After the excellent turn-outs for the early part of the season (double figures for every Tuesday evening race!), it was perhaps inevitable that things would be a little quieter later in the year with holidays taking several crews away. Relatively serious holidays were undertaken at the Dart 18 European Championships by two local boats - June McMinn and Stephen Polly sailing Mine's-a-Double and Peter Kernohan and Dougie Rennie in Seeing Double (or "Vedere Doppio" in carefully checked local parlance!). Stephen & June gained an excellent placing in the top quarter of the fleet, and rumour has it Peter and Dougie placed even higher in the enjoyment stakes ashore! Plans are already being laid for a return in 2000!
Ballyholme's Annual Regatta was rather poorly attended by only four Dart18s. Peter Waugh won both races, closely pursued by Michael Crowe in the first and Richard Swanston in the second. Peter started in all the Belfast Lough Regattas attended by the multihulls this year and has won the Regatta Points Series, not bad for the first season! Every Regatta this year was won by a different boat.
By tradition Closing Day for the Bangor Clubs is the Lufra Cup Race organised by Ballyholme YC. This is a pursuit handicap race for anything from Toppers to Hurricane 5.9s and beyond. This year the last class to start was the Dart 18s and, despite the misgivings of the handicapper (that's me!), first to finish was Mine's-a-Double well sailed by June McMinn and Richard Swanston. And there were three other Darts in the first seven finishers!
No rest for the wicked, and the weekend after Closing Day the Icebreaker Series gets started! The loss of Race 3 due to high winds was rather disappointing early on, but Race 2 saw a record seventeen multihulls on the starting line and there were fifteen in Race 5. Mark Valentine’s Dart 18 is back racing, now under the ownership of Ken Green. Ken is no stranger to the sailing scene and made an impression by winning his first race with Mark as crew! We also have Larry Martel’s new Dart 16 racing regularly along with John Campbell’s. Another new owner with a very fresh Dart 18 bought from England is Brian Mejury.
Like Peter Waugh, Brian lives in Co. Antrim ; we are hoping these two boats will be the start of a second cat fleet in the North, possibly at Larne. So with eighteen more-or-less active local boats and two visitors we are looking forward to a ‘big two-oh’ start any day soon! (Note for potential winter cat sailors - like the Belfast Lough Regattas, BYC’s Icebreaker Series has no entry fees or dinghy park charges! )
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