They’ve been part of our sailing furniture for so long that you could be forgiven for thinking Ireland’s historic local classes might just quietly fade away through being barely noticed. But you’d be very much mistaken. 2023 has been a season in which these special boats, and the quality sport they provide, have come to be seen in an ever more appreciative way.

For sure, in times past, each class would have its blindly faithful little group of adherents, who would refuse to consider any other sort of boat. But in recent years, the significant shift has been in the attitudes of support from sailors with experience in other craft – often many other craft - right up to the top international level.

TEDIOUS LOGISTICS OF INTERNATIONAL SPORT DIMINISH ITS ATTRACTION

Jaded perhaps by the increasing stress of international travel, and by the fact that the reasonably popular international sailing venues of yesteryear are now over-crowded places which have become far too busy for their own good, they have been taking a fresh look at the sport to be had in their home place, where their own journeys afloat began in boats which their fathers and uncles might have sailed.

Shannon One Designs in a stiff breeze on Lough Derg. One of Ireland’s many local classes which have recently passed a significant waypoint, they celebrated their centenary in 2022

And they find that what they previously took for granted is something to be cherished, appreciated and enjoyed as a source of a very special sort of sport, a true community endeavour where a meaningful role and sense of participation is found for crews of all levels of competitive talent.

CONGENIAL NEIGHBOURHOOD CLUBS

The fact that in most cases in Ireland, this ready sport afloat is to be found just down the road in the congenial neighbourhood club means that returning international hotshots have to learn to ease off a bit on their game. It’s a sort of unwritten rule which has meant that the most diligent application of the written rules tends to be undertaken by class veterans who may even – dare one say it – have something of a vendetta going back many years against another boat. That’s how it can go in local racing.

Senior citizens. The Mylne-designed Strangford Lough River Class celebrated their Centenary in 2020. They are believed to be the world’s first One-Design class to have set Bermudan rig when new

MULTIPLE ANNIVERSARIES

This refreshed interest in local classes has been further energised by a slew of special anniversaries. The handsome yet hefty River Class sloops on Strangford Lough celebrated their Centenary in 2020, in 2022 the Shannon One Designs were on their energetically-celebrated One Hundred while the 25ft Glen Class in Strangford Lough and Dun Laoghaire marked their 75th, and in 2023 the Howth Seventeens have been marking their 125th year in an inspired programme led by Class Captain David O’Shea, while the 18ft Belfast Lough Waverleys have celebrated their 120th at their new base with Strangford Lough YC at Whiterock, which bids fair to become Classic Classes Central with the Rivers and Glens already well established in the bay.

“Slipping effortlessly along” – whether it’s Belfast Lough or Strangford, the 18ft Waverley keelboats have a fine performance which belies their workaday looks

WAVERLEY “HOMECOMING”

And as it happens, in a sense it’s a homecoming for the Waverleys, for although the class originated in 1903 with the County Antrim Yacht Club at Whitehead on Belfast Lough, in the two or three years before World War I in 1914 five boats to the design raced on Strangford, with all of them named for seabirds. When the Strangford class failed to revive after the War, they were all bought up for Belfast Lough racing and allowed to join the Waverley Class provided that, like their sister-ships, they took new names from Walter Scott’s Waverley novels.

New life for an old boat – Waverley Class as restored by Ricky le Boas of Ardglass, who has also “worked magic” on boats of the Glen Class from both Strangford Lough and Dublin Bay

The reviving Dublin Bay 21 Class colour scheme – work is now under way with Steve Morris of Kilrush on the fifth boat to be restored, with just two more to be done to complete the class

At the same time, classes such as the Dublin Bay 21s – with Oola, the fifth boat of the original seven now in full re-birth process with Steve Morris of Kilrush in the Hal Sisk/Fionan de Barra class revival – have seen their 120th spread over both 2022 and 2023, while of course Dun Laoghaire is mother to them all with the enduringly-popular and increasing 1887-founded Water Wag ODs.

The 1887-originating Dublin Bay Water Wags have been able to carry their late afternoon Wednesday racing into the Autumn, as seen here on September 6th 2023

NEW TURN IN FAIRY CLASS STORY

There has been another celebration around the 120-year-mark for the 23ft Linton Hope-designed, John Hilditch of Carrickfergus-built Fairy Class sloops at their Cultra base on Belfast Lough with Royal North of Ireland YC.

