AFTER a dreadful start to the sailing calendar, with late snow and gale force winds making it hard for sailors to get prepared and launched, it was light winds and surprisingly dry weather that brought the spring series at Killyleagh Yacht Club to a close on Thursday night.
With eight races completed, the overall results showed a clear winner in each of the cruiser classes and the points gained in this series will prove useful for the cruisers competing for the Sam Greene Trophy, for the best PY yacht in the club.
In PY1, Cheval de Mer, under the partnership of Ronnie Barr and Ken Bowsie, romped home to win the overall event, with three firsts and two seconds out of the eight races proving hard to beat.
Consistent second and third places throughout the series saw last year’s winner, Graham Chamber in Big Wig, finish second overall with Raymond Beattie’s Tiger Lily claiming third.
The poor spring weather meant that in PY2, McNamara and Jones in Moonshadow had little competition in many of the races, allowing them to sweep the board again this year, finishing 11 points ahead of their nearest rival.
Despite a late start, McGookin and Bennett in Sloe Gin challenged the leader’s supremacy and good results in the latter part of the series saw them finish in second place overall.
Heavy weather at the start of the series suited Mark Bridges and the crew of Extreme, giving them a close third place.
The autumn series will hopefully see more competitive racing in this class as the remaining PY2 yachts have now taken to the water in the hope of some sailing weather at last.
The Squib class this year was dominated from the start by cousins Scott Rodgers and Aimie Bridges in Winnie What and despite a late run of firsts from Don and Steven Bridges in Firecracker it was the youthful cousins who achieved first overall.
Firecracker finished in a healthy second place, while consistency from the husband-and-wife pairing of Kyle and Sharon Bolton saw them take the third place prize.