Mirror Westerns Report 2008

I’m back. Again! Next thing I’ll be booking my flights to Sweden for the Europeans. A spur of the moment decision on Tuesday led to a frantic boat hunt and eventually to me sailing the Mirror Class Association’s new Winder Mark III in the mirror westerns in Sligo Yacht Club.

  With no Niall Carbery or Blonde Kid Adam McCullough, or the Rafferties, or Karl Mackey, or Sheila Armstrong, who didn’t have an excuse, but was too lazy to sail, you might have been forgiven for thinking this was going to be a small event. You would have had a shock when you saw 41 boats racking up on the start line for the first race. Well, 40, as I was too busy admiring the Mark III to notice that everyone else had actually launched. Fighting my way up through the field gave me a good opportunity to examine the new boat’s performance (Just as good as a top wooden boat), but less of a chance to notice what was going on at the business end of the fleet, (Mark Armstrong miles ahead, Mike Hill, Cillian Dickson and Mark Boylan around somewhere). In the end, it was Mark who won by about half a leg, showing he didn’t need a fancy fibreglass boat to go fast. Neither did Don McCormack or Barry Armstrong, who stopped my advance up the fleet. Second place was Mike Hill, third Cillian, fourth Mark Boylan, and fifth Johnny Hill, with his sixth sense for shifts.

  The second race was started after a considerable delay as the wind kept shifting, but eventually got under way in a force 3 northeasterly. At the windward I was inexplicably in first place, being ruthlessly hunted down by a pack of Sligo boats, second to fifth places were filled by Don McCormack, Mark Armstrong, Barry Ronan, Barry Armstrong and Beth Armstrong, in a very fluid order. At the gybe mark, concentrating on not crashing into most of Rosses Point’s finest, I managed to uncleat the spinnaker pole and fire it backwards into my eye. My new intimidating look didn’t actually help my result that much as I dropped back to fifth by the finish. Fourth was Mark Boylan, and third Johnny Hill, top of a group of three boats that finished within a few metres of each other. Second place was Mike Hill, and the winner was once again Mark Armstrong.

  My eye had stopped bleeding by race 3, so I couldn’t use it as an excuse for my shocking start. I was too busy scraping my way back into the running that I didn’t see the leaders accelerate into the sunset, but the results sheet tells me that Mark Boylan was the winner, ahead of Mark Armstrong, Mike Hill, Cillian Dickson and Johnny Hill.

  On shore, the main attraction was my now beautifully purple eye, as I was paraded around like a circus act. Admittedly it did look slightly less bad after a conveniently located doctor removed the large chunk of plastic from just below it. (Thanks!). It looked so bad she suggested I hid it behind a bag of ice she brought me. Apparently a good night was had by all, even though I wasn’t there to witness it, having been cajoled into town by Sheila Armstrong, who didn’t have to sail the next morning.

  A little worse for wear, I nearly missed the first gun again, but luckily a shifting wind meant that it was delayed. A brisk force 3 quickly woke me up, and I was able to get down to the business of the day. The Big 5 of the event were almost certain to be at the top of the fleet again, but Graham Daly sprung a surprise by popping up in the top couple of places and staying there for most of the race. Even more surprising was how everyone suddenly forgot most of the important rules of sailing. First Cillian Dickson had to take a 720 for a port-starboard incident with Don McCormack, then Mark Armstrong for something near the windward mark, then Mark Boylan for an incident on the run, and finally, I was toppled off the moral high ground when I had to do turns for hitting the windward mark on the last lap. The final order was Mike Hill, Mark Boylan, Cillian Dickson, Mark Armstrong and Johnny Hill. Graham ended up sixth, after losing out on the final beat.

  The final race was to be the windiest of the event. It was also strategically designed not to allow me to empty my bladder, either before the start, or between the first general recall and the restart. This meant I was highly motivated to get around the course as quickly as possible, and get rid of all the water that had seemed like such a fantastic idea when I had dragged myself out of bed a few hours before.

This race would also decide the championship, with Mark Armstrong needing to avoid losing to Mike Hill to claim the title on home waters, and Mark Boylan still in the hunt as well. At the start of the race, the top three were these usual suspects. Fighting for fourth place were myself, Barry Ronan and Johnny Hill, with Cillian Dickson and Joe McLoughlin ruthlessly closing in from behind. For the rest of the race, myself and Barry never managed to get far enough apart to interrupt our in-depth discussion about how close the race was. We were both so amazed by the fact that were less than two metres from each other after racing flat out for an hour and  half that we nearly let Joe McLoughlin through to finish fourth. As it was, I took the position by a whisker from Barry, despite nearly smoothly capsizing on the finish line. Third place was Mike, having been separated from the leaders after spinnaker trouble at the windward. Second was Mark Boylan, but the race winner, and overall western champion, was local hero Mark Armstrong.

Final Standings were-

In Silver Fleet, the winners, and only boat promoted to Gold under the new system, were Barry Armstrong and Leigh Dunne, who were in 11^th place, just a point behind Don and Shauna.

In bronze, the winners were Áine Lucey and Aoife O’Sullivan, who sailed Just 2 Hot 2 into 16^th place, second were Jack Maye and Steven Shannon in 20^th, and third were Michelle Murphy and Natalie O’Connell, in 23^rd place overall.

So after once again being thoroughly embarrassed by more kids from Northern Ireland, there’s just time for me to shamelessly plug the new Winder Mirror. It’s as fast as a new wooden boat, but no faster, easy to rig and maintain, and a certain Mirror Association have one for sale at the moment, so there’s no excuse for you not to be in it on the start line at the nationals come August. See you there!

Peter Collings

www.imcai.com