Cantrell Crowley Frostbite Series Week 2. Report by Chris Doorley
With a full turnout of 14 boats on a grey Sunday morning, racing promised to be exciting, as there was a good, fresh easterly breeze with large waves.
The day was won in a convincing manner by Alan & Chris in Deranged, and after four races in the series they led from Ciaran and Frank, with Niall & Nikki in third place.
Race 3: the pin end was slightly favoured and the strong tide kept the boats back from the line. With the shifty wind it was important to be able to tack off.
Alan and Chris played the numbers and got to the weather mark first, just ahead of Ciaran and Tom. Downwind there were huge waves and the lead boats were soon mixing it up with the SB3s that had started five minutes earlier.
On the second beat most of the boats went to the right, and by the weather mark Alan was even further ahead. This lead was halved at the leeward gate as Alan went to the left side of the gate, which had drifted, and Ciaran rounded the right gate, which was now favoured.
In a close last lap, Alan kept the lead to take the gun with Ciaran second, Tom third and Keith fourth. There was great close racing back in the ‘peloton’ and Joe Coughlan just squeezed out John O’Sullivan after a ding dong race.
Race 4: Again the pin end slightly favoured. Tom was quickly out of the blocks but couldn’t tack till those to weather went.
Eventually there was a knock and Alan & Chris were first to go and had a good lane to get up to the weather mark in first place, they were closely followed by Niall & Nikki,with Niall Coleman and Keith close behind.
The race was shortened by a lap but this was the way it finished,
Back in the peloton it was dog eat dog, and John O’Sullivan got revenge on Joe Coughlan to record a notable scalp!
