Dragon Irish Southern Champs at Glandore Harbour Yacht Club
by Cormac O'Carroll 19 Sep 2002 01:09 PDT
The 2002 Horgan Lynch and Partners Dragon South Coast Championships were hosted last weekend by
Glandore Harbour Yacht Club. The five race series began on Friday Morning morning in very heavy south easterly seas with twentynine entries.
Race 1 was won by Andrew Craig's Chimera with crew Anthony Shanks and Graham Elmes, he was closely
followed by Ward Wood's Jessica both these boats had a good lead on the rest of the fleet, it was Jessica's best race of the series, Phantom finished in third place. Race two on Friday was won by Neil Hegarty and crew of David Williams and Peter Bowring sailing Phantom, giving them the first of two wins in the series. Sea was disturbed becasuse of the South easterly wind, although the wind speeds were not too high, and the weekend forecast was for the wind to lighten and the sea to settle.
Saturday Morning race 4 saw the first good showing by a South Coast boats with the Kinsale crew of Cameron Good, Harry Lewis and Simon Furny of Kinsale Yacht Club sailing Tatsu winning from Pat Murphy's Setanta also of KYC, third in race 3 was the visiting English Dragon Rampage of the Island Sailing Club, sailed by Neil Payne John Ross and Dave Mortimer. Conditions
on saturday for racing were better the seas had flattened and the wind had moved to the east, giving a tricky 1st beat for most of the fleet. Race 4 saw Phantom and Chimera back in the prizes with 1 and 3 respectively and 2nd place went to Topaz sailed by John Ross Murphy with Ailbe Mellerick and Con Murphy, giving them their best finish in the series. At end of racing on Saturday the top contenders were Phantom and Chimera, and Chimera need to win race 5 outright to be able to win the series.
Sunday morning in Light north easterly winds race 5, the final race started after a general recall even with that there were still seven boats over for the start, including Phantom, Michael Cotters Whisper was in first, followed by TBB a Kinsale boat sailed by James Matthews, Rob Jacob and David Good with Gary Tracy's King Rat in third place.
Overall Results:
| Pos | Boat Name | Sail No | Club | Helm | Crew | Crew | Pts |
|---|
| 1 | Phantom | 159 | RStGeoYC | Neil Hegarty | David Williams | Peter Bowring | 13.7 |
| 2 | Chimaera | 160 | RStGeoYC | Andrew Craig | Anthony Shanks | Graham Elmes | 16.7 |
| 3 | TBB | 164 | KYC | James Matthews | David Good | Rob Jacob | 30.7 |
| 4 | Topaz | 144 | RStGeoYC | John Ross-Murphy | Ailbe Millerick | Con Murphy | 34.7 |
| 5 | Rampage | GBR614 | Island SC | Neil Payne | Dave Ross | Jon Mortimer | 41.7 |