News
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Fast and furious!
Monitoring the forecast from the Thursday
beforehand the weather prognosis for the Frostbites of Sunday 9th
December wasn’t good, with the base wind strength in the low twenties but gusts
going above 30 knots. Indeed, had the Frostbites been scheduled for the
Saturday evening, competitors wouldn’t have taken their covers off their boats,
the wind was whistling through the rigging and it was very wet.
Sunday dawned bright but cold and there was
a sense that the wind wasn’t quite as vicious as had been forecast! XCWeather
was still sticking to its projection of a wind range of 21 – 28-30 knots and
indeed at 11:17 the Dublin Bay weather buoy was recording 21 knots ...
Posted 11 Dec 2018, 03:19 by Stephen Oram
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Fireballers mark the close of the season with prize-giving and dinner
The Irish Fireball Class Association marked
the close of the summer season with their annual prize-giving dinner at the
National Yacht Club on Friday 30th November. There was a good
turnout for the dinner with a combination of young and not-so-young, active and
retired Fireballers, at least one of whom has been based outside of the country
for the recent past. A party of Fireballers from north of the Liffey got
through passport control to spend the evening in Dun Laoghaire and were
rewarded by taking away the biggest prize of the evening – the Travellers’
Trophy.
Class Chairman Neil Cramer of Skerries
Sailing Club opened the proceedings with a review of the season and started
that ...
Posted 3 Dec 2018, 03:30 by Stephen Oram
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A Challenging Day!
The fifth round of the DMYC-hosted
Frostbites provided the fleet with the most challenging conditions yet and even
then what was forecast didn’t really materialise. On Friday at the Fireball
dinner and prize-giving the speculation was that we mightn’t get out at all. At
that stage the forecast was for 6 knots gusting to 30 knots. On Saturday the
harbour was reduced to mirror-like conditions, but the forecast for Sunday was
starting to show that there would be wind the following day with the base wind
strengthening but the gusts staying as severe as before. An early
reconnaissance of the harbour in the committee boat suggested that the forecast
conditions weren’t in place and ...
Posted 3 Dec 2018, 03:27 by Stephen Oram
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Healthy winds again!
The fourth round of the 2018/19 offered to
be a healthy affair with a projected forecast of 10 – 14 knots from the east, a
bit of sunshine and an air temperature of 6/7⁰. After a round of capsizes last
weekend in the strongest winds of the series so far, a refresher on procedures
was undertaken in the clubhouse before the racing. Some unique scenarios had
arisen which needed a sharing of minds as to how to best manage them on the
water.
Today’s complication on the water took the
form of a barge carrying a large tonnage of granite rocks into the harbour,
potentially, I think for repairs to the east pier seawall after the storms of ...
Posted 26 Nov 2018, 01:16 by Stephen Oram
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A busy harbour!
With the Irish Universities having a team
racing event in Dun Laoghaire Harbour over the weekend, with 71 races completed
on Saturday and various training initiatives taking place inside (and outside)
the harbour, Race Officer Neil Colin (Fireball) was challenged to get his race
course in yesterday for the third round of the 2018/19 Frostbites, with an
easterly of 10 – 16 knots forecast for the day. Earlier in the morning the
keelboats’ Turkey Shoot had attracted a record entry of 75 boats (a statistic
gleaned from another article on a popular website) but not to be outdone, the
dinghy fraternity mounted a robust attendance for the first race of the day
with 55 entries across the three starts. The ...
Posted 19 Nov 2018, 05:47 by Stephen Oram
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DMYC FROSTBITES REPORT - NOVEMBER 11TH
‘Louis is coming to get us" exclaimed Noel Butler to crew Stephen Oram. Looking over his shoulder he was watching the young Thompson brothers, Daniel and Harry, and perhaps a ghost, closing in rapidly during the second PY race in yesterday’s DMYC frostbite series. The Thompsons are sailing the Fireball of late veteran dinghy racer Louis Smyth who died in June. The pair have been awarded the youth boat for the Frostbites series in an initiative by Louis’ family and the Irish Fireball Association. While the Wexford based pair, who normally sail 420s, had a slow start the previous Sunday yesterday’s races saw them begin to find their stride. In race one they narrowly missed 2nd place ...
Posted 12 Nov 2018, 01:46 by Stephen Oram
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A flurry of Fireballs!
The renamed or rescheduled Fireball Munsters, cancelled earlier in the year at Killaloe Sailing Club, were reconvened this past weekend at one of the Irish fleet’s favourite locations, Lough Derg Yacht Club. This was our second visit in as many years and as ever the hospitality was at its best with scones and tea/coffee available on the Saturday morning, an excellent meal on the Saturday night, with commensurate bar service and a Race Management Team led by Commodore John Leech that had a relatively easy day on Saturday but a much more stressful one on the Sunday.Held in tandem with the Mirror Southerns, the event attracted an entry of 14 boats made up principally of the fleet ...
Posted 12 Sep 2018, 06:02 by Stephen Oram
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