But they have also seen an intriguing turn of fortune. The Brien family of RNIYC may be best known as International Dragon Class racers to the highest level with boats called Kin. But more recently, they’ve come to appreciate the fascinating quality of sport and camaraderie which is provided at home by the Fairy Class.

Yet although sail numbers in the class at Cultra ran to 15, the sometimes rugged weather of Belfast Lough and its exposed anchorages had reduced the number of viable boats to eleven. So when the trio of Mark Brien, Ed Cody and Mark Hunter felt they wanted to join a thriving class whose busy existence is continually chronicled by class honorary secretary, records keeper, historian and diarist David “Brick” Livingston, they looked to Lough Erne where a second branch of the class was established five years after the Belfast Lough division.

The two classes once raced together as one designs on Lough Erne some time around 1911, when the Belfast Lough division made a special inland voyage west via the Lagan Navigation, the Lagan Canal, Lough Neagh, the River Blackwater and the Ulster Canal to Lough Erne, despite which they still found the energy to take on the Fermanagh crews. But there has been a slight parting of the ways since, with the Belfast Lough boats up-dating to Bermudan rig while the Lough Erne boats stayed with the original long-boom gunter rig which required a longer bowsprit to maintain helm balance.

The Fairy Class on Lough Erne retained the original gunter rig

BELFAST LOUGH CLASS THRIVES, LOUGH ERNE WANES

However, while the Belfast Lough class has thrived mightily in recent years to become trendy, the Lough Erne division was becoming moribund in the face of demand for crews from the likes of the J/24 class. Nevertheless it must have required some delicate diplomacy for Mark Brien and his colleagues to persuade them down in Fermanagh that the best future for the rather tired Fairy OD Snipe was in a completely restored form, and re-rigged as a Bermudan sloop with a shortened bowsprit to become Belfast Lough Fairy Class Number 16, the first time the Cultra division has reached that registered fleet size.

New rig, new life – the former Lough Erne Fairy Class Snipe – now No 16 - makes her public debut at Holywood Regatta on Belfast Lough on September 2nd

The restoration proved to be a massive job which is fascinating for classic boat enthusiasts and any appreciators of quality workmanship, so we’ll be carrying a more detailed and fully-illustrated account in a future Afloat.ie. But meanwhile it meant that Snipe in her latest manifestation did not take to salt water for the first time in her 115 years until late in the 2023 season, and in fact her public debut was at Holywood Yacht Club Regatta on Saturday, 2nd September.

The setting could not have been more appropriate, as its drying nature means Holywood is a genuinely spectator-friendly regatta, as they can only race for an hour or two either side of high water - thus bringing the boats right inshore – while the club itself is the oldest on Belfast Lough, going right back to 1862. So it is allowed that Snipe got herself on the podium this time round, provided her crew realised that it wouldn’t be best for the class to make an unbroken habit of it.

Meanwhile in Strangford Lough the Waverlies had staged their 120th officially in a day of such awful weather in August that they used the gentler conditions of September 2nd for another race which was won by Nigel (Finn & John McCabe) in the happy presence of former owner Jimmy McKee of Ballyholme, whose good works on behalf of Ballyholme YC, the GP14 Class and the Waverleys have deservedly received national recognition.

The immaculately maintained Waverley Class Nigel (Finn & John McCabe) took the honours in the class’s 120th Anniversary celebrations at Whiterock

Unlike the Fairy Class, the Waverlies have all reverted to the original John Wylie-designed gunter rig, but their Bermudan rig did allow for the convenience of easy roller reefing, which Kevin & Colm Mac Laverty and Mick Clarke carried when they sailed Durward round Ireland in 1961. Now, however, in the ownership of Steve and Anne Allen, she is guntered.

SHANNON ODs REVERT TO PRIVATE LIFE AFTER PUBLIC EXUBERANCE OF CENTENARY

Sliding gunter rig has always been the rig of choice for the Shannon One Designs and the Dublin Bay Water Wags. And while the former have reverted to the anonymous totally private parallel existence on the Shannon Lakes which they exuberantly abandoned last year for their Centenary, the word is that Andrew Mannion and David Dickson have been the helmsmen who have been showing in front during 2023’s recuperative season.

