We reach the end of 2022 with sailing in Ireland in good heart. Weatherwise, it was by no means a perfect season. For sure, there were periods of heatwave, but heatwaves can be bad news for good steady sailing breezes. And though there were times of wind, surprisingly often it was more wind than was ideally required, and all too frequently it came with the brief but heavy periods of rain.
To add to the challenging mix, it was a catch-up season which resulted in Irish yacht and sailing clubs having to face up to staging no less than five world or major international championships in the space of six weeks.
We have already recognised and honoured the huge input required from our International Race Officers to keep this hectic international schedule on the road. But this extra programme of worlds and majors had to be fitted into a compacted season in which clubs everywhere were playing a complex game of catch-up, as they tried to get back in line with the regular annual fixtures list after the frustrations of the pandemic lockdowns.
The busy catch-up season of 2022 – the SB20 Worlds with the Royal Irish YC on Dublin Bay in early September. Photo: Anna Zykovz
Clubs and class associations have to be kept on a healthy year-round level of activity afloat and ashore if they are going to be in a fit state to meet the special challenges brought by the height of the traditional season. Thus their effective administration, and regular dynamic interaction with members, has to be maintained through all available means of communication, and the staging of sporting and social events afloat and ashore on a year-round basis.
On top of all that, international sailing is on a twelve-month global basis. And today’s instant communication networks mean that a sense of the reality and viability of the Irish diaspora, and its particular importance both for sailors in the Old Country, and for their compatriots in new and distant sailing homes, is more meaningful and active than ever before.
Thus for December 2022, with our four selections for “Sailors of the Month”, we hope to provide an eloquent illustration of how the Irish way of sailing is thriving at home and abroad.
LEE CONDELL OF LIMERICK & SYDNEY IS “SAILOR OF THE MONTH” FOR DECEMBER
Lee Condell honoured his late father and celebrated his own “roundy birthday” with style and success in the Two-Handed Division in the Sydney-Hobart race 2022
Lee Condell of Limerick has been building a successful career in the marine industry in Australia for some time now. But with his 60th birthday approaching and the much-mourned death of his father - regional sailing development enthusiast Alan Condell - in Limerick at the height of the lockdown, he felt that the up-grading of the Two-handed Division to full competitor status in the up-coming Sydney Hobart Race offered a manageable challenge for something special, both to honour his father’s memory, and to acknowledge his own six decades on the planet.
For of course, through being in the boat business, the height of the Australian summer in December - when the dash to Hobart always takes place - meant that it clashed precisely with his busiest work period. Thus this was to be his first Sydney-Hobart Race. But as the Australian agent for Jeanneau, he reckoned that the zippy new little Sun Fast 3300 and a team-up with sailing mate Lincoln Dews provided the optimum solution, even if the Two-Handers’ up-grading meant they were racing twenty other boats.
Gentle pre-race conditions for Sun Fast Racing in Sydney Harbour. However, in the Two-Handed Division in the Sydney-Hobart Race, she recorded some of the fastest speeds ever achieved by a Sun Fast 3300.
In one of the smallest boats in the entire fleet, being just the two of them downwind in the strong winds of mid-race really did keep up the ferocious pressure, with Sun Fast Racing at times showing the fastest speeds ever registered by a Sun Fast 3300. But it was well rewarded. At one stage they were leading their division, but in conditions which favoured larger craft, the view was that it would be good going for them to stay on the podium by the finish.
They were back at third coming into the Derwent on the way to he finish at Hobart in the dark - notoriously difficult conditions. Yet they made such a good job of it that on Thursday, Sun Fast Racing had come across the line to place second on corrected time in the Two-Handed Division, and Lee Condell is Afloat.ie “Sailor of the Month” for December 2022.
SHANNON ODs’ PHILIP MAYNE AND NAOMI ALGEO ARE “SAILORS OF THE MONTH (SERVICES TO SAILING)” FOR DECEMBER
Philip Mayne, Shannon OD Class Chairman for the highly successful Centenary Year in 2022. Photo: SODA
The unique and Centenary-celebrating una-rigged 18ft Shannon One Designs and their Association were already recognised in their special achievement by being co-winners (with Lough Ree YC) of the MG Motor “Club of the Year” award for 2022. But while it was all well and good to know that something very special in sailing was taking place down along the Shannon and its great lakes during 2022, it was something else altogether to keep a characterful class - whose administration has been compared to herding cats - on track through a special and lengthy programme. In this, intensive Centenary Regattas in July at Lough Derg YC, and then at Lough Ree YC, were added to a traditional Autumn-reaching sailing programme which long pre-dates the founding of the Shannon ODA in 1922.
But with longtime Shannon OD sailors Philip Mayne as Class Chairman and Naomi Algeo as Honorary Secretary, ably supported by many volunteers, the crowded programme was put through from beginning to end, with results for the special July events seeing Frank Guy of Number 142 emerging as Centenary Champion, and thus our “Sailor of the Month” for July.
Shannon ODA Honorary Secretary Naomi Algeo with her father Alan, one of the longtime Shannon OD sailors whose voluntary work contributed to the class’s successful Centenary organised by Naomi and Class Chairman Philip Mayne
Yet now with the extraordinary Centenary Year drawing to a close, and the Shannons with typical enthusiasm already highlighting their events for 2023, it s timely to honour Philip Mayne and Naomi Algeo as “Sailors of the Month (Services to Sailing)” for December.
PADDY JUDGE OF HOWTH IS “SAILOR OF THE MONTH (SERVICES TO SAILING)” FOR DECEMBER
When Paddy Judge stood down as Commodore of Howth Yacht Club at the AGM on Tuesday 13th December to be succeeded by former Vice Commodore Neil Murphy, it marked much more than the conclusion of the usual two years in the hot seat. For like all clubs, HYC had experienced longterm difficulties adjusting to the changing economic realities from 2009 onwards, and the onset of the various pandemic restrictions.
Paddy Judge – in addition to two years as Commodore at Howth Yacht Club, he served as the club’s Honorary General Manager for several years in order to bring a successful conclusion to the difficult post-recession period.
A severe cost-cutting programme became essential, and it had to be demonstrated that the club could handle the situation with a voluntary General Manager. Rear Commodore Paddy Judge undertook this role. As a cruiser owner who had personally finished his Dubois-designed Liberator 35 to professional standards from a bare hull, he was a former Aer Lingus captain who had spent part of his aviation career in a key position in the National Air Accident Investigation Unit. Thus he brought specialist administrative experience and a notable sense of professional competence and calm to his new position.
For several years, he was in the clubhouse almost every day, dealing with members’ problems and quietly monitoring the onward progress of the club’s re-organisation and expansion plans. So when he re-focussed on being a member of the “officer corps” in order to become Commodore in December 2020, Howth YC had expanded its activities afloat and ashore to become a thriving organisation with more than 2,000 members when all categories are included, and during his peak year as Commodore in 2022, the club was unprecedented in its sailing successes at home and internationally.
It was all quietly achieved with an under-stated style of leadership which was exactly what the situation required. But at the unique HYC Commodores Lunch in November, when HYC interacts with hospitality for all its neighbouring organisations and the supportive Fingal County Council, the club gave recognition to all that had been involved at a personal level with the popular presentation of a large bouquet of flowers to Paddy Judge’s wife Mary “with heartfelt thanks for the use of her husband for so many important years”.
To that we can only add that Paddy Judge is an Afloat.ie “Sailor of the Month” for December 2022 for Services to Sailing.
And a very happy and prosperous New Year to all our readers.
