UK Sailmakers May League Thursday 24th May
On Thursday evening, 24th May, the GSK wind turbine was rotating very, very slowly. DePuy’s turbine was sulking – it had stopped rotating and turned away. Maybe some of the crews felt like doing that too, as they motored out beyond Currabinny. After a glorious morning of bright sunshine and good breeze, the wind had dropped to a glassy calm, the clouds had gathered and it was dripping rain. At least it was not cold.
Race officers Barry Rose and Eoin Clayton were not so easily deterred. They found four to five knots of south easterly in the channel. They set the starting line off Ram’s Head and a course, which had a beat to No 3 buoy, halfway to Roches Point, a run back to the outer distance mark, and two rounds. In the face of such determination, the rain stopped.
The ebbing tide carried two boats, of the 14 boat fleet, over the line at the start. Alpaca (Paul and Deirdre Tingle) made a very good start and led to the weather mark. Most of the fleet jibed after the weather mark, and took the western side of the channel for the run back. In spite of the wind veering slowly to the south, that side paid off. By the time the fleet were on the second beat, due to the wind shift and ebbing tide, they could almost lay the weather mark on the second beat. To ensure everyone got a chance to finish, Barry and Eoin shortened the race after the second beat.
When the results were calculated, Alpaca were first, Jelly Baby (Brian Jones) second, Bandit (Richard Leonard) third and Sea Hawk (Clem and Wendy McElligott) fourth on Club ECHO handicap. On IRC handicap, it was Alpaca, Jelly Baby, YaGottaWanna (David Lane and Sinead Enwright) and Sea Hawk, in that order.
With four races sailed in the league, on Club Echo handicap, YaGottaWanna leads Magnet (Kieran and Liz O’Brien) by two points, and on IRC handicap, YaGottaWanna leads Cracker (Denis Byrne) by eight points.
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