As for the Water Wags, as the weekly reports have been indicating in Afloat.ie all season, the class has been so healthy that many have been taking a win. It will be interesting to see how this ultimate local class, with its remarkable mixture of down-home sailors and international stars to Olympic level, will shape up during their regatta visit to Lough Key on the Upper Shannon area in a week’s time.

Undoubtedly August 2023…..Mermaids racing in their Nationals at Skerries with a sky that looks beyond threatening

Staying more local in their ambitions were the Dublin Bay Mermaids, now found racing only at Foynes on the Shannon Estuary, and Rush and Skerries in Fingal, with the latter providing weather which was truly Wagnerian for 2023’s annual championship at the beginning of August. Yet a winner emerged in the form of This Is It (No 177), sailed by Mark Boylan, Aileen Boylan, and Colman Grimes, whose personal contribution to sailing both in Skerries and nationally is the stuff of legend.

International Umpire Ailbhe Millerick’s superbly-restored Glenluce racing in the kind of conditions that Dublin Bay can provide when the going is good

Meanwhile, the Glen Class section in Dun Laoghaire may seem like just another local class, but its ranks include international offshore racing owner-skipper Adrian Lee, and International Umpire Ailbhe Milllerick, whose personal restoration of Glenluce was and is a wonder to behold.

They may well have unwritten rules about what the usual far-ranging post-race chat can encompass. After all, an International Umpire will have a juicy story or two. And though other local classes in Ireland can claim national and world champions, and Olympic medallists too, only the Dun Laoghaire Glens can claim the first-ever winner of the RORC Caribbean 600 Race in the person of Adrian Lee.

With four race wins, David Dickson finished top on a 32-boat Shannon One Design fleet to win the Lough Ree Yacht Club Weekend Series at Athlone in County Westmeath.

After six races sailed, Dickson was nine points clear of Andrew Mannion on 15 points. Third was Rachel Algeo, one point further back on 16. 

In a busy fortnight for the clicker three-man class, Lough Ree Annual Regatta concludes on Friday (11th August), with the Dromineer Castle Regatta starting on Friday. Next week's nearby Lough Derg Annual Regatta runs from 14th - 19th August.

Many people who visit Ireland's sea coasts under sail are unaware that they're really only seeing half of the story. For the unseen inland Ireland is a vast watery place of myriad lakes and winding waterways, so much so that it's said of Fermanagh - the most completely watery county of all - that for six months of the year, the lakes are in Fermanagh, but for the other six months, Fermanagh is in the lakes.

Be that as it may, in times past, the waterways played a key role for the transport of goods and people. So inevitably, as some folk became more affluent than others, their personal transport boats began to reflect this, and before anyone really knew where they were, they'd become yachts. Then, Ireland being Ireland, yacht clubs soon followed, with Lough Ree Yacht Club formed in 1770, Lough Erne YC in 1820, and Lough Derg YC in 1835.

Thus the inner Ireland, far from being a vague reflection of coastal Ireland, is a thriving sailing world complete unto itself. But while its very varied sailing accommodates many boat types, there is one unique craft that symbolises its special character - the una-rigged Shannon One Design. 

Shannon One Designs in a "One-Reef Breeze". The long slim clinker-built hulls are so flexible that it's said "they can turn round and look at you"

The class may or may not be celebrating its Centenary in 2022, for as I recall from crewing with the class deity Alf Delany at Dromineer in a special regatta in 1972 to celebrate the SODs' Golden Jubilee, there were those there who argued they were a year out, as it was all to do with whether or not you count the first year as zero or one…..

Either way, they're gorgeous boats which may have been seen sailing on the saltwater at classics regattas at Dun Laoghaire and Glandore, but somehow they never look completely right except when sailing on their own great lakes, or else taking part in the 40-plus miles Long Distance Race from Lough Ree down the Shannon to Lough Derg.

