What, you might well wonder, is a blatant billboard doing at the top of the page this Saturday morning, even if it is exactly a month to Christmas, and Christmas has come early for Ireland’s younger international sailors in 2023?

Well, what you see is a problem becoming an opportunity, and used accordingly. When the new Howth Yacht Club building was opened in 1987 on St Patrick’s Day, Tuesday March 17th, everybody was sailing into the unknown. The totally innovative design, conceived by architects Reg Chandler and Vincent Fitzgerald as the main part of the landward half of the total HYC clubhouse-boatyard-dinghy park-marina complex, was like nothing else on earth. Thus it was in keeping with its almost spooky arrival on the scene that the first drinks in the new clubhouse’s Snug Bar were actually served on the night of Friday 13th March 1987.

This was made possible thanks to the building contractor Collen Brothers’ foreman on the challenging project being a genial giant from Donegal, who had joined Patrick & Kieran Jameson’s crew on the Swan 40 Finndabar for the duration of his extremely productive two years in Howth. However, his invites for those Friday the Thirteenth toasts were a very private affair, as no club could possibly contemplate an official opening on such a superstition-laden day. Particularly with the very festive St Patrick’s Day being already on the near horizon, when Ireland and Cork’s own sailing superstar Harold Cudmore would be there to do the clubhouse-opening honours.

“You’re gonna need a bigger wall”. Four weeks after the Eve McMahon publicity blaze was posted in early November, Howth YC find they now have to find extra space to celebrate the Howth-related achievement of Robert Dickson & Sean Waddilove in securing a 49er slot in the 2024 Paris Olympics. Photo: W M Nixon

VERY NEW BUILDINGS NEED TIME TO SETTLE IN

Inevitably, settling into this totally innovative place has taken some time – most of the 36 years since its opening, to be frank. And while interior problems such as acoustics and the inevitable leaks were being dealt with, everyone tried to ignore the very existence of that vast expanse of blank wall. It was called the gable for want of a better term, and it faced southwest in total emptiness, its size made necessary by the fact that within it was the sacred two table snooker hall in its proper twilight.

Suggestions that it might be profitably rented out to a billboard company were simply not acceptable. But as attitudes changed during the crazy times of the Celtic Tiger, it did become a billboard of sorts to announce – during the events - HYC’s hosting of national and international championships.

STUNNING WORLDS WIN

But now, things have gone a step further, and after Eve McMahon’s stunning Gold Medal performance at the 2023 ILCA 6 U21 Worlds in Morocco was confirmed on October 22nd, false modesty was thrown to the winds, and we got this veritable Barnum Blast of highly-visible publicity.

But Eve’s success was only the mid-point of three international breakthroughs for young Irish sailors on the international scene in the latter half of 2023. Back in August, the National YC’s Finn Lynch - originally of Blessington Lake SC - continued his improving form by qualifying at The Hague in The Netherlands for a place in the 2024 Paris Olympics, when the sailing will be at Marseille.

Finn Lynch with the late Carmel Winkelmann at National Yacht Club celebrations for his Olympic place in May 2016. With a support campaign enthusiastically organized by Carmel, the young County Carlow sailor was able to continue his campaign towards the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and he secured his place at the last possible chance, in Mexico in April 2016. Photo: NYC

The Lynch breakthrough at The Hague was rightly seen as perhaps the most important single moment for sailing in Ireland in 2023. For until it happened in August, with the main season already more than half over, it looked increasingly likely that Ireland wouldn’t have any representation in the 2024 Sailing Olympics at all, an unthinkable state of affairs that might just get a last-minute redemption in the Spring of 2024, though that was only a remote possibility. But until the good news came from The Hague, we were facing up to the fact that we would probably have to contemplate a major European-located Olympiad with none of our sailors in the globally-focused sailing location in Marseille.

MARSEILLE “A WAYWARD SAILING LOCATION”

It was at that sometimes wayward Mistral-battered venue in late August 2018 that Robert Dickson of Howth and Lough Ree, and Sean Waddilove of Skerries, first leapt to real national recognition with their victory in the 49er U23 Worlds. In terms of career development, it was too much too soon, but the gallant duo have stuck at it and matured, such that on 10th November 2023, they’d a runaway win in the 49er Europeans at Vilamoura in Portugal to secure an Olympic berth in 2024.

Rob Dickson (left) and Sean Waddilove (right) with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at a reception in Howth YC after they’d become Int. 49er U23 World Champions in 2018. Photo: HYC

Several clubs can claim something of the credit for this, for in addition to the three mentioned, young Rob Dickson did some of his early sailing at Sutton Dinghy Club. But Howth YC are on a roll, and even though they’re tops in modesty, it was recently suggested - in a re-purposing of the enduring comment from the movie Jaws - that “they’re gonna need a bigger wall”.

CRUISING FLEET SALUTE CONOR O’BRIEN IN MADEIRA

The doings of Ireland’s diverse cruising fleet are usually considered in February when their historic awards are distributed, but in 2023 Irish cruising went unusually public with the celebration of the Centenary of the start of Conor O’Brien’s remarkable two-year pioneering voyage round the world south of the Great Capes in 1923 with his own-designed, Baltimore-built 42ft ketch Saoirse.

