SB3 Easterns National Yacht Club May 12/13

Fireball Munster Championship    Killaloe SC May 19th – 20th

DMYC Regatta Dun Laoghaire June 2nd

SB3 Northerns   Carrickfergus    June 09/10

Fireball Ulster Championship     EDYC June 16th – 17th

NYC Regatta Dun Laoghaire June 23rd

Fireball National Championship Howth YC June 29th – July 1st

SB3 Southerns Tralee Bay Yacht Club     Jun 30th/July 1st

RIYC Regatta Dun Laoghaire     July 1st

RStGYC Regatta Dun Laoghaire  July 7th

ISAF WORLDS Dun Laoghaire July 12th / 21st

Fireball European Championship Bracciano, Italy     July 20th – 27th

SB3 Westerns  Galway  July 28/29th

Fireball UK Nationals Penzance Sailing Club August 11th – 17th

SB3 Nationals  Bangor  Aug 31st-Sept 1/2nd

Fireball Leinster Championship Clontarf Y&BC     September 15th – 16th

SB3 Europeans  Holland  Sept  date tba

SB3 Midlands Lough Derg   Oct 20th – 21th

SB3 Worlds Hamilton Island AUS   Dec 13th – 20th

I am fairly certain that Dogbolter is the only Fireball to have sailed in Australia and four other continents.

History:

1990 AUS Nationals – 1st – Dransfield/Perry
1990 Worlds (Japan) – 1st – Dransfield/Perry
1991 Europeans (Czechoslovakia) – 2nd – Burns/Sinclair
1991 Worlds (Sweden) – 8th – Matthews/Sinclair
1992 GBR Nationals – 22nd – Horey/Shaw
1992 Worlds (USA) – 5th – Horey/?
1993 GBR Nationals – 11th – Horey/Beloe
1994 GBR Nationals – 18th – Horey/Webb
1994 Worlds (South Africa) – 26th – Horey/Webb
1995 Worlds (Ireland) – ?th – O’Tiarnaigh/?
1997 GBR Nationals – ?th – O’Carroll/Lynch
1997 Europeans (GBR) – ?th – O’Carroll/Lynch
2000 Europeans (Ireland) – 33rd – Leane/Lenehan
2002 Various IRL events – Barry / Power
2009 Various IRL events – Kenny / ?

Read more here

Dramatic action between the Rock and the Paentanius turning buoy where the maxi yacht Rambler 100 capsized during the 2011 Fastnet Race.  Picture above taken by Phaedo’s media crew aboard Gerry Smith’s dive boat Wave Chieftain.

Here is Baltimore Lifeboat Hilda Jarrett after taking 16 sailors aboard.

Sky news has a good interview with Lifeboat Coxswain Kieron Cotter here.

Kieron has nearly 40 years service with the RNLA, dating back to the Air India tragedy and Fastnet 1979.

Irish Times interviews some of the crew ashore at Baltimore Sailing Club here.

Video from the Irish Examiner:

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RNLI Press Release about the shout.

Baltimore Lifeboat Station on Facebook.

Diver and Lifeboat mechanic Gerry Smith at Aquaventures.

Good coverage on RTE Morning Ireland, interview with owner in Part One and interviews with helmsman Earl Williams and rescuer Gerry Smith in Part Two (both are mp3 files)

Video interview with owner George David

Video on RORC website with aerial film of rescue here.

Press Association video, with two crew interviews

http://youtu.be/cDpz7ZmDC

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Two RTE tv news reports here

Rambler towed into Barley Cove

Rambler rolled back upright in Barley Cove before being towed to Baltimore.  What remained of the broken rig was cut away first and buoyed.

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Film taken of Rambler in Baltimore harbour from the Cape Clear ferry.

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Short video of Rambler approching the Fastnet in murky conditions.

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For the record:

Maxi Trimaran Banque Populaire set a new course record with an elapsed time of 1 day, 8 hours, 48 minutes (32 hrs, 48 mins), and an average speed around the course of 18.5 knots.

Volvo 70 Abu Dhabi set a new monohull record of 1 day, 18 hours, 39 minutes.

More race info from RORC.

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The Fastnet Race starts this morning with 350 boats entered.  Starting at noon off Cowes, the 605 nautical mile race to the Fastnet and then to the finish at Plymouth is likely to be rather windy.

I’ll be watching for Barry and Andy aboard Dinah, racing double handed in Class 3.