Though the prevailing south to southwest wind will make it a beat down Shannon from Lough Ree to Lough Derg, every so often some meandering of the river will provide a brief few moments of fair wind

This involves an overnight stop at Shannonbridge, where the hot rum and chocolate at Killeen's bar & grocery at the top of the street is renowned for bringing exhausted SoDs back to life, for in getting there from Athlone, they may well have made more tacks than could be counted, and in all, there are only two locks to provide a break.

A class like this evolves its own mythology, often comprehensible only to those closely involved. But fortunately, over the years, people like Douglas and Ruth Heard and others were recording it on film from a time well before everybody had a film camera whenever they took out their mobile phone.

Thanks to those pioneers, the class are having a closed Zoom session on Saturday night for a showing, commentary and discussion around Ruth Heard's 8mm movie of the 1988 Shannon One Design season, a show which will then be available to the world at large on YouTube in due course.

While the 1921-designed Shannon One Design may not have a standard planing hull, given enough breeze a helm with nerves of steel can get her riding the bow-wave with the best of them

While the 1921-designed Shannon One Design may not have a standard planing hull, given enough breeze a helm with nerves of steel can get her riding the bow-wave with the best of them.

#SOD - The Shannon One Design Association (SODA) has announced its latest Long Distance Race for the weekend of Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 June.

First raced in 1953, the Shannon One Design (SOD) competition is the longest inland dinghy sailing race in these islands.

And it’s a challenging one at that, with crews counting tacks often into the thousands while jockeying for position down a narrow river given to serious south-westerlies, though a northerly breeze can make for enjoyable downwind racing.

Either way, the race remains physically and mentally demanding over the two days, says SODA chairman John Leech, whose own mother crewed the race’s winning SOD in its inaugural outing, topping it with a win in her own right in the race's second year.

Race officer Edwin Hunter, who celebrates his 50th year in charge of proceedings, is also making it a family affair as his son and assistant David will take over his duties from 2018 onwards.

The race starts in Lough Ree Yacht Club on the Saturday, with the first leg taking the fleet to Athlone Lock.

From there the race continues to Clonmacnoise (leg 2) for lunch, Shannon Bridge (leg 3) and Banagher (leg 4), then resumes Sunday to Meelick Lock (leg 5) before finishing in Portumna (leg 6).

Leech expects a sizeable fleet of up to 50 boats this year and late entries are still welcome — anyone interested in taking part should contact the SODA Honorary Secretary at [email protected] for details.

#helmsmans – The stakes are raised in this weekend's All Ireland Senior Sailing Championship at Dromineer on Lough Derg following the success of the Junior Championship in Schull a fortnight ago. In some of the best sailing conditions of 2012, the new junior title holder by a clear margin was West Cork's Fionn Lyden (17), who has since been declared the Afloat.ie/Irish Independent "Sailor of the Month" for September.

But Lyden has been allowed little time to reflect on his success. He's back in the fray this weekend in the seniors event, and the lineup he will face racing in the SailFleet J/80s contains some formidable talent, including defending champion George Kenefick (24) of Crosshaven.

Former champion Mark Mansfield has been on top form recently, heading the racing in the 1720s, and he is fired up to avenge the narrow defeat inflicted on him by Kenefick at the same venue a year ago in this championship.

As the racing is in a specialized boat which does not feature as a supported class at any Irish sailing centre, the hope is that the competition will be as even as possible among sailors who usually helm craft of many different types. But of course the wind strengths will play a major role regardless of how even the racing is in theory, and predictions for this weekend suggest a wide variety of conditions.

Today's expected light breezes could inflict havoc in the programme, but the prospect of a freshening southeaster tomorrow – albeit with rain later – will provide ample opportunities to get a result before the weekend is out.

The lineup includes an interesting mixture of sailing specialities, including two veterans of the 2012 Olympics, Star class helm Peter O'Leary from Cork and the 49er's Ryan Seaton from Ballyholme.

Carrickfergus is putting forward Trevor Kirkpatrick, the helm from the Ruffian 23 class on Belfast Lough. It is of course the hope of all club sailors that some day the All Ireland will throw up an unexpected winner from one of the minor leagues. But that hasn't happened for a long time now, and by tomorrow afternoon the smart money is betting that it will be the big guns yet again in the final shootout.

Thus the likelihood of Royal Cork dominating with Mansfield, Kennefick and O'Leary setting the pace is high, but as well there are several highly possible contenders in the form of Tim Goodbody, Ben Duncan, David Dickson, Fionn Lyden, and Alan Ruigrok.

