Results / Irish Nationals Greystones SC - 10/10/2003
The Data and Record Management RS400 Irish Nationals, and final leg of RS
Fat Face Eurocup
Any dinghy racers who have ever gone to an event in Ireland very quickly
find out that such events are very special; always with a great
atmosphere. The Data and Record Management Irish RS200 and RS400
Nationals were no exception and were an assault course of a good time. As
Nick Craig so rightly pointed out in his victory speech "I do not know
what has made me more tired, the sailing or the partying. You know your
going to be in trouble when you arrive from the ferry at 23.40 to find
the club bar still open and you leave at 02.30 drunk."
Greystones is a town 15 miles south of Dublin centre, the sailing club is
small but full of characters, dead friendly and a huge desire to run a
great event. The sea front of Greystones consists of the sailing club,
the chip shop (great curry chips), two pubs that serve Smirnoff ice on
draught, a great Restaurant and Club Death (actually called Club Life but
earned the name because most of us were dead next morning after being
there to the wee hours) with numerous bed and breakfasts in between
including one that lets everyone camp in her front garden. Not far off
dinghy sailor�s heaven.
There is a down side to Greystones and it is called the tide, which is
not subtle. Due to an action packed schedule of separate Inlands,
Endeavour and Southampton Boat Show in the UK the Irish Nationals had to
be held on a strong tide weekend. It also has a bizarre arrangement where
the tide flows south for 20 hours and north for only it seems 4 hours and
thats when we are asleep as we all found out at the briefing. "Which way
does the tide flow before high tide?" "South", "Which way does it flow
after high tide?" "South" "When does the flow slacken?" "Christmas." This
also tended to sum up the dynamic duo that were joint race officers,
Francis Donnelly and Arky, that well known comedy act large and large.
They were a good race team who obviously enjoyed themselves and had the
worrying habit of being the last to leave Club Death.
On to the racing; 18 400's from the UK travelled on various ferries from
Holyhead to join 13 Irish 400's.
Friday seemed like pretty good practice for next weeks Inlands as a
highly erratic west breeze which varied in strength from force 1-3,
rolled down from the hills above Greystones across a dead flat sea.
Race one caused a controversial start to the series, Nick Craig arrived
at the windward mark first and built a good lead on the first downwind.
As the fleet approached the first leeward mark it soon became apparent
that the pin end of the line had been left near the leeward mark and both
buoys were identical. Despite some colourful language from Craig the
fleet were non the wiser by the time they arrived. Craig and Kenwood
took the sensible option of going round both and still came out on top.
The rest of the leaders followed but it wasn�t long before the fleet took
the chance and just went round the closer mark. In the resulting re-
start and chaos there were some big losers with Tom Halhead dropping from
4th to 15th and Tubby O�Brien looking equally as bad. Nick Craig and
Dobbin Kenwood both managed to leave all the trouble behind them and
sailed on to take first and second. Dave Snier was also going well but
was overtaken just before the finish line by Mike Budd who had been on a
charge through the fleet all race recovering from a dodgy windward mark
position.
In the second race Budd managed to improve his windward mark position a
little and arrived first followed by the usual chasing pack. Being the
lucky sod he is, the wind soon swung to the turn the course into a fetch
and reach so that, with all the passing lanes closed, he sailed on to
take an easy win. Craig continued a good day to take second with Gilbert
improving on his earlier 6th to take 3rd.
After an excellent beer and curry evening laid on by the club and the
mandatory trip to Club Death there was certainly a lot more wind around
on the Saturday morning. On the water most struggled to get off the
start line due to laughing at Mike Budd�s attempt at a port approach
start which left him carving into windward and needing a set of
waterwings. Gilbert finally found his speed again to take his first
bullet of the weekend after both he and Craig had disappeared over the
horizon in their own match race. Dave Snier was also going well in
third, the only boat that even came close to plugging the gap between the
front two and the rest of the fleet.
Obviously aggrieved by his 12th in the first race Mike Budd fired up the
first beat to arrive at the windward mark first. The usual pairing of
Craig and Gilbert were charging hard behind though although Budd put in
an excellent performance to keep them at bay and take his second bullet
of the weekend. Craig took second from Gilbert in third. John Callaghan
had obviously been getting a bit worked up by the fierce competition, as
he decided to take a backward dive off the gunwhale.
