Mirror
Westerns Report
There
must be something in the water in
Not
that it was obvious there was going to be any sailing at all when we arrived at
the club on a still Friday evening. It took us a while to find the wooden
clubhouse, because someone had hidden it behind a solid wall of flies, but
somehow a committee meeting was held and Alan Blay and Robin O’Mahony made it
out training. When asked to sum up the conditions, Alan replied with one word;
“Derg”.
It
summed things up far more concisely than I’m going to! The weather was almost
identical to some of that experienced at the Europeans in Derg in 2004 when we
reached the club on Saturday. The lake was glassy, and there was no sound apart
from the buzzing of the millions of flies. Racing was postponed until 12, and
everyone ran for cover anywhere they could find it.
When
Race 1 finally got underway (After a general recall), we drifted around the
starting area fairly aimlessly. Some people were lucky enough to get away
cleanly, but anyone unlucky enough to be caught in anything resembling a wind
shadow was dead in the water. I settled down to some gloating, as I was moving
along nicely at half a knot on the right hand side, but it didn’t take long
for the bad Karma to catch up with me, and I was forced to watch new wind settle
in from the left powering Gerard Healy and Alan Blay up to the windward. Gerard
using his high-powered medical brain to send his boat cutting through the water
like a scalpel through… Enough with the medical analogy, he was just very,
very fast in those light airs!
The
wind was up and down, mainly down, all through that first race, but Gerard dealt
with it all, and crossed the line comfortably first, for one of the most popular
and well deserved victories for years. Following him across the line was Mike
Hill, who made his experience count, picking up on any scraps of wind, followed
by Alan Blay. Rookie George Hooker popped up from nowhere to cross the line in
an excellent debut 4th place, and Catherine “Lazarus” Hilliard
pulled out a fantastic 5th place, made even more impressive by the
fact that she hadn’t set foot in any sort of boat since last November. I think
it had something to do with her excellently trained crew!!
Some
people might be wondering why I haven’t mentioned Doire Shiels yet. The
Skerries star looked to have been struggling with the very light and variable
conditions, but anyone thinking about claiming an unlikely scalp was quickly put
in their place, as Doire blasted into the lead. Perhaps “Blast” isn’t an
appropriate word, given the still light and variable conditions, but his lead
wasn’t ever put under a threat he couldn’t handle, and after the second lap,
the fleet was split by a massive wind shift. Gerard Healy suffered especially
badly, as the wind filled in from the left hand side of the beat, leaving
several of the top 10, including myself, stranded out right, as the awareness of
Aileen Boylan and Olivia Egan sent them surging up the fleet. Gerard dropped
from 8th to 18th, in a desperately unlucky turn of events.
Following
Doire across the line this time was Fred Gilbert’s natural successor, Niall
Carbery, leaving him lying second overnight. Alan Blay’s uncharacteristic
consistency paid off, a third place meaning he lead the fleet overall. Fourth
place was taken by Mark Boylan, the new boy putting in a lightning start, and
showing great maturity to add to his 14th in the first. Andrew
Vaughan made up the top 5 after a very impressive day.
No
more races were run on Saturday, so we had to brave the flies again after race
2. I can’t remember ever seeing all the boats derigged so quickly! The
entertainment passed off without major incident for once. The highlight of the
night was when we celebrated Alan Blay’s birthday by kicking a rugby ball at
him repeatedly.
The
wind was up the next morning, and by now people had learned enough about the
lake to know that anything could happen out there. The first start delivered, a
huge pre-start wind shift making the line unusually biased, but the race was
allowed to start. Gerard Healy made the most of a tricky situation to score
another victory, the other result of note being Ciara Egan pulling an incredible
sail out of the bag to finish second. Heartbreakingly for both, a mistake with
the starting sequence meant that the race was thrown out following a protest
hearing.
Race
4 took a while to get going, but it turned out to be among the most exciting.
Another large pin end bias led to one starboard tack boat (Sorry guys!) causing
carnage amongst the boats trying to start on port. The result was a huge raft,
and Mr. Healy making another amazing clean getaway, with Catherine Hilliard also
away like lightning. The havoc I wreaked on the start line got me around the
windward in 5th, looking pretty puzzled, as was Cathal Leigh-Doyle,
who was also right in the mix, along with Mark Boylan. The stronger breeze meant
great racing, and it was really heart-pumping stuff as the top 5 burned up the
course. Mark Armstrong worked his way into the top 5 as Mark Boylan dropped back
to finish 7th. Gerard managed to extend his lead from Catherine, who
held onto her second place with ease. Cathal was unshakeable in 3rd
and Mark Armstrong crossed the line in 4th. I managed to just hang
onto my advantage over Alan Blay to cross the finish line in 5th
place.
The
wind picked up even more, for a thrilling last race, with everything still up in
the air. Another pin end bias, but this time I wasn’t able to cause mayhem,
having to bail out round the committee boat with 10 seconds to go. Bizarrely, I
still found myself 5th around the windward, giving me an excellent
view of
Gerard’s
experience showed, though, as his boatspeed paid dividends on the downwind legs.
Not even Doire could catch him as he moved into an unassailable lead. The
O’Dowd trophy winner finished well after Gerard in second, and Oliver
McCormack posted an excellent 3rd place. Paul Amerlynck hit his
highest result of the event with a 4th place, and Mike Hill snuck
through to finish 5th.
Final
results saw Alan Blay with Cian
Hickey top of the pile, still looking for his first race win, but I’m sure he
won’t be too disappointed with the event win. Second place went to Doire and
Graham Daly, after a late charge. Mike Hill with Adam Hill pulled in third, at
the head of a cluster of 4 boats on
20 points, whose positions had to be decided on a tiebreak. Gerard Healy with
Barry Armstrong was fourth, Catherine Hilliard with Andrew Collings fifth and
Mark Armstrong with Ciara armstrong finishing off the prize winning positions in
sixth with Paul Amerlynck with
Melissa Daly seventh. Andrew Vaughan
with Toby Mc Cullagh, Andrew Todd with Holly Campbell and myself (Peter
Collings) with Luke O’Brien finishing off the top ten.
Further
down the fleet, the silver fleet was headed by Mark Boylan with Alan Ruigrok,
with Cathal Leigh-Doyle with Layren leigh Doyle and Joseph McLoughlin with
Callum Mc Loughlin also making the gold fleet. The bronze fleet was won by
George Hooker wiuth Sam Booma. Joanne O’Hara `with Tim Rafferty finished
second to cap a good debut event. Gemma Doran
with Eimear O’Leary, Barra Collins with Lisa McGonagle and Richard
Arthurs with Conor Murphy were also
promoted to silver.
Peter Collings