As the original Saoirse was scarcely sea-tested, let alone ocean-tested, when she departed Dun Laoghaire a hundred years ago, seafarers tend to regard his voyage as really starting from Madeira in July 1923. So the Irish Cruising Club organised an international 28-boat rally on that singular Portuguese island to be time-coincident-plus-100-years with O’Brien’s time there.

Ilen leading the fleet at the Conor O’Brien Centenary Rally in Madeira in July

However it got underway with “a very good lunch at the Royal Irish Yacht Club” just as O’Brien had enjoyed in 1923, but instead of the new Saoirse re-build heading south, it was the Gary MacMahon-inspired restoration of the 1926 56ft trading ketch Ilen - another O’Brien design – which was the focal point of the venture, a complex organisational challenge which went very well indeed thanks to ICC Commodore David Beattie, and his Madeira Committee Chairman Seamus O’Connor of Bantry, the total experience leaving everyone with a much more profound awareness of O’Brien’s achievement.

BIGGEST RACING FLEET WAS IN VOLVO DUN LAOGHAIRE REGATTA

Robert Rendell’s Grand Soleil 44 Samatom (HYC) making for the finish through the Dun Laoghaire pierheads in one of the coastal races during Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta 2023, with the harbour tricolour telling us everything we need to know about the wind out in the bay. Samatom’s owner has now moved up to the Oyster 565 Tir na nOg, and was one of the 251 starters in last weekend’s Atlantic Rally for Cruisers from Las Palmas in the Canaries to the Caribbean. Photo: Robert Bateman

Quite so. In the broader scene, 2023 will be looked back on as the year in which sailing in Ireland was trying to pack several seasons into one after the surprisingly long-term effects of the enforced international hiatus of the Covid lockdowns. And equally, it will be remembered as the season in which our wayward weather and its weird winds were absolutely tops in being disobliging, despite which the biennial “biggest of them all”, the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta”, saw fleet numbers pushing towards the 400 mark during its four-day staging which the race officers managed to complete despite losing the first day’s racing to a real gale.

GOOD JUNE WEATHER WASN’T THERE WHEN NEEDED

Oh for sure, there was some lovely weather in June. But being 2023, it managed to slip in some less-than-perfect conditions when they were least needed, such as during the biennial National YC Volvo Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race.

Naturally, the winning American crew in Ron O’Hanley’s Cookson 50 Privateer will say it was just grand, as too will the sensational runners-up, the two-handed team of Cian McCarthy and Sam Hall from Kinsale in the super-slippy Sun Fast 3300 Cinnamon Girl.

The Sun Fast 3300 Cinnamon Girl (Cian McCarthy Kinsale YC with Sam Hunt) in un-June-like weather at the start of the 2023 Volvo Dun Laoghaire-Dingle Race, in which they won the two-handed division and placed second overall. They will be racing the 2023 Sydney-Hobart on December 26th in a sister-ship provided by Jeanneau Australian agent Lee Condell (originally of Limerick), but using that extra-long bowsprit and Cinnamon Girl’s key sails. Photo: Afloat,ie/David O’Brien

But it will have been noted that having seen the Atlantic in windward-bashing conditions off Southwest Ireland in the Dingle Dash, Privateer was one of the boats that opted out of the Fastnet Race in July when full gales in wind-over-tide conditions were forecast – and accurately too – for at least the first night.

SWUZZLEBUBBLE WINS OVERALL AT KINSALE

James Dwyer’s charismatic classic Half Tonner Swuzzlebubble from RCYC was triumphant at the Sovereign’s Cup at Kinsale Photo: Bob Bateman

Well before that, towards the end of June, the final days of the supposed mid-summer month “borrowed” some weather from the consistently rugged conditions coming in July, and though there was sunny racing in the Sovereign’s at Kinsale in which James Dwyer’s charismatic classic Half Tonner Swuzzlebubble from RCYC was triumphant, the deteriorating conditions tested the 125-year-old Howth 17s as they celebrated their Quasquicentennial with a fast – sometimes very fast – Cruise-in-Company during a week in West Cork, which included a Crookhaven to North Harbour, Cape Clear leg round the Fastnet, with that singular rock demonstrating its oceanic status with such clarity that the unofficial overall report of the event was summed up in five words: “We Got Away With It”.

“Drive her at it…!” The Howth 17 Isobel (Conor & Brian Turvey) is sailing above her theoretical hull speed as she takes in a Fastnet rounding during the class’s 125th anniversary celebration Cruise-in-Company in West Cork. Photo: H17Assoc.

THE ALL-IRELAND CAMARADERIE OF CLUBS

That said, the old class’s post-cruise supper in Baltimore SC on the Friday night, co-ordinated by the Seventeen’s class captain Dave O’Shea and BSC’s obliging Rob O’Leary, was one of those comfortable and hugely convivial gatherings that remind us that while sailors may be wellnigh incomprehensible to the rest of the population, no matter how diverse they personally are, and however widely-spread their home places may be, when they get together in satisfying sailing circumstances, the mutual empathy is almost instant. And in BSC in particular, the wall display of one of the damaged steering wheels from George David’s 2011 Fastnet Race-capsized and Baltimore-rescued Rambler 100 is a useful reminder of why sailors deserve to celebrate when they reach the sanctuary of a hospitable clubhouse.

