John Hall's J/109 Something Else from the National Yacht Club was the winner of the Cruisers One IRC Race six in DBSC's AIB Summer Series on Saturday.

It was a busy day on Dublin Bay for Race Officer Barry McNeaney, who started the ISORA fleet on the cross-channel race to Holyhead at 8 am in light westerly wind and then started the DBSC cruiser fleets in light easterlies at 2 pm.

Hall beat Fintan Cairns' Mills 31 Raptor from the Royal Irish with Raptor's clubmates Tim and Richard Goodbody in the J/109 White Mischief third in the six boat fleet.

In the four boat Cruisers Zero division, Royal Irish yachts finished 1,2,3. Patrick Burke's First 40 Prima Forte beat Timothy Kane's Extreme 37 WOW in a one and a half hour race. Third was Paddy McSwiney's X-35 D-Tox.

There was Sigma 33 success for Royal St. George's Richard Lovegrove sailing Rupert who beat James McCann's Mustang 30 Peridot in a one hour race. Third was overall class leader Lindsay J. Casey's J122 Windjammer from the RStGYC.

Kevin Byrne's Formula 28 Starlet was the winner of IRC Three from Myles Kelly Senator Maranda. The overall series leader Edward Melvin in Ceol na Mara was third.

In the one design B211 class, the overall series leader Jimmy Fischer of Royal St. George Yacht Club took another win to give him four victories from five races sailed. Second was Pat Shannon's RIYC Beeswing from club mate Jacqueline McStay's Small Wonder.

After 11 races sailed, overall Ruffian 23 leader David Meeke in Alias placed second yesterday in a seven boat fleet. The race was won by DMYC's Michael Cutliffe in Ruffles. Third was Ann Kirwan in Bandit. 

See full DBSC individual and overall results in all classes below. Three live Dublin Bay webcams featuring some DBSC race course areas are here

Tony Fox's Archambault 35 Gringo from the National Yacht Club took a well-earned win in tonight's windy fifth race of the AIB Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) Thursday night series.

The win puts Fox into third overall in a 14-boat Cruisers One IRC division.

Second tonight was Tim and Richard Goodbody's RIYC J109 'White Mischief' which maintains her overall lead after five races on seven points. 

Tim Goodbdody’s 80th birthday was celebrated on the water when the Race Officer sang happy birthday over the VHF with other competitors joining in the impromptu sing-along.

Andrew Craig's RIYC J/109 Chimaera finished in third place tonight and is second overall on nine points. 

Flat seas with strong westerlies up to 20-knots made for some excellent racing. 

On the eve of Saturday's ISORA cross channel race in which Paul O'Higgins is competing, his JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI crew produced yet another race win to lead DBSC Zeros overall after five races with five straight wins. 

Patrick Burke's First 40.7, Prima Forte was originally recorded as second but, in fact, Chris Power Smith's J122 Aurelia (who is also on the ISORA line on Saturday) took second after a result input error was corrected. Prima Forte finished third and stays second overall on 11 points.

Third overall is Rodney and Keith Martin's 44.7 Lively Lady on 14 points.

In IRC 2, a win for Leslie Parnell's First 34.7 Black Velvet puts him on top overall and ahead of Lindsay Casey's J97 Windjammer from the Royal St. George Yacht Club that finished second in tonight's ten boat race. After finishing fourth in tonight's blustery conditions, Richard Lovegrove's Sigma 33 Rupert lies third overall. 

The DBSC Cruiser division Race Officer was Eddie Totterdell.

See full DBSC individual and overall results in all classes below. Three live Dublin Bay webcams featuring some DBSC race course areas are here

27th May 2022: This article was updated after a results input error was corrected

The National Yacht Club's Noel Butler sailing his RS Aero 'Orion' was on top again in the DBSC's AIB Summer dinghy series with two more wins in Tuesday night racing (May 24th) in his RS Aero dinghy to bring his strike rate to seven from eight races sailed.

Richard Tate's Finn took second last night with Aero helmsman Roy Van Maanen in third place in race eight. These top three positions are reflected in the overall leaderboard. 

Seven competed in the two races held in Scotsman's Bay under Race Officer Suzanne McGarry. Westerly winds ranged from 14 to under ten knots.

Laser

Like Butler, Gary O'Hare sailing Buster III maintains his overall lead in the Laser Standard division with two wins last night giving him seven wins from eight.

Only three Lasers competed in last night's racing with Conor O'Leary second and Theo Lyttle in third in race eight. All three are from the Royal St. George Yacht Club. 

