AZTEC will have to shake off a challenge from Tommy Murphy's Midnight Express before seizing gold in class one of the Nissan Autumn league. The league's penultimate race gets under way tomorrow at 10.00 a.m., with Peter Beamish's 1996 Carlsberg RAYC Super League champion aiming to complete the double in Howth before moving the racy 32 footer to the Solent for the 1997 season.
Murphy's Midnight Express is on seven points and trails the Mark Mills designed Aztec by 4.75 points.
There were five different leaders at Howth in last weekend's heavy air battle of the 1720 class which saw Barry O'Neill's Pinball Wizard, of the Royal St George YC, emerge as race winner after a dingdong battle.
O'Neill's decision to stick with the genoa rather than change down to the smaller jib may well have been a factor in Pinball Wizard's ultimate success. They maintained a slight edge on boat speed downwind and took the lead when they cleverly weaved a magic path around a raft up between cruisers III and sportsboats at the Gannet mark. While her nearby rivals, Lemon (Robert Dix) and Yon-ka'll Experience (Mike Evans) concentrated on hoisting red protest flags, the Dun Laoghaire crew sailed on to take their first gun in this new class.
The protest, heard this week, disqualified Lemon and, in a separate incident, class zero entrant Janey Mac II (A Lee) was disqualified after a port and starboard incident with a Squib. In class one, Chardonnay (J Marrow) was also disqualified.
In Cork harbour, Obsession, sailed by David Rose, had a winning margin of 9 1/2 minutes on corrected time to win class two of the biggest ever entry of the Cross haven Boatyard October League.
Some 104 boats took part in the first race last weekend in 7-12 knot flukey conditions. Rose also took the gun on ECHO, while Kinsale entries, VSOP (John Godkin), IMP (George Radleigh) and Mad Goose (Henry Good), took the first three places respectively in the big, boat class.
Twelve 1720s competed in the league and with the conclusion of the Nissan league in two week's time, it is expected that the fleet will swell to 16 boats both for the league and for the 1720s' own Cork harbour event in early November.
Meanwhile, there may be more proposal than project attached to the Mark Mills's outline plans put forward in this column for a new Dublin Bay One Design two weeks ago.
This follows an approach from a group of yachtsmen who, according to Mills, have graduated from the rough and tumble of big boat racing or from the competitive small keelboat classes. The group was interested in a fast, four man strict one design. Mills claims the design would be fast, stable, and exciting to sail in a way which reflects the "unique conditions of Dublin Bay".
While there are many who argue that the last thing Dublin Bay needs is another class of boat, Mills reckons there is good potential for a new local racing class to succeed in the same way as the Cork harbour 1720.
The Minister of the Marine, Mr Barrett, will attend the Irish Sailing Association's Carlsberg 15th birthday celebration dinner at the Conrad Hotel on November 8th. Also attending is the president of the Royal Yachting Association, the OCI president, Pat Hickey, and John Treacy, the Sports Council president. Tickets for the black tie dinner are available from Ursula Maguire at the ISA on 01 2800 239.
Following Laura Dillon's success at becoming the first lady winner of the Helmsmans Championship last weekend, there are now light hearted suggestions that the ISA should rename the event to more adequately reflect the gender of the title holder. Her win was not without incident, however, and on a more serious note, Tom Fitzpatrick, who lost the championship to Dillon in the protest room, has told The Irish Times he wanted to appeal the decision of the protest committee but rules governing the ISA organised event prevented him from doing so.