The Howth 17s Quasquicentennial Supper in Baltimore, with BSC Commodore Graham Copplestone and Howth 17 Captain Dave O’Shea at centre. Photo: H17 Assoc.

RUFFIAN 23S ON GOLDEN JUBILEE TOUR

This sense of inter-club fellow-feeling was particularly clear with another of 2023’s offbeat highlights, the Golden Jubilee of the Ruffian 23. Led by Class Captain Feena Lynch, the class sailed into a season-long multi-venue celebration of its continuing and cheerful existence, with a peak of competition being reached with the Nationals, hosted by the National YC in Dun Laoghaire in July, and won by Stephen Penney’s Hot Orange from Carrickfergus.

Hot racing for a hot class. Stephen Penney’s Hot Orange (foreground) from Carrickfergus won the Ruffian 23 Golden Jubilee Nationals hosted by the National YC in Dublin Bay in July. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien

It all culminated in a very international way, with Ann Kirwan of the National YC captaining a team of 20 that went to Hong Kong to resume the triennial inter-port contest with the Royal Hong Kong YC fleet. Though any result would have been in the special spirit of this Jubilee, it did the class in Ireland’s continuing strength no harm at all that they won.

Team Captain Ann Kirwan above the green with the winning team at the Ruffian 23 Inter-Ports in Hong Kong

FINAL CALL II MAKING HER MARK

Meanwhile, in both One Designs and handicap classes, the Volvo Dun Laoghaire regatta, an often very breezy four-day event, had absorbed an enormous amount of energy. In times past, the “secret selection” of an overall winner had stressed the committee an the potential winners more than somewhat, so a formula has been devised which reduced that stress, but takes some of the excitement out of the prize giving.

Thus for 2023, the overall winner at this extraordinary town and harbour and bay event was the runaway winner among the Quarter Tonners, Ian Southworth’s Protis from Hamble River Sailing Club, even though some of the smart money had been on John Minnis’s Archambault 35 Final Call II from Belfast Lough, which had made a smart job of stitching up the strong local fleet of J/109s and other similar seed machines.

“Sunny or grey, it’s Final Call’s day” John Minnis’s A35 Final Call II from Belfast Lough slicing her way to success in Dublin Bay. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien

FASTNET RACE

Attention then swung to the hyper-breezy start to the 2023 Rolex Fastnet race, where the best Irish contender was the Murphy-Fegan family’s Grand Soleil Nieulargo from Cork, just one place overall - in the usual huge fleet - ahead of Robert Rendell’s larger and newer sister Samatom.

In these circumstances, interest focused more intensely on the overall winner, as Ireland’s Cian Guilfoyle was on the strength of Max Klinck’s Botin 52 Caro, which won’t even admit to being a TransPac 52, yet she’s the sort of boat which is a nightmare for any class chairman, and the TP 52 class is no exception.

For a development class needs tiny incremental improvements to thrive and maintain numbers, yet when Caro made her debut at Hamilton Island race week in Australia, she wiped the floor with the Australian TP 52s, and then did the same with a more international selection – and the rest of the fleet with them – in the 2023 Fastnet Race.

Is this the world’s “Boat of the Year 2023”? Max Klinck’s hyperfast Botin 52 Caro has been wiping the floor with the established TP 52s in both global hemispheres

As for the Middle Sea Race, when former TP52 Ichi Ban helm ex-Pat Gordon Maguire joined the Caro strength, yet again she was so good against other TP 52s that now both Ichi Ban and the top American TP 52, Chris Sheahan’s Warrior Won, are very much on the market, while everyone waits to see if Gordon Maguire joins Cian Guilfoyle and other seasoned Caro hands to record yet another success in the up-coming Sydney-Hobart.

CALVES WEEK

In slightly less heated racing, the season in Ireland continued with the supposedly relaxed Calves Week out of Schull in August. We say “supposedly relaxed” as it emerged from some of the time-honoured holiday-celebrating West Cork Regattas, with Schull Regatta itself dating back to 1884.

This is getting too keen altogether….John Treanor’s J/112E squeezing ahead with much effort during Calves Week 2023 at Schull. Photo: Tom Newman

But Tom Newman’s photo of John Treanor’s new J/112E ValenTina (National YC) inching ahead in Class 0 at Calves Week 2023 with considerable crew effort suggests that the post-race pints in the party-filled main street of Schull were well earned, and the news that Swuzzlebubble took the overall prize suggests that easygoing sailing at Calves Week is now as much history as the old-style regattas.

WIORA WEEK AT ARAN ISLANDS

On the west coast, they do things differently as they have so many exotic venues to choose from, and in 2023 it was Kilronan in the Aran Islands for the annual WIORA Championship. This happened to chime in time exactly with the Dun Laoghaire Regatta, but then the west is a foreign country, and in time they’ll pull the rest of the world into line with their way of thinking.

