Volvo October Series at Galway Bay Sailing Club - Race 1

Martin Breen's new Corby 33 'That’s Life' on day one of the Volvo October Series at Galway Bay © Dave Vinnell

Race one of the Volvo October series on Galway Bay kicked off at 11 am on Sunday morning. Surprisingly perfect conditions prevailed after a very windy week, which saw some of the fleet damaged when several boats broke their moorings.

Nonetheless 14 bleary eyed crews lined up for the first race of this exciting series which has been sponsored by Volvo to celebrate the launch of their new “Volvo Ocean Race Edition” line of cars.

The fleet was split into two classes which started together to race several laps of a long windward Leeward course. After an exciting first start, which saw several boats over the line, race officer Dave Vinnell recalled the fleet and restarted the race. Right from the first leg Martin Breen sailing his new Corby 33 “That’s Life” showed impressive pace closely followed by Henry Lupton on “Quelle Surprise” and Tommy Smith on “Catalpa”. Normal front-runners “Peugeot Motocycles” were well off the pace despite having “Patches” owner Eamonn Conneely on Board. In class two Cormac Mac Donnacha and crew on “Silver Foam” was showing a clean pair of heels to the rest of the class .

“That’s Life “ maintained its lead on the water for the entire race, whilst a tussle for second on the water took place all the way around between Catalpa and “Peugeot Motocycles”. After two hours of racing the results were:

IRC:
1st That’s Life(Martin Breen)
2nd Silver Foam(Cormac Mac Donnacha)
3rd Que lle Surprise (Henry Lupton)

Echo:
1st Valfreya (Michael Donoghue)
2nd Silver Foam (Cormac Mac Donnacha)
3rd Starlet (Liam Burke)

The next two races in this exciting 5 week series take place at 11am on Sunday next. Full results can be found on the results page on www.gbsc.ie

Race 1 Results:

Results generated and submitted using Sailwave sailing scoring software