Winds too much for some

SAILING:STRONG SOUTHERLY winds and choppy seas swept Colin Galavan and Chris Arrowsmith on Defiant into first place in the SB3 sportsboat class in a dramatic opening round of the biennial Volvo Dún Laoghaire Regatta on Dublin Bay yesterday.

As winds freshened to over 20 knots both Dún Laoghaire and Howth lifeboats were called to assist dismasted competitors who struggled to get back to harbour.

Several yachts ended up on Dollymount beach and there was at least two other dismastings in the 420-boat fleet as stories of gear failure came ashore with the 3,000 crews last night.

One boat wrapped a spinnaker around its keel. A Scottish entry, EOS (Roderick Stuart) from the Clyde, racing in Class Zero, broke its mast at spreader height.

Another Class Zero entry, Crazy Horse (Chambers and O’Reilly) from Howth, broke its stanchions, leaving crew hanging to lifelines.

A local Mermaid dinghy also broke its mast as the stronger conditions took many by surprise.

“We were expecting winds of 10-12 knots from the southwest but we got 20 from the southeast. It made for some excellent racing,” said chief race officer Con Murphy.

Despite the conditions and problems afloat, the regatta stayed very much on course. Rescue facilities worked smoothly and the day’s racing at the country’s biggest regatta ran much on schedule.

In the one design classes, Ben Duncan’s Sharkbait was the winner of the first SB3 race, but he did not compete in the second race giving Galavan and Arrowsmith the chance at the overall lead in the regatta’s biggest one design fleet of 29 boats.

The top of the 15-boat Flying Fifteen class has a familiar ring to it with recently crowned national champions David Gorman and Chris Doorly taking a win from Tom Murphy.

Likewise national champion Tim Goodbody’s White Mischief was the winner in the Sigma 33 class.

The late publication of handicap results last night means all results are provisional for the IRC and Echo handicap classes, but Howth’s Crazy Horse does not appear to have suffered too badly from broken stanchions taking honours in IRC Zero. Second was Chrisitne Murray’s Elf Too and third Jamie McGarry’s Grand Cru.

In IRC One, Anthony O’Leary’s modified 1720, though dwarfed by her rivals, produced a magnificent performance mainly to some blistering downwind pace.

Second was Debbie Aitken’s Animal and third Paul Kirwan’s Errislannan.

In IRC 3, last year’s overall Volvo Trophy winner, Flor O’Driscoll’s Hard On Port, is back at the top of the biggest fleet of the regatta again with Ken Lawless’s Supernova second. Third was Basil McMahon’s Holly.

Full results can be had on dlregatta.org.