Race report

 

We finally quick off our first ever Summer Series. This series is run on the evening over the summer months. Since we have longer days and most weekends are normally booked for personal activities, we decided to create this series to keep the activity going through the summer.

 

This was our first race day and we had 6 skippers scheduled to be there but only 4 raced at the end, small but ok to start with. At first the wind was almost too strong for our medium rigs to the point that we had to take cover as we were “refreshed” after our hard day at work by one of those summer shower. We then ran 6 consecutive races of 2 laps of windward lourd course. Ian our youngest and future IOM skipper was our OOD and rescue.  All in all it was a great evening and we had some tough racing in Howth harbour. There was no quarters given, one mistake and you loose as I found out on the second race by touching the lourd mark while racing for first place with Jeff, hence my 4th place... Fergal was also punished by doing the same with the windward mark at another race while being in the lead.

 

Day 2 - Much in contrast with Day 1 where it was windy and the B rig was almost too big at times. It was definitely a top rig condition. Light to moderate wind created the ideal conditions for A rig racing all evening. As usual we had our windward lourd course and it was very much a TS2 evening with only Team TS2 turning up : Fergal, Des and your servitor, Ger did come up but had a last minute constrain and could make to the water for our racing. Des was definitely in form winning the first 3 races on a row. We had a good long beat from the start to the weather mark, with the start/finish line approx ¼ up the beat. Each race had 2 laps making each race lasting for approx 10 mins. Once again we had some photo finish as there was nothing in it till the very end.  Places often been won and lost throughout the races. Fergal didn’t have a good evening with his jib pivot point slipping throughout each race affecting hugely his boat performance had to pull some tactical miracle at times. Cutting corners or more adequately rounding marks too close was a dangerous business as both Fergal and I found out to our expense. (and places). Again the 6 races were completed but sun set and it brought to a close our great evening.

 

Day 3 - Brought even lighter wind and so one lap per race. But the main news is the fact that we had our first junior sailing IOM. Ian Martin was competing for the first time with his restored Mandarin. And despite not being the latest design Ian was not trailing behind but rather giving me and Des something to concentrate on as with his narrower boat in these light conditions he did pretty well. We only managed to race 4 of the 6 scheduled race and it was even limit as the last puff of wind of the day allowed our IOM boat to carry enough speed to come back to the pontoon. But yet again another great day out.