Howth Yacht Club Dinghy Frostbites Spring Series - Day 4
by Neil Murphy 26 Jan 13:07 UTC
25 January 2026
Easterlies, apart from sea breezes, are relatively unusual on the east coast, and the wind for Sunday's (25th January) Howth Yacht Club Dinghy Frostbites gave evidence to the saying about what's seldom is wonderful.
After a week of decidedly 'mixed' weather, the sunny 12 - 16 knots provided great sailing conditions for the 22-boat dinghy fleet over the two races sailed. There was close competition in both the ILCA and PY fleets with lots of planing on the reaches while the long upwind legs into a strongly flooding tide put a premium on stamina over the thirty-five minutes races.
In the ILCA 6s, Harry Dunne and Darragh Peelo (Malahide YC) were inseparable all day and finished first and second in both races. Dave Kirwan of Malahide repeated his winning form in the ILCA 7s from the previous week by beating Tom Fox (Skerries SC) in the first race but Tom reversed the placings in the second, which leaves Dave leading the series with a 4 point margin over Tom.
The PY fleet produced a great display of fast spinnaker reaching as the Melges 15s and IDRAs lent spectacle to the day, blasting down the reaches under spinnakers while the RS Aeros and Enterprise provided the tortoise element to the re-enactment of the fable. The triangular courses, with only one run during the two races, ideally suited the Melges 15s and David Johnston / Matthew Cotter added to the spectacle the Class provided by port-tacking the fleet at the start of race 2. However, Daragh Sheridan in his Aero 6 took the glory by topping the list of corrected times in both races to extend his overall lead in the series. Ronan MacDonell / Eoin Kernan took the two second places in their Melges 15 and Alan Carr and Orlaith Connolly in their IDRA 14 maintained the consistency they have shown across the series to take two thirds and strengthen their grasp on second overall.
Racing continues every Sunday morning and the results are posted at www.hyc.ie/results