News
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2019 FIREBALL IRISH NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS AT HOWTH YC
Noel Butler and Stephen Oram (NYC) have retained their National Champions title after nine races at Howth Yacht Club. The pair scored seven first places discarding a third and a fourth to take the title in style in a three-day event which featured a good variety of sailing conditions. The event started with light and patchy winds on Friday progressing to decent if shifty breezes on Saturday and to full on wind by Sunday. Second place was won by Niall McGrotty and Neil Cramer (SSC) who sailed consistently well and counted a string of second and third places in their scores to consolidate their second overall. Third were the up and coming youth team brothers Daniel and Harry Thompson ...
Posted 22 Jul 2019, 04:14 by Stephen Oram
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Irish Fireball Family go North!
With a Worlds
coming up in Montreal Canada in August 2019 and Ireland hosting the Worlds in
August 2020 in Howth, as part of their 125th Anniversary
celebrations, the Irish Fireball Family had their first outing of the regatta
season with a trip to Newtownards on the Ards peninsula, at the top end of
Strangford Lough.
We last visited
the venue in 2006 and since then the club has had a major extension added on to
give them a substantial two-storey building with an upstairs bar and view from
Scrabo Tower to the right all the way to the Mournes and the lower reaches of
Strangford Lough on the left. At ground floor there is a substantial function ...
Posted 19 Jun 2019, 03:30 by Stephen Oram
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Summertime boost!
The last Sunday of the 2018/19 Frostbites
coincided with the first day of BST – British (and Irish) Summer Time and the
race management team and contestants were treated to a good day on the water to
close out the event.
Race Officer Cormac Bradley, having
discharged his Mother’s Day responsibilities the evening before in Warrenpoint,
travelled down from the north in what looked like favourable conditions, only
to find that Frostbites Coordinator Neil Colin was suggesting that what wind we
had was dropping rapidly in strength! On getting out to the race area, a host
of Lasers were already afloat – seemingly having a Royal St George Yacht Club
facilitated coaching session in advance of the days racing proceedings ...
Posted 1 Apr 2019, 08:42 by Stephen Oram
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Coaching Day with Barry McCartin
Between sailors and volunteers some 18 Fireballers took part in a coaching day with Barry McCartin at the DMYC on Saturday. The group ranged from class veterans to adult sailors from SID to young sailors taking a break from 420s with an eye to the #Howth2020 World Championships. McCartin is an experienced coach and also the top Irish Fireballer having notched up a top ten place in the most recent 100 boat world championships in Carnac. Participants benefited from an initial briefing by Barry on the finer intricacies of boat tuning to maximise boat speed. In particular subtle adjustments with strut or chocks to optimise pre-bend and sail shape for a range of conditions were explored. Sailors were reminded ...
Posted 25 Mar 2019, 04:23 by Stephen Oram
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Single race……before the snow started falling!
Last week’s report
opened with a few lines from Keats’ “Ode to Autumn” so the weather gods may
have been amused by that because yesterday, after racing was completed it
started snowing!! We know that Winter follows Autumn, but it is slightly at
odds with the time of year – early March!
The wind forecast
suggested that while the morning would be quiet there would be a healthy wind
for the 14:00 start of proceedings and that as the afternoon wore on the wind
would build. Rain was also in the forecast, but it was not due to arrive until
later. By 12:00 the rain was with us and the wind was building, and Frostbites
Co-ordinator Neil ...
Posted 4 Mar 2019, 04:22 by Stephen Oram
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“A John Keats type of day”
Sunday February 24th was more akin to the
opening lines of John Keats’ “Ode to Autumn”
“Season
of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close
bosom friend of the maturing sun,
Conspiring
with him how to load and bless
With
fruit, the vines that round the thatched eaves run”
for even though there was a healthy breeze
forecast, Dun Laoghaire Harbour was shrouded in mist. Nor was the temperature
in compliance with the forecast – a
spring-like 12/13º but there was a distinct autumnal coolness in the air.
Despite these atmospheric setbacks, the
good news was that the wind was blowing from a direction, 150-160º, that
allowed us to use the maximum width (East – West) of the harbour ...
Posted 25 Feb 2019, 08:28 by Stephen Oram
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Bright & breezy but two races completed!
From the previous
Friday morning, the XCWeather website had been consistent in its forecast for
Sunday afternoon at 14:00, winds of the order of 17/18 knots with gusts to
28/30 knots from a direction of south or south of south-west. And so, it was!
Given the forecast and bearing in mind that very little “frostbiting” has been
had this year, there was an awareness that we should try and get at least one
race in and that sense was manifested when the Frostbite Co-ordinator, Neil
Colin shared the exact same sentiment by What’sApp on Saturday afternoon.
An early trip down
to the harbour and the East Pier suggested that the water inside the harbour ...
Posted 18 Feb 2019, 04:20 by Stephen Oram
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