Sunburn time - in February

The DMYC Frostbites were cancelled today just as the boats were leaving the slipway. There was no wind at all and it was cold.

Some sailors were so enthusiastic to go sailing that a fairly large bunch of boats went out anyway. An RS400, six or seven Lasers (O'Beirne, Deladienee, Dwyer, Ryan, Flanagan, O´Leary, etc), a Finn and an OK Dinghy sailed out into the light westerly winds and increasing sunshine.  The change in the weather transformed the harbor compared to thirty minutes earlier.

An impromptu windward leeward course was quickly set up and the singlehanders - which are all reasonably close on PY - enjoyed three quick races in blinding sun that made Dublin Bay look like the Med.

Dun Laoghaire.
It was supposed to snow.

The harbour was also full of  Oppies and Laser Radials in the various coaching schemes.

Guinness induced capsizes - Feb 17th

No...the fleet was neither inebriated nor hungover, but many of the capsizes were still the fault of Dublin's famous black beer.

There's a report on the OK Dinghy site that explains everything.

Meantime, here are the Laser and PY results from 17th February...and a couple of pictures.

One of the PY fleet's IDRA14s
[photo from DMYC Frostbite's Facebook page]

And a Laser capsizes to windward.
[photo from the DMYC Frostbite's Facebook page]

Major Bummer! No more Live weather

Perhaps not everyone was using it, but many sailors were very regular users of the live weather system in Dun Laoghaire harbour.

As of today, the system is no longer available.

See the information at the Dún Laoghaire Harbour company's page here.

Gotta say, the system was hugely useful to know whether launching was safe or not on windy days and the 6-hr logs made it possible to understand race tactics a lot better after a race.

All that's still live is the webcam.

***Edit...Feb 19th***
Oddly, after the page on dlharbour.ie was shut down with the excusee that he weather feed was expensive there was a page on dlharbour.co.uk that still had the weather feed. That page was at http://dlharbour.co.uk/a/ .  The page is still there, but it's now password protected. It looks suspicious, to be honest. Is the feed still live, but just hidden from public view? Why?

DL Dinghy Talks, RStGYC, Sat 23rd Feb, 10.30am

Owen Laverty has organised a special event, and it's one worth going to!

Open to all senior dinghy sailors, Owen has set up a "Dinghy Summit" with some of Ireland's leading dinghy racers.  It's exactly the kind of thing that we all need.

Come and listen to Olympian James Espey, World and multiple National champion Noel Butler and renowned coach and starting guru Graham Elmes.

The Panel

James Espey
Olympian 

Graham Elmes
Irish International and Coach

Noel Butler
World and multiple-times National champ

These speakers have a serious amount of knowledge and skill.  They will talk about how to get the best from yourself and from your dinghy.

Everyone will take something home from this, and this is a rare opportunity to have such skillful sailors giving us the benefit of their experience. Come along to the George on the the 23rd and support this novel approach to dinghy sailing.

Again, our thanks to another local fast man Owen Laverty, for organising the whole thing.

More information here. http://tinyurl.com/ac9mavt

Thirty years on....Laser sailors still Lasering

It's 2013. Yes....it is.

Thirty years ago, in 1983, the Laser Nationals were held in Cork. The results sheet became available and was re-published at the end of last year.  It's interesting to see how many names are still racing Lasers and are involved in the Dun Laoghaire fleet.

You may have to zoom in on the image a bit, but it looks as if Colin Galavan, Chris Arrowsmith, Gary O'Hare, and Justin Maguire have rather a lot of experience in the Laser class!!

Results - Sunday Feb 10th

Between the charming weather (rain, cold, windy) and the fact that the Ireland/England rugby match was on, the attendance in the fleet today was pretty small.

However, it turned into a good day's sailing. As long as you don't mind rain!

PY Results  The Irish OK Dinghy Association also puts up a weekly PY report. It's here.

Laser Results

Fair warning - Sunday Weather

It seems only fair to get an advance warning out there. Dress up warm and bring a snorkel for sailing on Sunday.

It'll be wet. And cold. Not too windy, but bleeding miserable. Your correspondent is the owner of a variety of rain proof hats and expects to benefit from that fact.

Here's the windguru weather forecast. Look at those precipitation numbers for Sunday.

Ireland - Dun Laoghaire  [Options]

Forecast      2D  Map   Webcams   Wind reports   Accommodation   Schools/Rentals   Shops   Other...

GFS 08.02.2013 06 UTC Fr 08. Fr 08. Fr 08. Fr 08. Fr 08. Fr 08. Sa 09. Sa 09. Sa 09. Sa 09. Sa 09. Sa 09. Sa 09. Su 10. Su 10. Su 10. Su 10. Su 10. Su 10. Su 10. Mo 11. Mo 11. Mo 11. Mo 11. Mo 11. Mo 11. Mo 11. 06h 09h 12h 15h 18h 21h 03h 06h 09h 12h 15h 18h 21h 03h 06h 09h 12h 15h 18h 21h 03h 06h 09h 12h 15h 18h 21h Wind speed (knots) 13 12 13 11 9 10 9 8 8 8 6 5 6 8 8 6 13 13 8 9 10 8 5 5 10 16 20 Wind gusts (knots) 24 22 20 17 17 16 16 15 14 12 10 7 8 14 15 16 25 23 17 16 17 12 9 8 15 24 29 Wind direction *Temperature (°C) 4 5 7 8 6 5 4 5 6 7 8 7 7 8 7 5 3 3 3 4 5 4 4 5 4 4 3 *0° isotherm (m) 810 810 870 1k 1.5k 1.6k 1.8k 1.7k 1.7k 1.7k 1.7k 1.7k 1.6k 1.4k 1.3k 1000 790 710 760 830 780 650 590 580 540 490 440 Cloud cover (%) high / mid / low - -   99 99 17 83 90 9 55 40 14 55 21 36 23   36 39 65 27 41 51 48 53 57 90 48 61 90 63 58 93 53 38 81 64 19 71 92 99 44 94 99 70 89 99 99 94 99 99 97 100 87 92 100 85 64 82 87 65 30 96 51 16 90   7 84   6 90   25 98   52 94   71 88 *Precip. (mm/3h) -               0.3 0.8 0.3     1.8 5.3 6.2 5.2 2.6 1.6 0.5 0.3     0.3 1 1.2 0.6

Just another windy monday.

And yes - the wind keeps blowing.

In the windiest January for a while, we have another day with gale force winds in Dun Laoghaire harbour.

Looks like it'll be windy for much of the week too. 

DMYC Frostbite cancelled - Feb 3

Sadly, we lost another day of Frostbite racing to the weather.

Faced with gusts up to 35 knots, the organizers decided to cancel again today, making it two weeks in a row that the racing is off.  A pity, but a safe call.

Onwards to another day!

Fast PY in action

John Chambers has organised a great event this winter, under the auspices of the Dublin Bay Skiffs. They're racing on Saturdays.

Here are today's results.

They've got a Facebook page too...if you're interested.