Exciting conditions in Dublin

9 May 2014

Exciting conditions for Fireballs!

My early afternoon check on the forecast conditions for Tuesday evening racing in Dublin Bay on the XC Weather website suggested that at 19:00 and 22:00 the winds would be 14 and 16 knots gusting to 20 and 24 knots respectively - (14/20 at 19:00 and 16/24 at 22:00) - and so it proved. The forecast direction was Southerly but rigging up in the harbour, the sense was that the gusts were coming from a wide range of directions, certainly judging by the flags inside the harbour complex.

The sail out to Scotsman's Bay confirmed the gusty nature of the wind particularly in the lee of the east wall of the harbour though in Scotsman's Bay itself while it was still gusty, they seemed to be a bit less venomous.

Our first practice lap of the course prompted a capsize after a spinnaker drop at the leeward mark - good to get that out of the way!

Five Fireballs launched for the race but only three answered the starting signal. With the ebbing tide only an hour old, Smyth & Bradley (15007) took the decision to start on port to work the right-hand side of the beat.  The other two Fireballs, Butler & Oram (15061) and Colin & Casey (14775) went hard left. The former tactic won out to leave Smyth& Bradley leading at the first mark, followed by Butler & Oram. The first spinnaker reach was manageable for the majority of its length but the leaders dropped early relative to the gybe mark.  Butler & Oram kept theirs all the way but then overshot the gybe mark waiting for the opportune time to gybe.  This left them sailing outside Smyth & Bradley on a parallel course to the leeward mark and while they closed on the leaders they weren't able to dislodge them from the lead. However, on the second beat they did take over to lead the sausage leg of the three lap course.

At the second leeward mark, Butler & Oram went swimming after their spinnaker drop and this allowed Smyth & Bradley to assume the lead again. Rounding the third weather mark, the leaders decided not to fly bag as the wind had got up again and a slight change of direction made it a tighter leg than the first time. Initially Butler & Oram followed suit, but they put the bag up over the second half of the leg before having to do an Aussie drop to reach the gybe mark…..and even then it was slightly hairy. The second reach was a bit more comfortable with the wind direction change and the swell that had developed made this a very fast leg. Smyth & Bradley held their pursuers off until the leeward mark and after Butler and Oram tacked at the leeward mark they covered their opposition. However, an inability to stay upwind and clear caused Smyth & Bradley to tack a bit earlier for the finish line. This left Butler & Oram as the windward boat and, travelling faster, they overtook the leaders to win by two boat-lengths at the finish line.