Howth Yacht Club

	Race Report - Day 1 - 16th May
	by Graham Smith - Posted Friday 16th May

Great Start to the SAAB Cruiser Nationals

Class 0 Start

The first day of the Saab Irish Cruiser Nationals was sailed in near ideal conditions at HYC today (Friday 16th May), with the 100+ boats in four classes racing in a moderate 10-12 knot easterly breeze, sunshine and a reasonably flat sea.

Classes 0 and 1 had two races on the round-the-cans course and it was a particularly good start in the big boat division for Anthony O'Leary on 'Antix Eile' (the Ker 39 otherwise known as Silk Glove!). The Royal Cork crew turned in two very impressive performances, taking line and IRC honours in both and leading overall on both IRC and ECHO handicaps.

Much as expected, Class 0 is already being dominated by the Cork visitors, with Dave Dwyer's Mills 39 'Marinerscove.ie' and Conor Phelan's Ker 36.7 'Jump Juice' filling the next two places overall. It was not such a good day for UK entry Peter Rutter in his new Corby 36 'Quokka', down the lower half of the 13-strong fleet after two mid-table results. Roy Dickson's older equivalent, 'Rosie', enjoyed a better day and the Howth boat lies fourth overall, within touching distance of the top three.

On ECHO, George Sisk's Farr 42 'WOW' breaks up the O'Leary-Dwyer axis by finishing the day in 2nd spot.

Whatever about the results, the major talking point in the 29-boat Class 1 was the holing of ICRA Commodore Fintan Cairns' boat 'Raptor', a strange occurrence in view of the moderate conditions. ON the racing front, Barry Cunningham's Corby 33 'Contango' from the Royal Irish and 'Checkmate XII', the J109 of Tino Hyland & Nigel Biggs from the RStGYC, are all square at the head of the IRC standings after swapping 1st and 2nd places in the two races.

Another Royal St.George J109, Power-Smith's 'Rollercoaster' is only one point adrift of the ECHO handicap leader, the Rush Sailing Club entry 'Storm' (Pat Kelly).

Class 2 Start

Over on the windward-leeward course, set off Malahide, three races were completed, although it took some time to get the ball rolling as Class 2 boats had a tendency to break the line. It forced five re-starts, with the OCS penalty hitting a number of boats, including one of the pre-event favourites 'Kinetic' (Murphy & Colwell) from Howth.

As it was, 'Zoom', Nicola & Stuart Harris's DB1 from Waterford Harbour, won the first race while 'Kinetic' went on to score two bullets in some style. The OCS result however drags them down to 12th overall, with another Corby 25 from Pwllheli, the Williams/Partington 'Wil2Win' holding a mere half point advantage over Declan Byrne's Elan 31 'Rum Doodle' from the host club.

The Welsh visitor is also on top of the ECHO listings with a 6-point gap over 'Yanks $ Ffrancs', another Corby 25, belonging to the Cork Vincent O'Shea (not to be confused with the Malahide Vincent O'Shea of Met Eireann fame in 'Bushwakka'!)

Class 3 was much better behaved, with no premature starts causing problems, and after three races, Vince Gaffney's Albin Express 'Alliance' from Howth is living up to expectations with two firsts and a second to lead overall.

In second place is the J24 'Hard on Port' (Flor O'Driscoll of RStGYC), which twice took line honours, and another J24 'Brian McDowell's 'Scandal' from Malahide is in third place. The two Js hold the same places on ECHO, a point behind series leader 'Asterix', the Dun Laoghaire Sonata of the Counihan/Meredith/Caulfield partnership.

Racing continues on Saturday, with the fleets swapping race courses.

Overall Results (Day 1 - 16th May)

Class 0 (IRC)
1.	Antix Eile	Anthony O'Leary	RCYC
2.	Marinerscove.ie	David Dwyer	RCYC
3.	Jump Juice	Conor Phelan	RCYC
Class 0 (ECHO)
1.	Antix Eile	Anthony O'Leary	RCYC
2.	WOW	George Sisk	RIYC
3.	Marinerscove.ie	David Dwyer	RCYC
Class 1 (IRC)
1.	Contango	Barry Cunningham	RIYC
2.	Checkmate XII	Hyland/Biggs	RStGYC
3.	Exaltation	David McFarland	Carrickfergus
Class 1 (ECHO)
1.	Storm	Pat Kelly	Rush SC
2.	Rollercoaster	C&P Power-Smith	RStGYC
3.	Contango	Barry Cunningham	RIYC
Class 2 (IRC)
1.	Wil2Win	Williams/Partington	Pwllheli SC
2.	Rum Doodle	Declan Byrne	HYC
3.	Obsession V1	Barry & David Rose	RCYC
Class 2 (ECHO)
1.	Wil2Win	Williams/Partington	Pwllheli SC
2.	Yanks $ Ffrancs	Vincent O'Shea	RCYC
3.	Impetuous	Noonan/Gowing/Chambers	HYC
Class 3 (IRC)
1.	Alliance	Vince Gaffney	HYC
2.	Hard on Port	Flor O'Driscoll	RStGYC
3.	Scandal	Brian McDowell	MYC
Class 3 (ECHO)
1.	Asterix	Counihan/Meredith/Caulfield	DLM
2.	Hard on Port	Flor O'Driscoll	RStGYC
3.	Scandal	Brian McDowell	MYC