The WIORA fleet in Kilronan in the Aran Islands. Don’t let the blue sky delude you – outside the harbour, the open Atlantic is in a very lively mood. Photo: WIORA

Certainly, WIORA racing in and around the Aran Islands has an exotic appeal for anyone, and in 2023, the top prize winner was Galway Bay SC’s Ibaraki helmed by John Collins.

DBSC RACING 

A review of 2023's racing programme at the country's biggest racing club was the focus of Sailing on Saturday a fortnight ago, but as it is a state of affairs which goes all the way back to the first Dun Laoghaire regatta of 1828, and one of the biggest shoreside gatherings of the sailing calendar inevitably November's end-of-season AIB Dublin Bay Sailing Club prize-giving roundup is a massively complex affair. And as with the racing afloat, it is a stress test for DBSC’s “standing army” of volunteers, led by Honorary Secretary Rosemary Roy but carried off with aplomb at the National Maritime Museum where the George Arthur Newsome Cup, one of the club's premier awards for the most successful boat in one design racing, went to long-time J109 skipper Tim Goodbody in White Mischief.

Big Turnout - DBSC welcomed its sailors to the National Maritime Museum for the club's annual gala prizegiving in November Photo: Michael Chester

ONE DESIGN KEELBOATS AND DINGHIES

Ideally, we’d give Ireland’s many and various One-Design keelboats and dinghies several annual reviews to themselves, but as they have the disadvantage (or merit) of all looking the same, the casual observer tends to bundle them all into a new compact box, so we just have to go along with that.

J/BOATS BUSY AT HOME AND ABROAD

The American-originating J/Boats might have been designed with Ireland’s needs in mind, yet oddly enough it wasn’t until this year of 2023 that we saw a dedicated Key Yachting Irish J/Boat Cup, hosted by the Royal Irish YC in late August on Dublin Bay with a really good fleet of 40 boats of several marques with the J/109s leading the pack.

Overall, however, it was the much-travelled and internationally successful Pat O’Neill of Howth with the J/80 Mojo who had the best scorecard, and he was the first winner of the new trophy for a championship that is already established as a pillar event in the annual programme.

Ireland's Cillian Dickson, Ryan Glynn, Marcus Ryan, Louis Mulloy and Sam O'Byrne won the J24 Europeans in Hungary on "Headcase"

Even as the racing in Dublin Bay was going on, the Cillian Dickson-helmed “Four Provinces” Team with the beautifully-tuned and well-presented J/24 Headcase was on a mighty sweep through Eastern Europe, winning the Euros in Hungary and then going on the Worlds in Greece where they won the 21-strong Corinthian division and though fourth at the finish in the large Open Division, actually spent much time in second place and the Silver Spot, and were a bit unlucky to have slipped to fourth at the finish.

IRISH 29ERS, THE HOT SPOT JUNIOR CLASS

Ireland's Clementine and Nathan van Steenberge celebrate their 29er world championship win in Weymouth Bay in August

The really searing spot in the hottest Irish junior sailing area was with the high-performance unit in the 29er Class, which was centred on Dun Laoghaire with input from other locations. Through the summer of 2023, this developing force in sailing in Ireland spread out across major events in several European countries to see the Worlds at Weymouth taken by the Van Steenberg siblings from Dun Laoghaire, while the top girls' placing in the EuroCup on Lake Garda in Italy was secured by the new team of Clementine van Steenberge (National YC) and Jessica Riordan (Royal St George YC).

Ireland's Ben O’Shaughnessy and Ethan Spain celebrate their win in the European Championships in the 29er class in Stockholm

At the Euros in Sweden, meanwhile, the Cork-Dublin combo of Ben O'Shaughnessy and Ethan Spain had been dominant to return with the gold, as too did Lucia Cullen (Dun Laoghaire) with Alana Twomey (Cork), a high point in a fleet of 173 teams from 24 countries for an exceptionally well-focused Irish project which catapulted an already talented group of young sailors towards fulfilling their true potential. The future beckons, and it shines.

OPTIMISTS AND LASERS

Almost inevitably, the two biggest classes of all in Ireland are the Optimists and Lasers, as they have the advantage of no crew-recruiting hassle when they want to go to some event, be it near or far. So let’s hear it for Harry Dunne of Howth, the 15-year-old Irish Optimist Champion 2023, as he took the title from a mega-fleet at Ballyholme as his farewell to the class, as he has now moved into the Laser jungle (sorry, make that ILCA jungle), where they consume15-year-olds as an appetiser.

Farewell blast. Harry Dunne on his way to becoming Optimist National Champion 2023 at Ballyholme in his final series with the class.

As for the ILCAs, they have so many divisions that you can pick and choose if you wish, but the connoisseurs tend to go for the crème de la crème in the ILCA7 Class, and here the winner in the nationals at his home club was Howth’s Jamie McMahon by one point from Australian challenger Isaac Schotte of the Royal Queensland YC, with Jonathan O’Shaughnessy of the Royal Cork third some six points further down the line.

