Three Laser fleet still up for grabs

SAILING/Dún Laoghaire Regatta:The one-design classes got the best of the conditions on Dublin Bay yesterday as the Volvo Dún Laoghaire Regatta powered up, despite the weather's best attempts to break spirits.

The Laser SB3 fleet is proving quite consistent towards the front of the massive, 40-boat class, the newest and arguably most competitive in the country.

So far, Brian Spence from the Royal Ulster Yacht Club has edged ahead, counting a fifth, first and second place in the series, and holds a six-point lead that in any other class might appear comfortable but among these sportsboats is closer to fragile than to safe.

The chasing pack is headed by Des Faherty's Aranow from Howth and Dún Laoghaire's Andrew Algeo and Ben Cooke on Scandal. They are tied on points, and the front-runners are starting to open up some distance on the remainder of the fleet.

But the chase is over as far as the Ecover Half Ton Classics are concerned. Tino Hyland and Nigel Biggs' Henri Lloyd Harmony have ended their series one day early with their ninth consecutive win yesterday among this 26-boat fleet.

Yesterday saw a further two dismastings, on The Big Picture from Howth and the British visitor Cherubino, during the single scheduled offshore race. A comeback from Stuart Kinnear's Dick Dastardly after his dismasting on the opening day places this Dún Laoghaire Motor YC crew in the overall lead of the Silver fleet of this event.

Jim and Sheila Tyrrell's J109 Aquelina from Arklow Sailing Club continued her season-long winning form with a win yesterday, following second during Thursday afternoon's opening race, to lead this one-design class.

Among the IRC handicap fleets, Cork boats were to the fore in Class Zero, where a hat-trick of results went - to the surprise of no one - to Conor and Denise Phelan's Jump Juice in first, followed by Eamon Rohan's Blondie III and Dave Dwyer's Marinerscove.ie.

This really puts it up to the local fleet, especially Dublin Bay Sailing Club commodore Tim Costello on Tiamat, currently in second overall.

Roy Dickson's Rosie from Howth is also toward the fore, joint third, and hunting a result among the closely grouped class leaders.

Among the exotics of the Super Zeroes, where four boats are competing, Colm Barrington's Flash Glove has edged into the lead thanks to a win yesterday combined with a third from Paul Winkelmann's Island Fling, the overnight leader.

Only the dinghies didn't sail yesterday because of the poor visibility, though the forecast gale, and even the small-craft warning, failed to develop.

In fact, it was Nowcasting's new askmoby.com mobile-phone service that predicted the weather most accurately.

At last we have somebody to blame for the downpours.