Laser Munsters

It looks as if Dun Laoghaire's sailors did reasonably well at the Laser Munsters in Baltimore at the weekend, but also that the talent in the Laser fleets is very well distributed across the island.

The south coast, the north east, the Dublin area - all fighting it out evenly in Baltimore's arena of racing.

Baltimore - an awesome dinghy arena!

The weather forecast for the weekend was for wind and COLD. The sailors got both. But mostly it was COLD. 

Racing was good on Saturday with 15-20 knots winds. As often happens with it's offshore in Baltimore it was shifty, with big lulls and the occasional really large gust. With rain and cold as well it's fair to say that the sailors were glad to get off the water at the end of the day.  Some sailors may even have been lucky to make it off the water at the end of the day. Anecdote suggests that there were lots of hypothermia cases by the end of the 2nd race, or maybe even earlier. It was COLD. 

With more wind and more cold forecast for Sunday it was a very popular decision to cancel racing on Sunday and let people head for home early.  Nonetheless, three good races were held and a strong start to the Laser season is under the sailors' belts. 

In the 4.7 Fleet there was - to be fair - a fairly serious South Coast domination, with a Kinsale winner, RCYC in 2nd and 4th, and Waterford in 3rd.  Sandy Aplin of the George was the top Dun Laoghaire boat in 5th, one point ahead of Jack Higgins, also of the George.

The picture in the Radial fleet was more positive for Dun Laoghaire with Annalise Murphy and Finn Lynch (both of the National) between them taking 1st and 2nd in every race. There was only one point between them, but a healthy margin to 3rd.

Dun Laoghaire's main hope for glory in the Standard Laser was Matthew O'Dowd of the George. He was in a tight three-way battle for the lead after two races but a 16th place in the 3rd and final race dropped him down to 5th overall, but still the top Dun Laoghaire boat.  The finishing order in that race is quite different from the other races, so the story of that last race looks like an interesting one!  Was it just the cold?

Apart from Mattie dropping back, the tight battle continued...just as a two-way battle. At the end of the event Philip Doran and Colin Leonard were equal on 6 points at the end of three races, with Doran getting the win on countback.

Meantime, here are the full results.