News
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Announcement re Fireball World Championships in Howth 2020
In response to the global Coronavirus outbreak the Irish Fireball Association, Howth Yacht Club and Fireball International have been carefully evaluating plans for the Fireball Worlds in Howth in August 2020. Given the severity of the current crisis and ongoing uncertainty around travel, social distancing, club functionality, and the impossibility of getting any fix on the timing of a return to normality we must, with great regret, now cancel our event in August. We will be engaging together and liaising with Fireball fleets worldwide to see if suitable dates can be found in 2021 or further into the future to welcome Fireballers to Ireland for a World Championships. For those who have already registered and paid HYC will refund the ...
Posted 19 Apr 2020, 01:35 by Stephen Oram
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Calm between the storms!
With wind speeds
of 37 knots being recorded off the end of the East Pier at lunchtime on
Saturday (on a handheld anemometer) and Storm Brendan blowing hooligans today,
the Frostbites of Sunday 12th January could be said to have been
sailed in the (relative) calm between the storms! And the wind behaved in
accordance with the forecast, starting off quite strong first thing on Sunday
morning (09:00) but dropping off in strength as the morning wore on. At about
11:30 it was down to 10/11 knots and during the race it dropped below ten but
came back up again. The sun was out as well, but there was a slight coolness in
the air.
Numbers ...
Posted 13 Jan 2020, 05:55 by Stephen Oram
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Series 2 underway in balmy conditions!
The second half of
the Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club’s Frostbite Series gut underway yesterday in
what were almost balmy conditions for the 5th of January. From the
middle of the week, this author’s favourite weather website XCWeather was
suggesting that winds would be of the order of 12/13 knots with gusts of 26/27
knots from just west of south, but the flags within the harbour complex didn’t support
that theory. Additionally, the readings from the Dublin Bay buoy for the two
hours before my arrival at the club suggested that the base wind was correct
but the gusts were only one or two knots more.
Temperature-wise
it was mild, around the 10 ...
Posted 6 Jan 2020, 05:37 by Stephen Oram
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Marathon to close out Series 1!
Series 1 of the
DMYC-hosted Frostbites closed with a marathon race, in relative terms,
yesterday with a modest turnout of 44 boats, a wind that fluctuated between 170
and 180º with a high of just
over 10 knots and some sunshine, though there was a distinct coolness in the
air. Indeed, there was a light covering of white on the hills behind Dun
Laoghaire.
The PY fleet had
the best turnout of the day with nineteen boats - Fireballs, Wayfarers, RS200s,
Aero 7s, Laser Vagos, an RS400 and the Solo of Shane McCarthy. This fleet got
off to an almost clean start with only one OCS, a Fireball that didn’t come
back, though another Fireball DID come back ...
Posted 18 Dec 2019, 06:09 by Stephen Oram
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Sunshine for Christmas countdown!
Fifty-eight boats
took to the water for the first Frostbite Sunday of December, which for a lot
of people is the trigger for the countdown to Christmas. From Friday afternoon
this column’s favoured web-based weather forecasting site was predicting northerly
winds up to 10 knots for the afternoon but at 09:30 on the morning the
direction wasn’t correct although the grey skies were as predicted. The larger
keelboats left the harbour with breeze outside but by the time I returned to
the waterfront area at 12 noon, the omens for vigorous racing in the afternoon
weren’t good. A walk of the east pier to just beyond the bandstand revealed a
very flat outer area ...
Posted 3 Dec 2019, 06:51 by Stephen Oram
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Gamekeeper turned poacher!
XCWeather was
promising 8/9 knots of breeze for the critical part of Sunday afternoon and at
09:00 the breeze looked good as the keel boats went out for their Turkey Shoot!
Three hours later as I came back down to Dun Laoghaire the latter finishers
from the morning’s racing were struggling to get over the finish line in very
light conditions. Inside the harbour it had gone very flat and in the inner
harbour there was mirror-like conditions. Sailing Manager of the National Yacht
Club, Olivier Prouveur, however assured me that there would be wind for the
Frostbites, coming out of the south! By 13:15 when a decision to go afloat was
necessary, the die ...
Posted 11 Nov 2019, 07:54 by Stephen Oram
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Munster Championship Report
Thirteen Fireballs gathered at Killaloe SC for the Fireball Munster Championships at the weekend. Initial indications were for a very wet and windy weekend but happily the fleet were rewarded with excellent sailing conditions on both days. While extremely wet most of the rain fell during the evenings and local hostel accommodation meant that nobody got too wet over the weekend. There was the small issue of a rugby match on the Saturday morning and commodore Sue Concannon hosted the entire fleet to breakfast at her home to watch the game. Screams and moans permeated the stunning landscape overlooking the lake. Once racing got underway Noel Butler and Stephen Oram dominated proceedings with three race wins from four races. The ...
Posted 1 Oct 2019, 04:28 by Stephen Oram
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