OWENS STAYS TOP IN GEEPS

With the very efficiently run Irish GP 14 Association perhaps taking the occasional glance over their shoulders at the much-heralded advent of the interesting Melges 15 dinghies in Ireland, an extra spice is added to the annual championship. But it was no change there as it was retained by Ger Owens, who formerly listed Royal St George as his club, but now seemingly gives allegiance to Wicklow SC, while his crew Mel Morris is likewise a moving target, as she was listing Newtownards SC but has moved back home to East Antrim Boat Club.

TEAM RACING

Everybody got very excited about the success at home and abroad of University College Dublin in the early part of 2023, but much hinged on a big international competition coming up in the middle of May. However, the Americans sent two college teams across the pond with personnel so hot that the rest were burned right out of it, but the eastern Atlantic team racers are pulling themselves together again, and we can expect fresh excitements and expectations early in 2024.

No, it’s not another re-make of Brideshead Revisited - it’s the University College Dublin SC team after yet another 2023 inter-college victory in England

KEELBOATS

In terms of location spread, the versatile 19ft Squib seems to have edged ahead of the Flying Fifteen, with Kinsale in particular proving an ideal location for the little tan-sailed boats, while the class at Howth – having seen exactly a hundred Squibs on the starting line when it hosted the combined 1995 British & Irish Championship – is slowly re-gaining strength.

But the Royal North of Ireland YC fleet at Cultra on Belfast Lough have long been pace-setters, and it was their rising star David Eccles - crewed by Michael Wright on Inshallah – who took the title on his home waters in August.

No, it’s not another re-make of Brideshead Revisited - it’s the University College Dublin SC team after yet another 2023 inter-college victory in England

Squibs racing in their Nationals at Cultra on Belfast Lough in 2023 weather. Photo: Lindsay Nolan-McCarty

CONNEMARA WINS FLYING FIFTEEN NATIONALS AND ASGARD PLATE

The most encouraging current development for the Flying Fifteens is the development of the class in Connemara, and this moved up to a new level in 2023 when Niall and Ronan O’Briain from the “Land of the Sea” travelled across Ireland to the 2023 Flying Fifteen Nationals at Whitehead on the northeast corner of Belfast Lough, with County Antrim Yacht Club (their Edwardian 1909-vintage clubhouse is a gem) hosting the event.

In early June’s all-too-brief spell of good weather, the restored 1896-vintage Blat na hOige was roaded across Ireland to race the DBOGA Asgard Trophy – and won. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien

The Connemara win from a 24-boat fleet was an expedition reminiscent of the early June trans-Ireland campaign by Aongus O Cualain and his crew with the immaculate traditional restored 1896-vintage Blat na hOige to race for the Dublin Bay Old Gaffers Association Asgard Trophy – they also won, so the west is undoubtedly very much awake.

HERE BE DRAGONS

There are times when you could be forgiven for thinking that the 29ft Irish International Dragon Class are every bit as mythical as their scary namesakes, as they seem to disappear after every major vent except for the classics-oriented Glandore division where they have the advantage of having the guru Don Street to keep them in the straight and narrow.

In fact, it may be only a matter of time before they emulate the Flying Fifteens and start to appear out of the mists of Connemara, but in the meantime if it’s Dragons you seek in the hear and now just ring a bell and shout out a challenge in Kinsale, and they’ll manifest themselves again, with the Kinsale class providing the 2023 National Champions in the form of Cameron Good, Simon Furney, Henry Kingston and John O’Connor in various combinations racing Little Fella to be the 2023 Irish Champions.

NEW YORK YC INVITATIONAL

A place in the fleet of the biennial New York Yacht Club-staged NYYC Invitational in September at Newport, RI, in purpose-designed Mark Mills-designed ILC 37s is one very hot ticket for elite clubs, and while Anthony O’Leary and his Royal Cork squad are regulars and no strangers to the podium in the event’s sixteen years of staging, 2023’s eighth regatta saw Howth YC back for the second time, this time led by Cape 31 sailor David Maguire.

Flying the flag – Ireland's Royal Cork and Howth Yacht Clubs competing in the Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup in Narragansett Bay

The pace is hotting up, but in one very memorable race, it was Irish-flagged asymmetricals which came clearly first and second to the finish, with Royal Cork winning and Howth runner-up. Overall, they were still close together, but Howth YC had edged ahead to take 11th overall, while Royal Cork was 13th.

ISORA WINNER AGAIN

While National Championships have the virtue of requiring relatively short bursts of intense concentration, there’s a certain dogged persistence needed for a season-long series like the ISORA Championship, and in 2023, it went down to the wire again, with the last race being the decider.

Paul O’Higgins and his salty team with the wonderful JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI (RIYC) did it again, but it was noticeable that at the mighty prize-giving in the National YC, it was one Finola Flanagan (very occasionally known as Mrs O’Higgins) who accepted the Wolf’s Head Trophy on their behalf, a reminder that it was her father Jack Flanagan of Skerries who introduced Rockabill VI’s skipper both to sailing and to the use of Rockabill as a winning name.

