Bailey Bowl 2008

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Dublin Bay was at its best for the Royal Alfred Dublin Port Baily Bowl with five classes competing on two wind ward leeward courses. A strong contingent of Royal North of Ireland visiting yachtsmen took three of the five classes and were runners up in the fourth.

Twenty two boats travelled to the event from the North and two Elites came from the Solent and Hayling Island.

Force four easterlies and sunshine provided excellent racing on both courses. SRO Tony O’Gorman set 1.5 mile beats on Course A for the ten Dragons and twenty seven SB3's. Course B with SRO Michael O’Rahilly had a more modest one mile beat for the Elites, Flying Fifteens and Squibs. The wind kicked up a sea against a strong ebb tide which taxed helmsmen to the limit to keep speed on upwind and gave some modest surfing conditions down wind.

The SB3's were close at the top with ‘Flash Gordon’ Patterson winning the SB3's from fellow Royal North of Ireland sailor Gareth Flannigan in ‘McCready Sailboats’ with Ben Duncan in Sharkbait only one point adrift. Aidan O'Connell of the local fleet with 'Elmo' Elmes aboard took fourth by just two points from Justin Burke of the National YC. Sean Craig who’s request for redress for the second race was too late for the Jury, was sixth. Had he been successful he would have improved to fourth. Cathy McAleavey took the Ladies prize with a creditable eleventh place overall. The Hegarty, Bowring, Williams team in Phantom retained the Dragon Baily Bowl against a strong challenge from the Brien brothers KIN from Royal North only a point adrift. Andrew Craig with a costly OCS in race three was third ahead of Martin Byrne's Jaguar who pipped Don O'Donoghue’s Seabird for fourth by a point.

The visiting Elite class which provided quite a colourful spectacle was won by Gerry Reid’s ‘No Match’ from fellow northern sailor John Patterson's ‘Momentary Lapse’. Gerry was the driving force in getting the fleet to race in Dun Laoghaire. Steve Powell's E'tu who travelled from Beaulieu river on the Solent led the English challenge at third place of the eight starters. A point adrift was Mike Tong of Hayling Island whose slide from first to fifth in the last race cost him a prize.

The Squib fleet of seventeen boats look set to be dominated again by Royal North sailors, was infiltrated by John O’Rahilly of the local fleet in second place who at 12 point even with Dave Eccles took the tie break on the discard.

Fred Campbell steering ‘Halloween’ with thee firsts and a second showed his superiority. The locals have achieved a much improved racing standard with Jill Fleming second placed Dun Laoghaire boat in fifth overall. Jill Having returned to help a man overboard in the last race pulled back to pip four others on the line for third place. Peter Wallace’s unfortunate loss of his main Halyard on Sunday cost him a top three placing.

John Lavery gave the Flying Fifteen fleet a lesson on big course racing by winning with four straight guns and retiring home to have Sunday lunch with the family. Ian Mathews and Ben Mulligan having been bridesmaids to Lavery took the last race to finish runners up overall ahead of Frank Burgess in ‘Snow White’. A good workout for the F15 Europeans in Kinsale this summer.

Many thanks all involved in making the regatta a success and to the National YC which hosted the event.

Results - Squibs

                SB3s

                Elites

                Dragons

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