s. Then with the tide falling all sailors managed to attach themselves to a diesel head and got a tow home with no doubt a good few tinnies on board. The Dwyer tow obviously ran out of beverages and found themselves stopped at Dirty Murphy’s for replenisments.
Thanks to everyone for making it out over the last few days. We are now starting to get our numbers up a bit. More boats arrived in the dinghy park at the weekend, we now have 15 I think. This Wed looks like it will be well supported and early forecasts show a healthy breeze. The Heineken Cup Final this Sat may mean no racing (depending on attendance) so it would be great to get all concerned out this wed. Don’t forget the Sat 31st May (June B/H w/e) doesn’t count for the Mackey so we really only have two wed’s left for the Mackey!!!!
On a different note…. Some of you may be aware that the ISA now own a fleet of eight J80’s. These are making their way around the country from club to club. Kinsale have been having a great time running match racing and a club “Champion of Champion’s” with this fleet. Henry Kingston from KYC has asked if anyone interested in playing this weekend in Kinsale on the J80’s to contact him at 0868153927. The J80 fleet then moves to the RCYC in June. There is the opportunity to have some great fun with these yokies doing team and match racing (America’s cup style) The options will be explored as a means to supplement our sailing and allow new people who perhaps are a bit put off by a trying dinghy for the first time to try sailing. More anon.
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