Chris Doorly and Alan Green have taken the top honours in the superbly-run Cantrell Crowley Frostbite Series in Dun Laoghaire. Full results | Pictures: Image gallery of the last day of sailing, by Jonathan O’Rourke
Cantrell Crowley Frostbite Series Week 7: Champion Chris Doorly reports
After seven weeks and 14 races, with no cancellations, Alan Green & Chris Doorly in Deranged won the Cantrell Crowley sponsored Frostbite Flying Fifteen series.
With 15 boats out regularly it was the best attended series for a number of years, also with PRO Ian Matthews and his excellent race team it was considered to be the best racing we had this season.
Going into the last day, Green/Doorly had to ensure other boats didn’t get between them and Ciaran Crummy/ Frank Burgess in Snow White’ and reduce the gap, a top four position in either race would seal the series, but with two races anything could happen.
The tide was ebbing and the wind was about force 3-4 from the nw, the committee boat was biased but most boats were up on the line too early; this allowed Deranged to come in on port and find a gap just under the committee boats for a good start.
Playing the shifts up the first beat, Deranged arrived at the weather mark just ahead of rivals Crummy/Burgess. At the gybe mark, Crummy got inside to take the lead but Deranged just stayed with them so as to finish beside them. That’s the way it stayed to the finish – series won! Niall & Nikki were third with Ken & Hugh fourth.
The second race of the day had much the same conditions, Green/Doorly has a similar start to the first race, sailed well up the first beat, they tacked early to get a good lane on port up towards the weather mark. While other boats kept going too far towards the shore, they arrived at the weather mark first. Going to the wing mark they turned … but on looking back Chris realised that they had gone inside the mark!
They went back and were now back in about eighth place… not good!
Niall & Nikki took advantage to tear off into a good lead, followed by McCambridge, Crummy, Keith and Tom.
Downwind, Green/Doorly moved up to fifth, and the racing for three laps remained close.
At the last leeward mark the Nikki & Niall were well ahead, but the other four all arrived at the mark together, Deranged went wide, Ciaran and Keith tacked straight away, Deranged tacked to get to weather and managed to get ahead of the two inside boats to finish third.
McCambridge/Peter Murphy were out on the right and stayed in second place, this gave the them the Silver Fleet trophy.
In what was a great series the fleet would like to thank Cantrell Crowley Architects for their sponsorship and particularly Carol, also the Mermaid fleet for organizing it, particularly Carol and Jonathon, the PRO Ian Matthews and his team of assistants, Colm, Catherine, Bernard, Larry and the rib drivers. Without these we would not have had an event.
Finally also, thanks to the junior sailors and parents for their co operation in launching and retrieving boats, Sunday mornings are busy on the slipway and space is restricted because of boats parked up on the hard for the winter.