THE SOD IS YOUR FLEXIBLE FRIEND

When you consider the nationwide spread of the home ports of these top sailing talents, there's inescapable logic in staging the All Ireland on Lough Derg, as it and Lough Ree are about as central as you can get in Ireland. It was back in 1982 that I first saw what Dromineer could do when the Helmsmans Championship was staged in Shannon One Designs, and the winner was Dave Cummins of Sutton, crewed by Gordon Maguire no less, and Joe MacSweeney.

There was no lack of wind at that championship, but as John Lefroy's 1874-built all-iron former steam yacht Phoenix was the committee boat, the race officers (Jock Smith was OOD) at least were comfortably ensconced, and when the racing was completed we took the Phoenix up the lough at full chat just for the hell of it, giving a passable impression of a destroyer at the Battle of Jutland.

She'd turn round and look at you". Even in a moderate breeze, the Shannon One Design (sailed here by Sid Shine of Lough Ree) develops a marked twist in her hull.

As for the Shannon One Designs being sailed as hard as they could go by Ireland's brightest and best, they coped remarkably well, though inevitably there were breakages. The design having been developed from slim lake boats, the clinker hulls tend to twist a bit when pinned in for hard windward work - as Pompey Delaney used to say, in a breeze they'd turn round and look at you.

Both Dave Cummins and Gordon Maguire have been Australia-based for many years now, and of course Gordon was sailing master aboard the superb 63ft Loki, overall winner of the most recent Sydney-Hobart Race. He was home recently with his family for a few weeks holiday, and caught me out round the back of Howth YC in the boatyard in the midst of the keel and rudder re-configuration which is the current boat project (and has been for quite some time). Fortunately the great man dropped by at a stage when the job was going well, which isn't necessarily always the case. It's a bit unnerving, to say the least, to have your work evaluated by a Sydney-Hobart winner who is also trained in engineering, but if he thought the whole thing was crazy, he was still too polite to say so.

DESJOY FOR DESJOYEAUX

The fantastic trimarans of the MOD 70 class will by now be cherishing their memories of the great racing they had in Dublin Bay in good breezes on Saturday September 8th, as they have finally completed their European Tour at Genoa, and lack of wind has been a problem for much of the southern section of the programme.

Michel Desjoyeaux emerged as overall winner of the EuroTour on Foncia. But "emerged" is very much the word, as the final miles into Genoa saw these mighty machines crawling along at just two knots in the finest of zephyrs. It looked as though Spindrift Racing had it all sewn up, but by snatching a couple of places virtually on the finish line – just as he did on the stage from Kiel to Dun Laoghaire – the Foncia skipper carried off the cup, while Spindrift Racing was the season's winner when the Transatlantic results are combined with the EuroTour points.

Despite the subdued finish, the potential of this new class to provide spectacular sailing in a manageable budget has been amply proven, and it provides a marked contrast with the America's Cup, where the focus has swung to San Francisco and next year's series.

Foncia (Michel Desjoyeaux, seen here in Dublin Bay) has won the MOD 70s EuroTour, while Spindrift Racing is the season's champion. Photo W M Nixon

That will be raced in 70ft catamarans, and the first of these awesome and unbelievably expensive machines has been showing her paces. But meanwhile not everyone is a happy budgie in San Francisco, where a proposed major development of two piers to provide useful shore bases for challengers has been changed into an intention to have all the action focused more on the Golden Gate Yacht Club.

As ever with the America's Cup, massive sums of money top the agenda, and you can understand the frustration of the few remaining challengers as they take on the huge resources of Larry Ellison. After all, how can a few guys from New Zealand and their mates expect to face up to someone who has recently been able to buy quite a substantial Hawaiian island out of pocket money?

Courtesy of the Shannon One Design Association:

The Shannon One Design sailboat (known as a 'SOD' or 'Shannon') has a long and colourful history going back to 1920, when it was originally designed by Morgan Giles. Despite its charming looks, the Shannon One Design is a very exciting boat to sail and fleets of SODs have been racing on Loughs Ree and Derg in Ireland since 1922. The racing is very competitive, and the sailing season is filled each year with a wide variety of events. SODA is governed by a committee made up of Shannon One Design owners and sailors.

