OYBBK & Gloria - what chances of sailing but not big wind this coming weekend?

[BiddyPop]

Dear Gloria and OhYouBadBadKitten, you wonderful meteorolgocial gurus,

I know it's not quite where you normally look, but what are the chances of Dublin Bay having enough wind to sail (F2/3) but not so much that junior sailors can't go out (F6 and up, maybe even F5 depending on direction)?

The first national event of the year is coming, it's midterm so lots of kids are available and numbers of entries are significantly higher than the last 2 years. And its my first time organizing an event (I'm still only getting to grips with organizing the regular coaching!).

I've been looking at a depression in the Atlantic, which is threatening for the weekend.

Windy and Wind Guru are disagreeing on the force of wind - 1 says possibly too much, and the other possibly too little.....

So I'm trying not to panic as I figure out do I need extra safety boats, or alternatively lots of space for pent up sailors stuck on land?!

What do you think?

(Or make the decision to call it off if the wind is really that bad...)

I can't help with the wind, but just wanted to say good luck with the competition! I ran my first last weekend (not sailing) and there are more jobs than you think aren't there?!

Thanks PolkaDots - I am drowning in lists.....!!! Who knew you'd need a lifejacket just for paperwork!

BiddyPop ~ from what I can tell at the moment, the wind is looking rather strong (F5/F6 from a S direction) at the start of the day (9am ish) but decreases throughout the day after that and looks to be more F3/F4 by midday before decreasing further during the afternoon towards the evening.

Thanks Gloria - if it's F4 by midday, that works perfectly for me!! And from S is much better than from W or NW.

All I need now is to write my various speeches bits and bully all the volunteers (ok, nicely cajole) into being at the club on time.....(oh, and find time somewhere to do some food shopping for the house, so we have dinners, and find all my gear as I have to get into the water to launch them, brrrr!)

As it happened, we had reasonable weather on Saturday - the wind dropped enough for sailing, but was very very shifty all day (both in strength and direction - both of which matter for sailors). So as I ended up laying marks for the courses (I'm learning so many skills due to just being a parent who will do stuff! How to read a GPS, decide the length of chain for anchors, and how to drop and retrieve marks/buoys just being 3 of the many over the weekend!), I was busy all day long dropping and retrieving very large marks (6 foot high yokes!) out of my rib, with a transition year student who really didn't get it. But we got all 3 races in before it dropped away altogether.

Sunday, the murk lifted to launch the boats, and the wind was sufficiently low. But as the first race was happening, the wind came up earlier and heavier than we expected so sailors started capsizing, and then the fog dropped as well - eek, couldn't see the harbor anymore! Racing abandoned after race 1, got all the sailors safely ashore, and then another crew retrieved my 2 marks as well as the other ones once the fog lifted (I had to stay ashore to do the prizegiving for sailors - retrieving the marks would have actually been fun with no sailors, just high speed jinks in our ribs (responsibly, of course! )).

Apparently, the next village in the city suburbs, about 4 miles away, was bathed in sunshine the whole day, so it was a localized fog.

But all's well that ends' well.

Glad it went well, BiddyPop. I didn't realise you were doing sailing on Sunday as well so didn't really look at the forecast for that day

At the start of last week, I was panicking about the whole weekend being blown out so even only getting Saturday meant I could run enough for the event to happen! Sunday was a bonus (1 race out of 6 scheduled was enough to award prizes. We actually ran 4 out of 6, so respectable for a winter event)

But thanks Gloria for that reassurance !!!