Fireball

In a five boat turnout for the Fireball class, Neil Colin's Elevation from the DMYC also won both races last night. Overall, Colin leads after eight races with clubmate Frank Miller in second and Pink Fire skippered by Royal St. George's Louise McKenna third. 

Full results in all DBSC classes are below. Three live Dublin Bay webcams featuring some DBSC race course areas are here

The 'mystery' to local observers of just who was behind the impressive 15-boat strong RIB raid fleet powering across Dublin Bay last Sunday morning was answered this week on social media when it emerged the boats, ranging from 5 to 8 metres in length, were freshwater visitors from the Inland Waterways Association of Ireland (IWAI) Powerboat Branch.

The River Shannon ribbers, which included three jet skis, took in a River Liffey spin via Grand Canal Dock in the city centre as well as heading out into the Bay to Dun Laoghaire Harbour, followed by a 12km run in some bumpy southerly conditions down to Greystones Harbour in County Wicklow.

"We waited so long to do our first RIB run with the IWAI Powerboat Branch, and it was FANTASTIC! After seeing Dun Laoghaire, Greystones and Dublin city from these new perspectives, I wouldn't wish to live anywhere else but beautiful Éire", said one of the RIB crews online.

If you’re a coastal Dub doing a Marie Kondo on the shoe cupboard, and you’re thinking of heaving out the Cuban heels and the platform soles, just hang on a minute. Despite their exotic fashion origins, that fancy footwear might have a practical application in the near future.

For according to an authoritative report in last Thursday’s Irish Times here, sea levels in Dublin have been rising at twice the global rate for the past eight decades.

This clearly bothered some readers, so yesterday (Saturday) the paper carried a reassurance from “Dublin City Council’s most senior flooding expert” that Dublin’s flood defences are designed to protect the capital “to the end of the Century”.

But neither report seemed to make anything of the fact that the accumulated Dublin rise of 130ml over the past 20 years, when set against the global average of sea level rise of 70ml, can only mean that the Fair City and its surrounding area is sinking – or subsiding if you prefer - at about 3.5ml per year. For any notion of “localized sea level rises” flies in the face of the fact that water always finds its own level.

“It’s no more than they deserve” is probably the robust response of citizens elsewhere on the island. But for Dubs in the coastal lowlands, it means more than finally learning what the accountancy term Sinking Fund means in all those incomprehensible balance sheets presented at club AGMs.

For the fact is that barometric pressure and regional wind direction can have a very real effect on day-to-day tidal levels, something which is exacerbated at times of extreme high Spring tides with the excessive rains of a period of bad weather

Thus in present circumstances, despite the precautions and defences in place, all that is needed is very low pressure and much rain over Ireland with the cyclonic centre to the westward, a Spring tide imminent, and a prolonged period of southwesterly gales persisting in the Celtic Sea and St George’s Channel to push the surging water towards Dublin Bay to meet the extra rainwater coming down to Dodder, Liffey and Tolka valleys.

Then we’ll really learn about water finding its own level. And maybe we’ll also learn why the Dutch have evolved into being the tallest people in Europe……

Some people find saying "sorry" very difficult, but DBSC's Winter Wunderkind Fintan Cairns has given us a graceful example of how to do it with his re-setting of the final results for the latest Spring Chicken Series, which concluded at the weekend.

Fintan's a busy man, but next thing we'll know is he will add an Etiquette & Courtesy Module to any Race officer Training Programme he's involved in, as his exemplary announcement of yesterday evening states:

"Attached are revised results and Overalls for last Sunday. In the rush to have results for the prizegiving, I made a mistake on the finish time for George 5, and Fred Tottenham of G5 kindly pointed it out despite it being to his own disadvantage.

The rightful Spring Chicken Supreme for 2022 is - SIROCCO! Congratulations, and my apologies, to SIROCCO and her crew. Teddy, trophy on its way from Fred. Welcome to Mermaid V to the podium. My effort to take the mickey out of Teddy and Sirocco - 2 line honours and Overall win - badly bounced back on me! Teddy can now wear his gold ribbon sash to bed with distinction!

Final thanks to our sponsor AIB, our weekly sponsors Drumshanbo Gunpowder Gin/The Shed Distillery(Pat Rigney), North Sails (Prof O'Connell), Solas Marine (Tommy Whelan), UK McWilliams Sailmakers (Barry Hayes), Viking Marine (Ian O'Meara), our supporter Afloat.ie (David O'Brien), and our hosts National Yacht Club (John O'Grady and bar
staff). They are all open for business - support them!

