Irish Fireball Leinster Championships at Clontarf Yacht & Boat Club

Fireball International Week at Sligo - also showing the winners (IRL 14820) of the Leinster Championships © Bob Hobby

The Irish Fireball regatta season closed this past weekend with the hosting of the provincial Leinster Championships at Clontarf Yacht & Boat Club on Dublin Bay’s northern shore. CYBC has a long tradition of Fireball sailing that has seen highs and low in the fleet and currently they are in rebuilding mode. Class Chairman Neil Colin committed the class to taking events to clubs where there is a domestic fleet and so 25 Fireballs arrived at the club to contest the last event of the regatta schedule.

It saw a return to the water of the 2011 National Champions, Barry McCartin & Conor Kinsella. McCartin has been out of the country over the summer months so he has not been active on the circuit. It was also good to see the host club combination of Damien Bracken and Brian O’Hara back on the water in a Fireball. Bracken is a very accomplished GP14 sailor and has been doing some sailing in that class with Shane McCarthy, but we have not seen much of him in a Fireball. Jon Evans and Aidan Caulfield would have sailed under the burgee of CYBC in times past, but Jon’s relocation to Sligo means that they sail the events as a combination rather than sailing at a club. John Bolger & S. Belochapkine were the sole representatives from Killaloe, another former stronghold of Fireball sailing that is also trying to recover from clubhouse complications. Other travellers to the event, from outside the immediate Dublin area were Brian O’Neill and Stevie Cassor from East Down Yacht Club (Strangford Lough), Team McGrotty, Niall, Simon and respective crews Neil Cramer & Darach Dinneen from Skerries and Finbarr Bradley from Carlingford Lough Yacht Club who teamed up with Howth’s Diane Kissane. Our hosts got five boats onto the water.

The six race series was sailed inside and outside the harbour complex with three races taking place outside on Saturday and the balance being sailed inside the “leading lights” of Dublin’s harbour entrance.

Saturday’s racing took place in good trapezing conditions, opening with two Olympic courses followed by a Windward Leeward. McCartin/Kinsella started off from where they had last finished with a race win. However, speaking to Kinsella afterwards he said that they were finding their best form offwind which gave them a platform to control the race when they were going upwind. In truth, the leading bunch was quite tight with one new combination coming to the fore, the Clancy brothers Conor & James, who made everyone sit up and pay attention with a second place in Race 1. Waterford’s Mike Murphy, crewed by Alex Voye made the first race their “high” of the day with a third place. Thereafter their Saturday results were just outside the top ten. And of Noel Butler & Stephen Oram, 2012 National Champions? Down in 5th place, behind Simon McGrotty & Darach Dinneen!

Race 2 saw a re-jigging of the top five – Butler/Oram taking the win ahead of McCartin/Kinsella. McGrotty/Dinneen took third, Kissane, taking a weekend break from 470 sailing and racing with Finbarr Bradley took 4th, with locals Bracken and O’Hara occupying the fifth slot. Again there was a tight bunch at the front of the fleet and a multitude of red spinnakers on the offwind legs made it a little difficult to see who was who!

The closing Windward-Leeward race saw McCartin/Kinsella win comfortably from Kissane/Bradley, with Bracken/O’Hara rounding out an ever-improving session with 3rd, Butler/Oram took 4th and McGrotty/Dinneen 5th.

The day’s proceedings left McCartin & Kinsella with a six-point cushion over Butler & Oram who in turn had two points over Kissane/Bradley.

The weather forecast on Saturday evening did not bode well for the prospects of sailing outside the harbour on Sunday. Arriving at the club on Sunday morning there was a semblance of rain in the air and the Race Officer advised that the Dublin Harbour Control was recording 25 knots of breeze. With spring tides an additional factor, Ian Sargeant, the Race Officer, held a briefing session to advise the fleet that he would race us inside the harbour entrance. There is a limited window of tide for sailing off Clontarf as it is, so racing g inside the leading lights presented the additional hazards of a) staying outside the shipping lane into the harbour, b) avoiding the shallows in one corner of the race area at the latter stage of the tide and c) avoiding rocks in another location. That was before the vagaries of racing in the immediate lee of chimneys, storage tanks and buildings given the wind direction of the day. A menu of two Windward-Leewards and an Olympic course to round out the day was offered.

Squally and variable wind directions would colour the racing – an unpredictable session of trying to second guess Mother Nature as huge lifts, stiff breezes, holes in the breeze and streaky winds made for an entertaining day. Trouble is that despite these vagaries, the cream of the fleet rose to the top again. McCartin/Kinsella had a more difficult day – scoring a 4, 2, 5. Butler/Oram replicated their opponents’ feat of winning two of the day’s three races, with Neil Spain & Francis Rowan taking the second race of the day in what was, for them, a slightly mediocre regatta. Kissane/Bradley also had a good day scoring a 2, 4, 3 to consolidate their position in the pecking order. Murphy/Voye also had a good day scoring 3, 7, 4 and McGrotty/Dinneen sailed a 5, 9, 2.

Some of the offwind legs were superb with huge gusts getting the Fireballs doing what they do best. There were some very cluttered roundings of the leeward mark and more than one of the top teams took turns during the day. There didn’t seem to be any consistency to the wind, lifts on the starboard tack didn’t seem to materialize in an advantage when one went onto port to get to the weather mar. Passing a boat on one tack didn’t translate into the same advantage when the boats crossed again on opposing tacks – an elaborate game of snakes and ladders!

After six races, the new Leinster Champions are Barry McCartin & Conor Kinsella who won with two points to spare over Noel Butler & Stephen Oram. In third place were Diane Kissane & Finbarr Bradley, three points adrift of the National Champions.

In the nine-boat Silver fleet, Brian Nolan and Billy Winter of the host club took the honours. Dropping a 20th from the first race they put together a tight set of results in the early to mid-teens to win by a ten-point margin from the northern visitors Brian O’Neill & Stevie Cassor.

Top 5 Results:

At the Class AGM on the Saturday evening, the Chairman, Secretary & Treasurer, Neil Colin, Margaret Casey and Marie Barry respectively, expressed their willingness to continue in office and were re-elected unopposed for a further year. Among a variety of discussions items was next year’s regatta schedule which contemplates taking the Nationals to N.Ireland and trips to Skerries, the Volvo Dun Laoghaire regatta, Carlingford Lough and Slovenia for the Worlds.