Relief all round as boats get racing

Sailing Dún Laoghaire RegattaThe second day of the inaugural Dún Laoghaire Regatta Championship ended with the strongest breeze of the series so far - a collective sigh of relief from the 400 competing yachts and more especially the organising team that races were sailed at all as winds proved elusive once more.

Some fleets fared better than others, with local effects allowing steadier conditions than others. The handicap classes racing in the centre of the bay were given a single lap of the windward leeward course: bang start, bang finish - now get ashore before the breeze dies completely and the race officer gets it in the ear for the second night running. Or so it seemed anyhow.

Elsewhere, not far away from the handicap fleets, one-design, dinghies and classics sailing on separate course areas all managed to get two races in. In fact, the breeze (all six knots of it) seemed to hold to get the fleet ashore to a bustling waterfront.

Even the sun broke cover and illuminated the Dún Laoghaire foreshore and all its maritime activity that inspired the event in the first instance.

Even after the faltering start, organisers can take comfort from remarks made by two visiting professionals that the potential for the event was obvious, even to the extent that its format alternating and even competing directly with Cork Week would prove popular with British boats for "an annual Irish regatta".

That is some way off, however, and before then there's still the not insignificant matter of a Thursday evening race for the handicap classes that was destined for the international jury to decide its fairness.

Yesterday saw Patches, as usual, romp home miles ahead of its nearest rival in spite of the near-windless conditions.

Her rivals, however, were having more of a race. Tim Costello's new Mills 40-footer, with ace sailor Maurice "Prof" O'Connell on board for this series, notched up a second place ahead of Colm Barrington's Flying Glove and upset the status quo in a single lap of a windward-leeward race.

In the fluky conditions, getting the breeze and tide right proved the winning formula.

As just Patches has her opening race result counted from Thursday night, with the others counting maximum points for Race One, Tiamat leads the class overall unless the jury overturns the earlier result.

In Class 2, there was a surprise result when Adam Gosling's Yes from the Royal Yacht Squadron ousted Anthony O'Leary's Antix, the double-Irish champion, into third place in the race.

Among the other classes, John Bigg's visiting Checkmate produced a first and second place to add to their opening-race win and lead the Beneteau 31.7 class.

An alleged failure to fly a class pennant during the race by another top-placed boat resulted in a protest by Checkmate, said to be in response to the local fleet's application of stringent rules against them.

That class held its opening national championship series last year in which non-regular crews were prevented from receiving official places or prizes by the adoption of special rules.

The Irish Times has learned the 31.7 class has yet to file formal class rules with the Irish Sailing Association, raising questions as to its legitimacy under conventional guidelines for nationally recognised class associations.