Hope you enjoyed the series, have a good summer, see you beginning November."

Revised results below

A final race win in the four-race DBSC Spring Chicken Series handed the 2022 trophy to the George 5 J/80 crew (Fred Tottenham, Will Prendergast, Joe Doyle and Ian Croxon) who won by three points overall. 

There was a joint second finish in the 50-boat fleet with the J/109 Dear Prudence and the Jeanneau 36 Sirocco who both tied on 20 points.

The final race (that doubled as a #Ukrainian fundraiser at the National Yacht Club) got away despite some early strong southeasterly breezes on Dublin Bay on Sunday morning.

Download the overall and race four results below

UPDATE (17/3/22): DBSC Spring Chicken Feathers Ruffled But Now Reset And Smoothed In Final Results

With just weeks to go to the start of summer racing at the country's largest yacht racing club, Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) has unveiled some of its plans for the 2022 AIB DBSC racing programme, which will run from April 23 to October 1 and will include new Saturday courses.

The DBSC Flag Officers, Committee, and Racing Sub-Committee, have been working hard over the winter months on producing the enhanced racing programme.

The DBSC Hut

The DBSC Hut will be back in position on the West Pier for the entire season and used for Tuesday and Saturday keelboat racing.

The DBSC hut on the West Pier

There will be one additional fleet racing on a Saturday due to the return of the Hut to the Saturday Racing Programme.

Racing Programme

First Race: Saturday, April 23
Last Tuesday Race: Tuesday, August 30
Last Thursday Race: Thursday, August 25
Last Wednesday Race: Wednesday, September 21
Last Saturday Race: Saturday, October 1

Classes will alternate between starting and finishing from the Hut or from a committee boat – see the racing programme below, which indicates which fleet will begin from the Hut and which will start from a committee boat for each Saturday in the DBSC race programme. It also details which keelboat classes form each fleet on the different race days.

DBSC Race Programme 2022

Dublin Bay 21 Footers

The Dublin Bay 21 Footers will always start from the Hut to be closer to their racing area as they don't use engines. This will also provide pier walkers with a good view of these magnificent yachts under sail. The 4th DB21, Geraldine, will be in Dun Laoghaire in June, and all four will race in DBSC this summer.

Dublin Bay 21 Footers will start their races from the DBSC Hut on the West Pier Photo: Afloat

Cruisers 0 & 1

Cruisers 0 and 1 will always start from a committee boat due to their size and speed, and also in the case of Cruisers 1 due to the high number of participants.

Cruisers One entry Raptor from the Royal Irish Yacht Club Photo: Afloat

There is a provision to start all keelboat fleets from the Hut in very exceptional circumstances – see start times for details.

RS Aeros racing in Scotsman's Bay Photo: Afloat

Dinghy racing will be run outside the harbour on Tuesdays and Saturdays when there are sufficient ribs and patrol crews to meet the required safety ratios. The DBSC dinghy fleet consists of Lasers (standard, radial and 4.7 rigs), RS Aeros (7s, 6s, and 5s), Fireballs, IDRA 14s, and a Finn, and is open to anybody aged 16 and over.

DBSC Race Times 2022 Photo: Afloat

Note that fleets' start times and makeup may need to be adjusted depending on the number of entries in each class.

DBSC Laser racing Photo: Afloat

Regattas

There will be no DBSC racing on the days of the four waterfront club regattas – June 11, 18, 25, and July 2. Nor will there be DBSC racing on Saturday, August 27, in support of the Women at the Helm regatta, which takes place on August 27th and 28th. DBSC is signed up to the 20x20 charter, which promotes the participation of women in all sports. DBSC proudly displays the 20x20 banner on its committee boat MacLir.

DBSC Committee Boat Mac Lir Photo: Afloat

To make up some additional race dates, DBSC is commencing Saturday racing one week earlier than normal on April 23 and finishing one week later than normal on October 1.

