After about four significant windshifts that created severe difficulties for the Race Management Team on 'Free Enterprise', the Offshore Fleet finally got away for Race 4 in the Anglo Irish Bank Autumn League after about an hour's delay.
A freshening southerly wind that at times saw over 30 knots over the deck was enough to contribute to damage on a few boats, although 'Dux' in Class 2 was the most unfortunate in losing her mast.
The stronger wind conditions were clearly to the liking of some boats that hadn't really featured in some of the previous races and with a discard now coming into play, a more accurate picture of what is happening in the overall standings is emerging.
Race 4, though, only confirmed the dominance of some boats in certain classes, namely 'Rosie', 'Same Old Story', 'The Chill' and 'Kookaburra' in the Class 0, 1, Etchells and Squibs respectively.
The day was certainly a rosie one for Roy Dickson's red machine which recorded a fourth straight win on IRC ahead of 'Independent Bear' and also took the ECHO honours to maintain a healthy enough lead in Class 0 on both handicap systems.
Dermot Cronin's trip over from Malahide has been extremely worthwhile so far in Class 1 because the J35 has been performing admirably against much vaunted opposition to record another win on both handicaps and hold the overall lead on both too. Breen & Co. in the new Beneteau 34.7 'Flashback' were snapping at their transom at the end and now move up to 3rd overall behind Emma McDonald's 'Equinox'.
In Class 2, what was a bad day for 'Dux' was a good one for sister-ship 'Xebec' (Terry Giles) which revelled in the conditions to see smoke at the end. They won handily enough on corrected time from series leader 'Crewsaver Harmony' (Biggs/Hyland) and move up to 4th overall while 'Aloha' (Nolan & others) had their best result of 3rd to move up to 5th in the rankings. On ECHO, the day honours went to visitor 'Shenanigan' (Rice/McKevitt) while overall 'Relax Freebird' and 'Sunsari' are slugging it out for top spot.
'Hydrogin' (Colbert/Davis) from Malahide got back to winning ways in Class 3 in her more favoured conditions but clubmates on 'Goyave' maintained their good form to post a 2nd and 1st on IRC and ECHO respectively. The latter result gives them a good lead in the overall rankings while they trail Basil MacMahon's ever-consistent 'Holly' narrowly on the IRC league table.
The White Sail Cruisers saw Changeling (Jameson/MacManus) take the gun ahead of Francis Ennis' 'Hideaway' but the corrected times saw a new winner in the shape of 'Savarna' (Curtis/Burke). The overall standings sees a battle of former Commodores, with Andrew Knowles 'Sandpiper of Howth' holding the most slender of leads from Harry Byrne's 'Alphida'.
Over on the Inshore Course, Olympic helmsman David Burrows, together with his crew of Dad Richard and Peter Coad, gave another masterclass in the Etchells Class to win with a couple of minutes to spare over 'Blue' (Johnston & others) and the national champions back in third. The result allows the Burrows combination to leapfrog ahead of Beshoff/O'Grady/Reilly in the overall standings with two more races to go.
In the Puppeteers, the Sargent's success on Sunday ahead of Dun Laoghaire visitor 'Gold Dust' (F.Woods) was sufficient to move the husband-and-wife team up the leader-board to 2nd overall behind 'Ibis' (G.May). On handicap, 'No Strings' and 'Gold Dust' could not be separated on corrected time and so shared 1st place, a result that improves their respective overall placings to 2nd and 4th behind Tim Chillingworth's 'Gannet'.
There was a surprise of sorts on the Squib front where 'Kookaburra' (Guinness & O'Leary) had to be content with just 2nd place behind race winner 'Fantomme' (R.MacDonnell) who also took the handicap honours. It doesn't disturb the order of things overall, however, where 'Kookaburra' now has a five point lead after discard over 'Pot Black' (R.McMurtry) while 'Roxanne' (J.O'Flynn) maintains a slender lead over McMurtry on handicap.
The Howth 17s' 'world champion' Peter Courtney came good in race 4 to beat series leader 'Erica' (Cronin et al) by a little over a minute and after the discard, the gap between the two rivals is down to one point. There's no change in the handicap rankings where 'Zaida' (Houlihan/Hassell) notched another win to extend their overall lead after discard to a very healthy seven points over 'Bobolink' (Walsh/Doyle).
