16 May Saturday dinghy news – Conditions frustrate dingy racers
Gillian Roche and her team of instructors “were quite” busy last Saturday as a variable north easterly breeze brought “fantastic sailing conditions” to the waters off Whitepoint. Saturday morning’s low tide further complicated matters and the fleets had to push away from the shore, in search of water.
Ninety junior sailors participated in the day, and all did very well. Gillian commended the five instructors on duty but made special mention of Cove SC’s junior committee members, whose ongoing “help is hugely appreciated”. Meanwhile, Richard Marshall and Gareth Dorgan accompanied two of Cove SC’s advanced dingy crews to Crosshaven, where they had hoped to participate in Royal Cork YC’s May Dingy league. Unfortunately, weather conditions were extremely challenging. Dave Marshall and Rob Scandrett described the race area off Currabinny as being “very windy” before going on to outline how they purposely “capsized the boat before a squall and just decided to sit it out.” Cormac and Saibh adopted a similar tactic.
Richard Marshall explains – “A 40 knot squall came through and knocked everything. The whole fleet, about 25 boats turned turtle so we were busy rescuing everybody and everything.” While stating that they had every confidence in both crew’s ability to sail in the conditions, Richard and Gareth sensibly decided to bring the crews home, without racing.