Finola Flanagan with ISORA’s Wolf’s Head trophy and the salty and successful crew of Rockabill VI Photo: GP Foto

It seems that Finola is also a winning name. Back in the day, Jack Flanagan was so delighted by his new daughter that he called his new National 18 Finola II, and the word is that Finola II is also continuing with style, as she’s still regularly collecting silverware in the south of England with the Classic National 18 fleet at Bosham on Chichester Harbour.

Still winning, and as beautiful as ever. The Classic National 18 Finola II was originally built for Jack Flanagan of Skerries

CLASSIC DINGHIES

The elegant clinker-built Shannon One Designs, Dublin Bay Waters Wags, Mermaids and IDRA 14s had the double value of being in worlds of their own while also taking part in larger events. In the Shannons, 2022 star Frank Guy remained on top as he had been in the Centenary Year of 2022, while the 2023 Lough Ree Shannon Weekend saw David Dickson tops in a crack 32-boat fleet.

The 1887-founded Water Wags now have registered racing numbers through the 50 mark, with a healthy infusion of new-built boats and the relative newby Sean Craig coming tops overall.

The Mermaids held their national championship in their largest stronghold of Skerries in some awesome early August turbulent weather, and local star Mark Boylan racing This Is It took the title with Aileen Boylan and the ubiquitous Colman Grimes on 5 points with second going to Rush SC’s Paddy Dillon.

Lough Ree YC and the IDRA 14s have a strong relationship for the historic 1946-vintage boats’ Nationals, and Simon Reville won it again, crewed by Orla Doogue of Clontarf Y & BC, which Reville – a moving target – also listed as his club this year

THE SPORTSBOAT YEAR

The two Sportsboat classes had been on a real roll in 2022, but they still retained a good pace in 2023, with Waterford Harbour SC at Dunmore East hosting the 1720 Nationals in September. Refreshingly, there were some new names among the usual suspects, but it was the familiar moniker of Kenefick which went on the trophy at the end, with David Kenefick of Royal Cork winning it on 24 points to the 34 of the title-defending Crosshaven-Howth MacDonald/English team on Mc Bearla’s.

Women’s work on the foredeck….Dave Kenefick of Cork’s Irish Champion 1720 at Dunmore East is an Equal Opportunities Boat

As for the SB20s, Michael O’Connor (RStGYC) and his crew mates Davy Taylor and Ben O’Donohoe won the Lough Ree Yacht Club hosted SB20 National Championships in September. An eight-boat-strong local fleet also saw entries from RIYC, RCYC, NYC, RStGYC and HYC.

TOM DOLAN WINS FIGARO RACE TO KINSALE

Just as everyone accustomed to the traditional sailing season starts to wind down towards the end of August, the dedicated contenders in the Figaro Solo in France have to get themselves fight ready for their annual marathon, and the first long leg of 620 miles from Caen in Normandy to Kinsale via several detours was decidedly difficult, but our own Tom Dolan racing Smurfit Kappa-Kingspan was so well in the hunt, and finishing particularly strongly that at Kinsale he was originally listed as second.

It was only going to get even better. Tom Dolan coming into Kinsale thinking he was second in the first stage of the Figaro Solo Paprec 2023 back to his homeland, but in fact he’d won.

But after the committee considered and penalized some misdemeanours perpetrated by the initial winner, Tom shot into first place and had first call on Kinsale celebrations. Thereafter, the exceptionally demanding Figar course meanderings saw him slip down the rankings, but whatever, nothing was going to deprive him of that victory in the stage to his homeland.

CHAMPIONSHIP OF CHAMPIONS

As sure as the falling leaves are starting to drop, along comes sailing’s Championship of Champions in the Autumn. The Seniors in Mermaids at Foynes saw defender Ger Owens showing well initially in the few races which could be sailed in freakishly light conditions, but as it progressed, Olympic ILCA 7 sailor Finn Lynch became increasingly accustomed to racing with a crew, and he pulled off the title.

As for the Juniors, the first attempt to stage their Championship at Schull was blown out in one of 2023’s many gales, but David Harte’s notably adaptable organisation at Fastnet Marine & Outdoor Centre down there in West Cork managed to pull it all together again in November , and the winner was Russell Bolger of Royal St George YC, crewed by Louis McGovern with Max Cully of Blessington placing second.

Face of the future – Russell Bolger is the 2023 Junior Champion of Champions

And that’s it. Yes, we’re well aware that there’s still a month and more of 2023 sailing to run. And Irish sailors are active worldwide, along with the hardier souls at home. But it was time and more for a little bit of stock-taking on this over-flowing 2023 season.

The past two years would have been difficult enough for Irish sailing as we navigated our way - usually with reasonable success – towards keeping our sport as active as possible through various manifestations of the pandemic regulations. But in addition to that constant background challenge, there have been specific instances of some very conspicuous self-inflicted wounds on the international stage. And these are happenings which – with warnings at the time, and in hindsight since – simply should not have happened at all.

