What's happening at Ballyholme? Well, our autumn Icebreaker Series had very favourable conditions for cats, all races except two being held in strong southerly winds and flat water. Hurricaneers Johnny Mullan & Ian Wilson (Brace yourself Bridget) won the Part 1 Series, closely pursued by Richard Swanston & June McMinn (Two's Company - Dart18). The consistently windy conditions have really highlighted the limitations of PY Handicap for a mixed fleet of cats and conventional dinghies, on occasions the entire cat fleet has lead the rest home!

Our Boxing Day Regatta was also quite windy, and cats finished well up in the mixed fleet (PY handicap again!). First were Richard Swanston & June McMinn on a tie-breaker with Johnny Mullan & Ian Wilson, and Pete & Dee McDowell (Tiercel – Dart Hawk) finished a comfortable fifth despite only using the spinnaker in the second race!

1st February saw the start of the second part of the Icebreaker Series with stacks of wind and the cat fleet leading the rest home (this is starting to get embarrassing!).
We're about halfway through the series now and leaders have included Mark Valentine, Richard Swanston, and Adrian Allen all in Dart 18s.

While we still have only two Hurricane 5.9s and one Hawk, Ballyholme's Dart 18 Class continues to grow : our three most recent additions have been George Crowe, Dave Price and Adrian Allen. George saw the light while sailing his Laser II, bought Mox Henderson's boat from Galway and is practising long and hard, crewed and solo! David Price (like Mark Valentine) is a one-time GP14 sailor who has purchased Ronan O'Hare's boat from Lough Erne and is acquiring heavy weather experience aplenty. Adrian Allen, well known in other sailing circles, bought in a Dart from England and is definitely a force to be reckoned with. However, he has also bought a big tilting thing with "1720" on the sail and a huge blob of lead to slow it down, so we reckon he's not out of quarantine yet.

Lastly we even have an entry in the ISAF World Sailing Regatta catamaran class. Johnny Mullan & Ian Wilson are temporarily abandoning their 5.9 to sail a Hobie 16 in the sunny waters of Dubai. They've been practising hard at Ballyholme ("just pretend it's twenty degrees warmer...") using Keith Davenport's rather elderly and infirm Hobie 16. One comment overheard was that it compared with arriving in a Lamborghini and stepping onto a tractor, but the pitchpoles *were* impressive!

(Pete McDowell)

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