Up close and personal…
18 July 2011
…with the Isle of Wight ferry approaching Lymington.
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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Fireball International Week – Day 3
16 June 2011
Swell sailing to the west of Black Rock
It seems red is the new black…
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Frank does an Aussie drop to get up to the gybe mark.
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Fireball Worlds – Day 2 (International Week)
14 June 2011
Found myself again on the gybe mark observer boat for races 3 and 4, a bit windier than yesterday.
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.
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Fireball Worlds – Day 1
13 June 2011
Actually, first day of “International Week” which is the traditional 8 race forerunner to the Worlds week. The idea is to make the event a two week sailing holiday. Twenty boats are entered, with anoither 40 arriving next weekend into sun kissed Rosses Point.
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.
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Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race
11 June 2011
It started this morning, down wind, 10 knots, blazing sunshine.
First mark of the course: The Muglins at the southern end of Dublin Bay.
Follow the fleet with the race tracker at the National Yacht Club.
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Fireball Worlds and an Iffy Centreboard
1 June 2011
The Fireball World Championship and International Week kick off next weekend (June 11-25) at Sligo Yacht Club in Rosses Point. I am packing up boxes of tools and chemicals and repair materials and will be supporting the Irish boats, Goodness Gracious in particular.
The other week, a Dublin Fireballer dropped off his centreboard for repair:
I was too polite to ask…
A couple of days work and it was regenerated:
Read all about it here.
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Thursday Oops — Ferry Lift Fail
7 April 2011
The former Rossaveal – Aran ferry Clan Na Oileann fell from the slings of the cargo vessel Thor Gitta in Galway Docks this morning. The ferry and her sister ship Clan Eagle 1 were to be loaded onto the cargo vessel for shipment to Mauritius.
The two almost-new ferries had been built for Bad Arann Teo (trading as Aran Ferries Direct), run by Connemara businessman James Clancy, which went into receivership some months ago.
Mr Clancy had extensive property interests in Ireland and the Middle East, but his business ran into trouble when Anglo Irish Bank initiated proceedings for a loan repayment.
The two vessels were sold at public auction last February.
RTE news report here.
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There’s a Bug in the Bay!
20 March 2011
This afternoon was the kind of day in the Bay that wouldn’t go remarked in July…WNW breeze 8 -12 knots, ebbing tide, 15 dec C and bright sunshine. A fine Frostbite Sunday when an interloper appeared on the race course.
It’s Dun Laoghaire sailor John Chambers blasting back from the Baily aboard his Bladerider Moth. It has hydrofoils on the dagger board and rudder which raise the boat up out of the water when sufficient lift (apparent wind = boatspeed) is achieved.
He came hooning along the edge of the DMYC Frostbite race course and the most amazing thing is the silence of the boat. No Fireball slap in the chop, no Laser splashy, just silence. Somehow, cool is not quite the word. John bought the boat from some guy in France and I’m fairly certain it’s the only one in Ireland. There was a ferocious Spring tide ebbing this afternoon and I wonder if maybe the Moth is the first boat that sails so fast and with so little boat in the water that the current is no longer an issue. I wonder what PY number it sails off.
John’s mother Aine used to race an IDRA 14. Generational change. The current world top speed record of the Bladerider is 28.7 knots. That’s about 20 knots faster than the ma’s aul’ boat.
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What are they?
18 March 2011
Newly installed flush fit thru hulls on Dinah.
We removed all of the old bronze thru hull fittings and replaced them with Forespar Flowtech valves made of carbon fibre reinforced Marelon. Very cool indeed. The picture above shows, from left: heads outlet, heads inlet and the (pulled for painting) Airmar triducer which provides depth, speed log and sea temperature.
Here is the inside view:
Read on for full details of how we installed the Forespar Flowtech flush fit valves. Lots of pictures!
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Lasers Pinch at the Windward Mark
31 January 2011
The windward mark during the DMYC Frostbite is often an entertaining place to be. With a light wind working with a strong ebb tide, pinching around the mark is a maneuver where risk far outweighs any potential reward.
Sunday 23 January 2011, outside the Harbour:
Sunday 30 January 2011, inside the Harbour:
At least it was sunny!
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