Yet happen they did, and as a small sailing nation on a small island on the outer fringes of Europe, we have had to endure reputational damage which – when set against the modest size of our overall population – makes the bruising very painful indeed, for that’s one of the perils when you’re accustomed to punching way above your weight.

But already we’re bouncing back, even if it may not have seemed so at a national administrative level last weekend. In Dun Laoghaire, the Annual General Meeting of Irish Sailing was considering a year in which - after high initial hopes – it emerged that we had sent forth one of the most managerially ill-starred Olympic Sailing Squads ever in our 73 years of Olympic sailing involvement.

And around Cork Harbour as a weekend of fabulous sunshine and gentle early sailing developed, it was becoming abundantly clear that Cork’s 2024 America’s Cup staging bid had been a Quixotic venture in which the gallant Don’s loyal mount Rocinante had become a minor stalking horse, blown away by a mega-bid from Barcelona which in turn was asserting its superiority over a €121 million bid from Malaga.

But even as these gloomy outcomes were being considered in dark rooms ashore, by contrast afloat on Cork Harbour, in Dublin Bay and at several other centres, there were many sailors of all kinds taking advantage of the unseasonably warm and bright weather of early Spring, and getting into action.

Another win for Cork, as Munster Technological University shape up for a convincing overall victory in the Intervarsity Keelboat Nats in the J/80s at Howth. Photo: Annraoi Blaney 

Thus the peak of the weekend’s sailing interest was not in oppressive meetings ashore, but rather it was in the Irish Universities Sailing Association Keelboat Nationals raced at Howth in the HYC flotilla of J/80s, with the relatively newly-formed Munster Technological University making a successful debut to win overall under the command of Harry Durcan of Royal Cork YC.

A specialized event like this is outside the bureaucratic remit of national Performance Groups and other similar mainstream setups, and so it is a sort of DIY happening, reliant on the skills of Race Officer Scorie Walls – who was hugely tested to get the 18 races completed in often light airs – together with umpire Emmet Dalton and others working with the IUSA Committee and the HYC J/80 Maintenance Team to get this event successfully through to completion, utilising what was essentially a combination of local efforts.

For there’s an underlying local strength in Ireland’s local sailing which continues to thrive no matter what setbacks are being endured by central officialdom on the international scene. In fact, there’s arguably a lively alternative sailing scene in Ireland that shuns the hidebound established bureaucracy. And in the final analysis, its alternative vitality ultimately depends on determined individuals, people who will stay with their vision of an event or a sailing campaign, doing it in a way which shows that it is self-reliance and self-belief which makes the breakthrough and gets the deeds done.

Aboard Denis Doyle’s Moonduster in the 1984 Round Ireland Race, with Neil Hegarty on the helm, the Fastnet Rock astern, and an overall win and long-standing course record already in sight.

A classic case in point is the biennial Round Ireland Race from Wicklow since 1980. By any reasonable standards of national sailing administration, such an event should have long since been in being, with an officially-sanctioned start in Dublin or Cork. But after a successfully innovative all-comers Cruiser Rally at Wicklow in 1979, Michael Jones of Wicklow SC decided that the time was ripe for a non-stop Round Ireland Race – and only from Wicklow - in 1980. And once the announcement was made, he was like a terrier in following up any level of interest shown, and then going beyond that in persuading people who had shown no previous interest that they should be going.

Nevertheless, it was a modest affair with just 16 starters when the first race went off in June 1980. And as the main handicap system was one devised by Michael himself to encourage fleet numbers rather than the IOR which was then favoured by the dedicated offshore racing brigade, only half the fleet had IOR ratings.

Yet the event was successfully inaugurated, Michael Jones and Wicklow Sailing Club were validated in their ambitions, and in 1982 for the next staging they made the breakthrough, as Denis Doyle with the Frers 51 Moonduster from Cork came to Wicklow to compete. In Denis Doyle, Michael Jones had the support of another of the great individualists of Irish sailing, a moral compass of unimpeachable integrity whose support was a pearl beyond price.

Indeed, such was The Doyler’s force for the good that in licking our wounds after the recent international setbacks, we can draw solace from considering those exceptional sailing individuals who have added to Ireland’s lustre on the global sailing scene.

A well-established international event built on one man’s belief and determination – the start of the 2018 Round Ireland race from Wicklow with the Class40 Corum and Teasing Machine – both from France – neck-and-neck shortly after the start. Photo: W M Nixon

Sometimes they do it while through backroom work while being almost invisible, a classic case being Brian Craig of Dun Laoghaire who has been involved with more major happenings than you could possibly imagine, yet he does it while giving a passable impression of being the invisible man, whereas others have polished their individualistic image by spectacular yet doggedly achieved success.

Thus although Denis Doyle was taken from among us in the Autumn of 2001 after sailing his final Fastnet Race that summer in Moonduster at the age of 81, within a few years another exceptional character of noted single-mindedness was flying the flag. Ger O’Rourke of Limerick had been introduced to sailing almost by accident by another of our great sailing individualists. This was fellow Limerick man Gary MacMahon, who has since ploughed his own very special furrow with the restoration of the 1926-built 56ft Limerick Trading Ketch Ilen.

