Viking Marine Frostbite Series 2 at Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club

Viking Marine Frostbite Series 2 at Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club - Day 16

by Cormac Bradley 12 Mar 23:31 NZDT 10 March 2024

Gavan Murphy working hard to maintain his advantage on the water - Viking Marine DMYC Frostbites series 2 day 16 © Ian Cutliffe

Despite a horrible forecast of wind which caused Howth's Round the Island Race to be cancelled (on the Saturday) and huge seas in Dun Laoghaire on Saturday, the dinghy Frostbites, sponsored by Viking Marine took place on Sunday afternoon even though the "big boats' Spring Chicken Series" was cancelled in the morning.

This correspondent had the day off, so the Race Officer duty was taken on by the host club's Commodore, Ian Cutliffe, who gave the fleet an Olympic course of three laps for the first race and a four-lap triangular course for the second race. The wind was out of the East and is recorded as being 7 - 10 knots for Race 1 and 7 - 12 knots for Race 2. Yet again, there was a modest turnout of boats, with the PY fleet mustering 15 boats, the ILCA 7s 8 boats and the ILCA 6s 12 boats.

My information is that a Fireball helm, recently returned from the southern hemisphere caused some fun and games for the first start of the PY fleet. He and his crew then compounded a wonderful day on the water by not picking up on the change of course for the second race, resulting in a RET score for Race 2. Given that his crew had traversed the Liffey, north to south, for the day, it may not have been the day's best racing, but a day on the water, even in March, still beats a day at home.

From a race reporting perspective, I can offer nothing but from a race result perspective I can report that Noel Butler's relentless progress to a clean sweep of the PY titles remains on track despite losing a handicap win to the RS200 of Jamie and Katie Tingle in Race 2. He is now able to discard a second and two firsts from his score and still have a huge comfort zone relative to second place overall, Sarah Dwyer with Roy van Maanen only two points behind Dywer. This means that Aeros occupy the top three places overall in Series 2.

In Race 1 in PY the handicap positions were Butler, Dwyer, Brian Sweeney (Finn), Alastair Court & Gordon Syme (Fireball) and the Tingles. Court & Syme were first home in a time of 26:18 and Butler would finish 3:16 down on that. Brian Sweeney in the Finn had a good first race finishing, on time, behind four Fireballs but leapfrogging them all to finish second on corrected time. After the mathematics, Butler's 3:26 deficit on Court was converted to a 00:44 advantage with Sweeney getting second with a two-second margin on Court.

The solitary Fireball of Frank Miller & Neil Cramer being pursued by four RS Aeros - Viking Marine DMYC Frostbites series 2 day 16 - photo © Ian Cutliffe

In Race 2, Court again won on the water, with Frank Miller & Neil Cramer (Fireball) getting the course wrong. The Tingles however, finished only 00:58 down on the Fireball and this allowed them to claim the handicap win and join an exclusive club of boats other than Aeros to take a race win on handicap in the 2023/24 Frostbites. Behind them on corrected time the sequence was Butler, van Maanen, Damien Dion (Aero) and Court & Syme.

In the ILCA 6s the overall competition in Series 2 is much tighter with just three points separating Conor Clancy (22pts) and Darren Griffin (25pts). Griffin's overall position was enhanced with two race wins on the day with Clancy outside the top five in Race 1 and having a 5th in Race 2, however, both these race results are being discarded.

There was a great deal of symmetry in the ILCA 6s results with the first four in both races being the same - Griffin, Shirley Gilmore, Brendan Hughes and Michael Norman. In Race 1 David Williams closed out the top five and that spot went to Conor Clancy in the second race.

In the ILCA 7s there is an even tighter situation with only two points separating series leader Gavan Murphy (34) from Conor Byrne (36) and Gary O'Hare (36). Conor Byrne took the day's honours by winning both races while Murphy scored a 4,2 and O'Hare was a no-show. John Marmelstein was runner up in the day's honours with a 2,3, with Murphy (6) third overall on the day.

Conor O'Leary also enjoyed an individual race podium place and finished 4th in the day's proceedings (3,5) with John O'Driscoll getting a 5,4 to close out the top five.