Day 4 – Challenging conditions- Fantastic racing- Great hospitality
The Royal North of Ireland boat park is now a great place to hang around and chat about the day before, the day to come and the day we just had. Everyone swaps tales of derring do, chances missed and chances taken. The event feels like a family occasion.
We launched into a gentle breeze with a forecast of stronger winds to come, but nothing too dramatic. The wind had other ideas and the first of what was to be 3 races turned out to be pretty exciting with very hard upwind legs and super-fast downwind. The wind moderated a bit for races 2 and 3, but with plenty of strong gusts, lulls and shifts to keep us on our toes.
We started at 11 prompt and that was the order of the day with our excellent RO Sheela Lewis getting each race going, with barely time to get your breath back from the last.
They were “only” two laps per race but the windward mark was much farther than the eye could see until at least halfway up the beat. That led to hard work upwind, but great slalom style long downwind reaches at full pelt.
From the results, we can see that the score sheet is finely balanced with a great day for Rob Espey and Michael Ferguson, setting up a tight finish tomorrow.
Off the water, the RNIYC hospitality continued with Gerry Reid handing out cool beers when we’d dragged our boats up the slip, very welcome to end an excellent day’s sailing.
Tonight we have a gala dinner at the clubhouse where we will enjoy the fine RNIYC food courtesy of our Eurocup Mercedes Benz Northern Ireland.
Report: Simon Edwards
Photos: Thomas Anderson www.sdsphoto.pro