One man’s belief…..the restored Ilen in Greenland, July 2019. Photo: Gary MacMahon

But before that extraordinary project came to full fruition, the tyro sailor Ger O’Rourke had rocketed upwards to world sailing achievement, for in 2007 with the Cookson 50 Chieftain he became the first Irish overall winner of the Fastnet Race, thereby rounding out an exceptionally successful personal offshore racing programme which had included taking a class win with Chieftain in the Sydney-Hobart Race.

Ger O’Rourke’s Cookson 50 Chieftain sweeps in towards the finish line to become overall winner of the Rolex Fastnet Race 2007.

It’s remarkable how we can find links between these super-stars, for Gary Mac Mahon is very much of the broad group which includes high latitude voyagers Paddy Barry and Jarlath Cunnane, whose focus of interest at the time of Ger O’Rourke’s rising trajectory lay in the completion of a circuit cruise of the Arctic Circle with Jarlath’s own-built expedition yacht Northabout.

Northabout returns to Clew Bay in Mayo after completing the Arctic circumnavigation. Photo: Rory Casey

Meanwhile, on the racing scene the new international pace-setter from Ireland was Anthony O’Leary of Crosshaven, whose father Archie had far-sightedly set the biennial Cork Week firmly in place in 1978. Anthony had been setting a ferocious pace for years in various boats called Antix, but in 2010 he led the Irish Commodore’s Cup team to its first victory, and he re-gained the trophy in 2014. To outsiders this was a team effort, but to anyone in the know it was only the O’Leary name that really mattered.

Anthony O’Leary – his personal determination played the key role in Ireland’s regaining the Commodore’s Cup in 2014. Photo: Robert Bateman

You might well think that this high-achieving “alternative Irish sailing scene” is only to be found outside the strait-jacket of pre-ordained Performance Sailing Programmes and the narrow Olympic channels. But even in that rarefied world, a spark of determined individualism can make a significant difference, and this played a role in Annalise Murphy’s Silver Medal in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, one of the very few Olympiads where sailing was able to take centre stage.

It’s no secret that by the final stages the official budget was exhausted, and Annalise had to rely on the support of family, friends and sponsors to keep the show on the road. But as well, with sailing being way down the pecking order in sports rankings, the Irish sailing team were expected to accept basic shoreside accommodation which was at some distance from the sailing base, and that in a city where simply walking the streets can be hazardous.

Rio de Janeiro’s topography may have put the Olympic sailing events at centre stage, yet it took some personal initiative for Annalise Murphy to secure convenient accommodation which helped create the right mood for medal winning.

But Annalise sorted it by accessing herself a convenient waterside apartment, a world away from the official barracks. There may have been many factors in the very positive “I’m really enjoying my sailing” attitude she showed as the regatta drew towards it remarkable conclusion. But there can be no doubt that her determined individuality in acquiring a welcoming shore base had a lot to do with it.

There are many other special individuals who make a difference which in time manifests itself in improvements in the national sailing scene, and since 1978 Alistair Rumball’s Irish National Sailing School in Dun Laoghaire has been ploughing what was initially a very lonely furrow in encouraging everyday sailing and boating interest to what is now a very special level.

But while Alistair Rumball came from a sailing background in Malahide - that very special cradle of our sport - another of Irish sailing’s true innovators and inspiring individuals, Ronan o Siochru of Irish Offshore Sailing, came from a totally non-sailing background in Bishopstown in Cork city.

Yet so totally was he hooked by a boat experience in Kinsale that even while still a pre-teenager and very impecunious with it, he hitch-hiked his way to Kinsale through rain, hail and shine to work his way into the sailing scene, saving enough from various part-time jobs to buy a rather tired Flying Fifteen for £600 in the last of the pre-Euro days.

After many adventures – no other word will do – he set out to establish a serious offshore-related sailing school, and realized that available numbers for his customer base dictated that Dun Laoghaire was where it had to be located. So he and his new wife Salome sailed the basis of their fleet – a well-used ex-charter Jeanneau Sunfast 37 of 2002 vintage – from Southampton to their new base in Dun Laoghaire in 2010, and ever since Irish Offshore Sailing has been working there thrugh winter and summer, their specialities including a pathway to both Round Ireland and Fastnet Race participation.

Heroes of Ireland’s “Alternative Sailing Scene” – Ronan and Salome O Siochru of Irish Offshore Sailing. Photo: W M Nixon

Thus as the new-look Fastnet Race drew towards its novel August 2021 finish in Cherbourg, in that roller-coaster season of last year Irish observers were encouraged to note that IOS’s Ronan o Siochru with Desert Star – the same Sunfast 37 of 2002-vintage which had started it all – was on line to be on the podium for Class IV, after sailing a well nigh-perfect race despite being one of the oldest boats in the class.

In fact, they finished second in class and 14th overall, and were rapidly closing on the Class IV winning X332 in the final stages. Thus the happy situation is that when “alternative Irish sailing” is producing results of this calibre, with great individualists and achievers continuing to emerge out of the undergrowth, then we can live with things going astray in the official mainstream now and again.