As well as the bizarre tides, anther natural phenonomen must have been
afoot as at the windward mark in race 5, the black kite of the Grimms
could be seen hoisted in first place. Obviously as shocked by this as
everybody else they duly pulled over and allowed the first 5 boat
through. A close battle then ensued for the lead but nobody saw Tubby
O�Brien and Melissa Storey coming as they hit the right hand corner to
sail round everybody and from fifth to first in one leg. Tubby made no
mistakes though to sail on and take the win whilst being push hard by
Budd in second and Craig in third.
In the final race of the day the conditions were perfect for Kenyon and
Lewis and they took full advantage to show the fleet what they were
capable of. Kenyon, Gilbert and Craig all broke away from the fleet
again but it was Kenyon who always looked the in control. A great
display under pressure gave them a well-deserved win from Gilbert in
second and Craig third.
After a great days sailing the fleet couldn�t ask for more in the evening
as well; football, Guinness and the championship dinner. All followed by
a change into clean clothes after the obligatory food fight and another
legendary night in club death.
Sunday morning broke to a wild scene. Dark grey skies, a monstrous
rolling sea and a steady force 5 whipping up white water as far and the
eye could see. After a short postponement (which was best utilised by
Little Grimm to undertake some serious cleaning work prior to checking
out his B&B) the fleet set out to sail just a single race. The
conditions really were awesome with very few of the fleet able to make it
round without capsizing a least once and lots of spinnakers looking more
like doilies than sails. Craig and Brown love a �bit of rough� and so
powered up the first beat to take the lead where they stayed to the
finish consolidating their first overall. Budd came in 2nd to steal 2nd
overall from Roger Gilbert, whilst Entwistle finally got the boat moving
to score his first respectable result of the weekend in 3rd.
1 1173 Nick Craig Richard Brown 1 2 2 2 -3 3 1 11
2 1204 Mike Budd Arlene Couch 3 1 -12 1 2 10 2 19
3 1161 Rodger Gilbert Gerard Barron -6 3 1 3 5 2 5 19
4 1183 Robin Kenyon Toby Lewis 2 4 7 (BFD) 4 1 8 26
5 1067 Greg O'Brien Mellisa Stdrey 5 -8 5 5 1 5 6 27
6 1135 David Snier Mark Greaves 4 6 3 6 (DNF) 4 11 34
7 1201 Bill Handley Lynda Handley 8 -9 4 4 6 8 7 37
8 835 Tom Halhead Chris Priest -13 5 6 8 8 7 4 38
9 807 Frank O'Rourke Graham Noonan 11 -18 13 7 9 6 10 56
10 1205 Chris Bailey Matthew Bailey 7 11 8 -13 7 11 12 56
11 Roy Van Maanen Derek Mc Connell -14 7 9 10 10 9 13 58
12 1213 Demo Dave Ben Saynor 10 -17 11 9 11 12 9 62
13 1113 Jeremy Entwistle Rachel Jones 12 10 14 (DNF) 12 19 3 70
14 787 G Dempsey Chris Allen 17 -22 17 12 13 20 14 93
15 1046 Malcom Ritchie Iain Ritchie 9 14 20 19 18 -22 15 94
16 1219 Mark Reddington Brian Stewart 16 13 10 11 19 (BFD) DNC 101
17 1120 Chris Gillard Alan Gibbon 15 12 15 (DNF) 14 15 DNC 103
18 1088 Alex Hinton David Hassett 24 21 24 14 21 13 (DNC) 117
19 586 Mark Usher Anne Usher 20 16 (BFD) 18 15 18 DNC 119
20 581 Richard Moran Nina Huet 19 26 21 16 20 24 (DNC) 126
21 828 Colm Clarkin Dave McDermot 22 19 22 22 16 26 (DNC) 127
22 1835 Andrew Elliot James Lancaster 23 24 19 21 (DNF) 14 DNC 133
23 1200 John Callaghan John Lynd 18 20 16 (DNF) 17 BFD DNC 135
24 545 Gerry Cannon Robert Galligan 29 28 18 15 22 27 (DNC) 139
25 1147 John Elder Adrian Robins 21 15 23 (BFD) DNF 23 DNC 146
26 1136 Lorcan Moran James Cargan 27 30 26 23 23 21 (DNC) 150
27 857 Fiachra Etchingham Colm Maguire 26 29 (DNF) 17 DNF 17 DNC 153
28 1168 Adam Reddick Sam Lippett (DNF) 23 25 DNF 27 16 DNC 155
29 801 Simon Herriott Alan Scriven 25 25 (DNF) 20 24 DNF DNC 158
30 502 Glen Reid Alan Jones 30 27 27 24 26 (DNF) DNC 166
31 892 Bernie Grogan Steve Wodnaugh