The Flying Fifteen one-design keelboat is one of DBSC's most popular classes Photo: Afloat

Nine Separate Race Courses Each Week

With the addition of the Hut for Saturday racing, there will be nine separate DBSC courses provided each week. Each of these nine courses will have a Race Officer, a Committee Boat Driver and a Race Management team with timers, flaggers, sound signals, and recorders. DBSC says it is extremely fortunate to have a very experienced pool of race officers, many with Local, Regional, National and even International Race Officer qualifications. In addition, we have a pool of 50+ very willing volunteers who operate the committee boats for each of these nine separate DBSC race events, which take place over four days of the week, namely:

Tuesdays
• Keelboats racing from the Hut on fixed mark courses
• Dinghies racing from a committee boat on laid mark courses

Wednesdays
• Water Wags racing from a committee boat on windward / leeward courses

Thursdays
• Blue fleet keelboats (the larger ones) racing from a committee boat on fixed mark courses
• Red fleet keelboats racing from a committee boat with a combination of fixed mark and windward/leeward courses

Saturdays
• Blue or Red fleet racing from a committee boat (including Cruisers 0 and 1) on fixed mark courses
• Blue or Red fleet racing from the Hut (including DB21s) on fixed mark courses
• Green fleet racing on laid mark windward / leeward or triangular courses
• Dinghies racing on laid mark courses

Under 18s

As DBSC have under 18s both racing and doing patrol crew and mark laying duties, DBSC are required to have a Children's Officer and to undergo Garda vetting for a number of people who interact with the U18s. This process is currently underway for the DBSC Race Officers, patrol crew organisers, and patrol crews who are aged 18+.

Pre-Season Race Officer Briefing and Q&A Session

PRO Ed Totterdell briefed the race officers and race management team leads on the new courses that will be introduced for the 2022 season at a session on March 8. Tim Goodbody has done a lot of work on designing new Saturday fixed mark courses for the keelboat fleets starting from both the Hut and the committee boat. These are currently being finalised and will be available on the DBSC website shortly. Ed took the group through any changes in the SIs which are available on the DBSC website along with the racing programme and the race start times.

Presentation of the Viking Trophy to the DBSC Volunteers

The DBSC volunteers were awarded the Viking award, one of DBSC's premier trophies, for their 'Outstanding Contribution' during the 2021 season, at a gathering in the National Yacht Club on March 8. This band of 50+ volunteers make DBSC racing possible by giving generously and willingly of their time and experience week after week, whatever the weather. DBSC presented this award at the annual prize-giving which took place in the magnificent setting of the National Maritime Museum in November but due to the rise in Covid cases, very few of the volunteers were able to attend. DBSC were very pleased to be able to re-present the trophy and it was happily received on behalf of all the volunteers by race management team leads Ida Kiernan and Rosemary Roy. 

DBSC race management team leads Ida Kiernan (centre) and Rosemary Roy (left) accept the DBSC Viking Trophy on behalf of all the club volunteers from Commodore Ann Kirwan

New Results System

Commodore Ann Kirwan thanked Colin McMullen for his tireless work on DBSC over the past number of years. Colin is stepping back from his role as DBSC Results Secretary in order to spend more time racing his Ruffian and doing some race officer duties in Mayo.

The DBSC results will move from its current system, YR3, to HalSail and DBSC are delighted to announce that Therese Tyrrell is taking on the role of Results Secretary.

In recent years we’ve become accustomed to the handsome blue mini-cruise-liner St Bridget plying her day-excursion trade along the coasts around Dublin Bay between Dublin Port, Howth and Dun Laoghaire. She’s now a welcome and integral part of the summer scene, and appropriately will begin her 2022 service on St Patrick’s Day, March 17th.

This occasion will provide an instant topic of conversation among passengers as to whether St Patrick deserves to be our patron saint, when St Bridget (or more accurately Brigid) has equally strong claims. And if there happen to be Waterford folk on board, they’ll close the discussion by claiming that St Declan of The Decies was there before the lot of them.

The St Bridget from Galway Bay is now a popular part of the Dublin Bay scene

Another possible topic of conversation is the story – which may or may not be true – that we only have St Bridget operating in Dublin Bay because a major re-vamp job on the pier at Doolin in County Clare beside the Cliffs of Moher meant that for at least one trading year, she’d no base in Ireland for her ferry service out to the Aran Islands. There was no way the County Galway-based ferries at Rossaveal were going to welcome a Clare boat like St Bridget onto their pitch, so she went east across Ireland looking for business

Which way will she go? Erin’s King was a matter of continuing debate among Dublin’s quayside pundits. Photo: Courtesy Cormac Lowth

But having come to Dublin for a season in order to get by, St Bridget’s owners found they were doing better than merely breaking even, and now their company Dublin Bay Cruises is well established. Yet they continue with the same rugged vessel, which has acquired the personality of a character ship in contrast to the latest ferries operating on Galway Bay, some of which look more like waterborne space-ships.