Other Irish boats to watch are:

• IRL 5005  Lee Overlay Partners   Adrian Lee   Cookson 50  IRC CK
• IRL 4052  Legally Brunette  Cathal Drohan & Paul Egan  X-41   IRC 1
• GBR 111   Arabella Niall Downing & Nick Smyth   J-111  IRC 2
• IRL 3607  Lula Belle  Liam Coyne  Beneteau 36.7   IRC 3
• IRL 9388  Joker  David Gibbons  Sigma 38  IRC 4
• GBR 7716 Psipsina  Paddy Cronin & Brian Flahive  HOD 35  IRC3

Also, OSTAR friend Marco:

GBR  41  Eutourist Serv-System  Marco Nannini    Class 40

Follow the fleet with the online Race Tracker

The only Fastnet Race I have done covered was in 1985, August 12 to be precise, via a fishing boat from Baltimore.  That’s Condor above, front page of the Sunday Tribune that week.

Here is Nirvana, which took line honours and shaved 12 hours off the previous record.

Atlantic Privateer, overall winner in 1985:

The Guardian’s Bob Fisher reported on the race as a member of the American boat Jubilation, seen here with a light keeper in the upper right waving to the crew.  The picture ran alongside his report in the paper.

Replay the video and pause at 23 seconds to see a crew member bail out overboard on the windward side.

The 2002-built Corby 33 Atalanta has an IRL sail number but is most definitely not Irish owned. Previous owner Martin Breen of Galway bought the boat in 2007 and campaigned quite successfully as That’s Life. Here they are chasing down a J 109 in Galway Bay 10 October 2008 with the same shocking pink asymmetric spinnaker.

Link

Breen sold the boat to a Cheshire sailor named Roly Wilson at the end of the 2010 season and acquired a Reflex 38 which he skippered to the overall win in this year’s Dun Laoghaire to Dingle race.  The boat has a Facebook Page.

The new owner of the Corby 33 campaigned the boat in the Hamble winter series and the 2011 Solent spring series, thus not a total beginner.  Here are photos from the UK Daily Mail.

Sailing in the Solent is great fun, but sailors must be, are legally required to be, aware of the shipping channel that bends around the Bramble Bank (shallow) and on up to Frawley and Southampton.  Large vessels in the channel, such as the Hanne Knutsen (265 meters long) above, travel within a 1000 meter by 100 meter “Moving Prohibited Zone” with a Pilot Boat in the lead and often a braking tug attached to the stern.  To maintain steerage, they are steaming at 9 to 12 knots.  NO OTHER vessels are allowed within the prohibited zone.

Associated British Ports are the harbour authority and are entitled to prosecute the skipper.

The Cowes Week Sailing Instructions also restrict racers from entering a Moving Prohibited Zone:

B17.1 Southampton Harbour Byelaws (changing RRS 60)
(a) Boats shall observe the Associated British Ports (ABP) Southampton Harbour Byelaws 2003 (see page 12) at all times and avoid any close quarters situation with large commercial shipping. Particular note should be made of
Byelaws 10 & 11 and Associated British Ports Southampton Notice to Mariners No. 3 of 2011 giving details of a moving prohibited zone, which ranks as an obstruction for the purposes of RRS 19 and 20.
(b) Protests for infringements of B17.1(a) may be brought only by the race committee who may initiate a protest as the result of a report from an ABP Pilot or Patrol boat. Note that ABP may initiate court proceedings against boats that infringe this byelaw.”

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Statement from Cowes Week Limited
Incident between yacht Atalanta and incoming tanker2000 Saturday 6th August 2011

Cowes Week Limited has been in contact with the hospital, the owner of the boat, and Associated British Ports (ABP) since the collision between a tanker and the racing yacht Atalanta earlier this afternoon. They are delighted to confirm that the hospital has discharged the injured crew member.
An official investigation on the incident will be carried out in due course.

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The UK Marine Accident Investigation Board will likely seek to establish the facts of the incident, which may provide an answer to the question: “What the hell did you think you were doing?”

Barry and I were finishing the non-stop delivery of Dinah from Dun Laoghaire for Solo Channel Week.  Quite uneventful except for the curious wind failure at three am each morning along the English coast.

Here are the Needles, early morning…

And the Bridge Buoy, third time in three years I have sailed past it aboard Dinah.

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It seems red is the new black…

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Frank does an Aussie drop to get up to the gybe mark.

Here is the first gybe mark of race 4, with the GBR team of Derian and Adam Scott leading AUS and our own Louis Smyth and Cormac Bradley.

These two GBR boats are the only blue hulls in the fleet and are always next or near to each other.  Sequential sail numbers too:  14754 and 14755.

Results at Sligo Yacht Club.

Ben Bulben watched oveer the leeward mark.

Australians Ben Schulz and Philip Bowley lead Ireland’s Noel Butler and Stephen Oram into the gybe mark in the first of two races.

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Frank Miller and Marie Barry (left) meet Ben Scallan and David Fitzgerald in the second race.

Louis and Cormac came a cropper.

Full results at Sligo Yacht Club.