Wednesday, November 16. 2011BALMY SAILING IN BYC ICEBREAKERThe wind finally arrived on Sunday but thankfully the temperature remained at its unseasonably high. This gave near perfect conditions for exciting racing in Sunday’s Stena Line Icebreaker series. The wind direction was again from the south and was 18 - 20 knots. The atmosphere in the dinghy park was one of anticipation! Some were anticipating exhilarating sailing; hard upwind legs with nasty shifts in wind direction to contend with, and fast full on reaches with "hairy gybes" in the middle for good measure. Others were anticipating a couple of swims as capsizes looked inevitable with this wind and direction. Some were moving about very slowly after a Saturday watching first Ulster, and then Munster in the European Rugby cup matches. The Laser fleet got away without incident this week. It was a hard first beat with the fleet bunched up at the windward mark. The usual suspects were at the front of the fleet with Colin Leonard getting away from the pack and never really looking back. He sailed a great race and recorded his first bullet of the series to leave him in 2nd overall just ahead of Gareth Flannigan who was second last week. Hammy Baker managed to hold onto his good start and came in 3rd ahead of David Fletcher and John Simms. This week we have put the fleets into Gold Silver and Bronze. Trevor Patterson leads the Silver fleet closely followed by Cavan Fyans and Mike Kimber. In the bronze fleet Andrew Kennedy leads the way with Des Magee and Stephen Dobbs in hot pursuit. There were plenty of high speed capsizes during the afternoon but everyone got back to shore in one piece which was great. The Radial Fleet was bolstered by the inclusion of club Captain, Colm McLarnon. Unfortunately he was a bit rusty and couldn't quite catch the youngsters at the front of the fleet!!. Chris Eames had another great race getting another first with Ryan Glynn in second and Sarah Eames in 3rd. It’s great to see so many in this fleet now which has 15 boats registered. In the 4.7's Tim Brow had his second first place of the series ahead of Craig Campbell and Michael Lewis. Michael Lewis leads overall after 5 races. For the large and small dinghy fleets, sailing on Sunday 13th of November was interesting with wind coming directly out of the south east mark. The course was number 5 and the start was from the north west mark. The Topper fleet had a nice turn out, however it was slightly down from the week before as some sailors were away with the ISA Topper Squad. At the start Ross Johnston, Mark McDonough, Jocelyn Hill and Ben Martin crossed the line first. Throughout the race there were plenty of capsizes with George Chittick losing his rudder. He managed to get it back on and sailed on to finish the race! At the close, Jocelyn Hill came first with Charlie Edgar second. The Large Dinghy fleet once again had a fantastic race. There was quite some damage as Ken Green in the 505 ripped their Mainsail. Wic McCready was out once again in his K1. Alice Armstrong was out again in one of the club Bahia's and raced whilst teaching. A woman of many wonders. At the close Wic McCready came 1st and Alice Armstrong 2nd. The High Performance fleet had only one boat afloat today, the Nacra helmed by Adrian Allen. He had a massive capsize and I hope all aboard are ok. Thanks again to everyone who helped out and hope to see you next week! Everyone in the Icebreaker wishes Sara Thompson a good recovery after breaking her tibia and fibia (leg!) last week. She’ll be out of action for the winter and we’ll all miss her in the Battery. Get well soon Sara! Submitted by Elaine Taylor BYC |
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