Days of wine and roses……a newspaper ad for the Erin’s King activities in her Dublin prime suggests a very busy ship, although the late-night return voyage from Wicklow Regatta might have been a decidedly mixed experience. Image Courtesy Cormac Lowth

And in being a vintage classic, St Bridget is in line with the traditional of Dublin’s coastal cruisers, which have long had the reputation of operating in a precarious market, as coastal railways with excursion trains, and quickly-accessed scenic roads with cars and buses, are always eating into their share of the seaside tourism trade. Thus while I’m more than willing to be corrected, the feeling is that all of Dublin’s coastal cruising vessels have started life as something else – there have been few if any purpose-built for the seemingly tenuous Dublin Bay business.

As ever, it was that one-man maritime museum known as Cormac Lowth who revived this line of thought. By now, Cormac can only be living in his garden shed, as every room in his house must be packed to the ceiling with his maritime memorabilia, with so many ancient photos that from time to time he’s able to test his inner group of aficionados by circulating ancient nautical images as a knowledge test.

Erin’s King at the Customs House – she might not have been the first choice for an excursion steamer to serve the Dublin Bay trade, but she was available at the right price after 25 years hard service in the Mersey. Photo courtesy Cormac Lowth

Thus at the weekend, we found ourselves grappling with some photos of a small passenger paddle steamer obviously operating out of Dublin at a time when smoke emission controls weren’t even thought of. But the point about this mystery ship was that she was very clearly double-ended, bow-shaped at both ends and the steering positions apparently two-faced.

So she was a push-me pull-you, as able in astern as ahead, even if this meant a disconcerting float-free moment as the engines were shifted as quickly as possible into reverse rotation.

In the Liffey and Dublin Bay, the little ship’s name was Erin’s King - though Classicists might have preferred Janus - and she was very much part of Dublin life for the entire 1890s. But before that, she’d been built in 1865 by Vernon’s of Liverpool as the Heather Belle, a Mersey ferry which shuttled back and forth with maximum efficiency between Liverpool and Birkenhead. (She'd been previously mentioned on Afloat here)

Is she coming or going? Dublin in the rare old times, when smoke was good for you, and the Erin’s King looked as though she was coming up-river when she was heading seawards. Photo: Courtesy Cormac Lowth

So by the time she started operating in 1891 as the “Dublin Bay and Environs” excursion steamer Erin’s King, she was well stricken in years. And although the Mersey can be quite rugged going with wind over tide, it must have been interesting to try to run a profitable excursion with the Erin’s King when a real easterly was sweeping into Dublin Bay, as was recorded in one of the recollections in Ulysses:

Leopold Bloom in 1904 in Ulysses recalls an outing some years previously in the Erin’s King

Nevertheless, she became a much-loved and familiar part of Dublin life, her daily routine a matter of general knowledge as this little notice from the Freeman’s Journal suggests, with its hint of the end of an era:

End of the line? There’s a hint of adieu in this Autumn ad for the Erin’s King in the Freeman’s Journal. Courtesy Cormac Lowth

For by 1900, the Erin’s King was literally gasping her last, and she was broken up at the end of that season. Others have followed, after originally serving elsewhere like the Erin’s King as the Heather Belle, and the St Bridget is in that tradition while being an Atlantic-capable vessel. But then, when you’re pushing the envelope a bit by taking tourists to sea in a Dublin Bay easterly, it’s good to have a proper little ship under you, rather than some floating spacecraft.

Blustery southerly winds on Dublin Bay could not prevent the DBSC Spring Chicken mixed cruiser fleet from venturing out for the fourth race of the series on Sunday morning.

Race Officer Brian Matthews chose Seapoint Bay to avoid the worst of the Bay's big seas to set a windward/leeward course.

A small turn out of about 20 boats (from a 50 boat entry) had three rounds with 18 finishers. Results to follow on Afloat.

Racing in the AIB sponsored series continues each Sunday at 10.10 am until 13th March 2022 inclusive.

DMYC Frostbites

In the afternoon at the same venue, the Dun Laoghaire mixed dinghy fleet was not as fortunate for its racing at the DMYC Frostbite Series.

Yet again wind conditions forced the in-harbour racing to be cancelled, with the Dublin Bay buoy recording 12 - 37 knots of breeze.

It is the third consecutive cancellation of the Viking Marine sponsored series for strong winds.

"In truth, the wind has been touch and go for the latter part of the week and I suppose the delay in making the call is due to consecutive Sundays being lost, " Race Officer Cormac Bradley told Afloat.

Racing continues next Sunday afternoon.