24 Aug SCORA Championships class 3 & 4

Cove Sailing Club hosted the SCORA (South Coast Offshore Racing Association) Championships for class 3 & 4 this weekend. It was always going to be a challenge to fit this series in at the end of August between Cove’s two biggest events of the year – Cobh Regatta and the Cobh to Blackrock race and so it proved as the race officers sat on the beautiful OD boat for the weekend “Bluebird” (Targa 31) and waited for the competitors to arrive at the starting area.

As it turned out only 3 class 3 boats took part – Bandit, An t’Oileanach and Muskateer. No class 4 boats turned up. Bluebird positioned herself down at EF2 as it appeared most likely that the wind would move around the NW-W and this gave us the best chance of a decent beat at the start and kept the boats away from a busy channel. Fortunately this proved to be the case and although the wind was light (very light early on) the boats managed to complete the first upwind/downwind course (2 laps of EF2 to 13) in just over an hour with Bandit taking line honours and 1st in IRC. With the wind picking up the second race was a triangle set again from EF2 using EF4 and number 9. This time the J24 got the better of the start and whilst Bandit showed great boat speed the J24 (sailing with only 2 on board) sailed extremely well and managed to put Bandit under pressure. Eventually though Bandit again came through and again took 1st in IRC.

The wind continued to build and swing more to the west. With blue skies and warm sunshine it was turning in to a perfect afternoon for sailing, as demonstrated by the large numbers of yachts out taking advantage of the late summer sunshine. The committee boat re-positioned itself for an EF4 start line and the boats were sent on another upwind/downwind course this time using bouy number 9 as the upwind mark. Muskateer showed her Calves week winning form here and managed to stay just ahead of the rapidly closing J24 to take line honours by 1 sec although on adjusted time the J24 took 1st in IRC. 3rd place for Bandit meant the J24 was back in it and if the final fourth race of the series was completed and the discard applied the final result could go either Bandit’s or An t’Oileanac’s way.

The forecast for Sunday was looking pretty grim and so it was decided to run the final fourth race of the series there and then. This time Bandit had the better of the start and in the freshening breeze managed to get away from An t’Oileanach and the slow to start Muskateer. 2 laps of a triangle between number 9 and 16 saw Muskateer overtake the J24 and whilst both boats closed on Bandit, Bandit sailed very well and held off the challenge to eventually finish a couple of minutes ahead of both boats and take the series in both IRC and ECHO. An t’Oileanach finished 2nd in both IRC and ECHO with Muskateer 3rd in both.

Cove Sailing Club would like to thank the boats that came out and supported the event, Ian Scandrett for putting up with us on “Bluebird” and for helping with race officer duties along with Denis Ellis, (Sailing Secretary CSC).

Class 3 results available here (click link)

Some pics of the day below (should have better ones to add shortly)

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