The Shannon One Design Association (SODA) is the Governing Body for the Shannon One Design Sailing Class. SODA is responsible for fixing the class rules and also for the enforcement of those rules.

History

The Shannon One Design (SOD) is an 18 foot boat unique to the lakes of Derg and Ree on the Shannon river in Ireland. On the 29th January 1920 a meeting of delegates from the Lough Derg, Lough Ree and North Shannon Yacht Clubs was held in the Prince of Wales Hotel in Athlone to set about the introduction of a one-design class racing boat on the Shannon. The SOD 'Design 102' by Morgan Giles was based on his Essex One Design both in profile and in sections.

The first Shannon One design trial boat was ordered in 1921 from Walter Levinge by L. Graham (Boy) Toler, and named 'Phyllis' later numbered SOD 43 and renamed 'Red Boat' in 1923. The new class should have commenced numbering at No 1, but this did not happen. Numbering of the following boats began at number 32.

The Shannon One Design began to race in earnest in 1922. New hull and sail specifications were adopted in 1989 to take into consideration emerging marine technologies. There is keen competition in the two major regattas at Lough Derg YC and Lough Ree YC in August. The Shannon One design boat register now exceeds No. 175.

Sailing Shannons has always attracted families, and generations in many cases have been involved in campaigning the same boat down through the years. Indeed many of the same family names that attended that first meeting in 1922 still feature in SOD racing today. 

The Boats

The Shannon One Design is a wooden, clinker-built, eighteen-foot (5.49m) racing dinghy, propelled by a single gunter-rigged mainsail of 140 square feet (15.6 sq.m). The boat has a relatively narrow beam of 4 feet 10.5 inches (1.5m), and draws 4 feet (1.23m) with her centreboard down.

With a large sail and comparatively narrow beam, a Shannon One Design is a lively performer, especially in a fresh breeze, and requires a three-person crew for normal sailing. 

There has long been a strong boat-building tradition on Loughs Derg and Ree, and almost all Shannon One Designs have come from the yards of skilled local craftsmen.

The boats are unique to the river Shannon and are actively raced in both Lough Ree Yacht Club and in Lough Derg Yacht Club.

Shannon sailing attracts a wide range of sailors from far and wide, not simply limited to Shannon riverside dwellers. At the two main events each year, the week-long regattas at Ballyglass on Lough Ree and Dromineer on Lough Derg, up to 55 SODs have been counted. These will be sailed by a mixture of local sailors and others based in Dublin or elsewhere (as far away as the USA), most of whom return year on year to compete.

Above all, the Shannon One Design class is a lot of fun, in which conviviality, wit, character and friendship are on a par with the high quality of the racing. Individual boats seem to develop their own idiosyncrasies to complement the eccentricities of those privileged to sail them. There is a strong and growing presence of young people alongside the older sailors, and new boats are joining the fleet every season.

Shannon One Design Association, c/o Damian Maloney, Honorary Secretary, 35 Littlewood, Stepaside, Dublin 18. Email: [email protected]

In March 2009, Graham Smith profiled the class for Afloat magazine as follows: "As one of the traditional clinker-built boats, you could be excused for thinking that the venerable SOD would be a static class on the numbers front, but you would be very wrong indeed. The number of clubs racing SODs remains at three but with 115 boats on the books, it ranks as a top five class.

That figure represents a 4% increase on the previous year, as new boats are built each year, although the increase is not reflected in numbers racing in the various regional championships during the summer when turn-outs were disappointingly low (the average in four events was around a dozen).

A feature of the year was the wide variety of venues, not restricted to the usual Lough Ree or Derg Yacht Clubs but with events in Kilgarvan, Cong, Mountshannon and Lanesborough, representing four different counties. It also saw four different winners, with Damian Maloney, Mark McCormick, John and Stephen O’Driscoll and Eoin Carroll winning the Easterns, Westerns, Southerns and Northerns respectively.
The Nationals saw a marked improvement in numbers with 26 boats competing at Lough Ree YC, where local hot-shot David Dickson added to his list of successes.
National Champion: David Dickson, Lough Ree YC 

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