The Cruising Club of America is celebrating its Centenary this year, and while the actual birth date may not fall until September, the Club is already in the midst of a busy special season which saw its recent biennial Newport-Bermuda Race attract a record fleet.

Meanwhile, one of the CCA’s keenest members, Hiroshi Nakajima, who sails from Stamford in Connecticut, has been in the midst of his own complex celebratory programme to mark both the Golden Jubilee of his own vessel - the 1971-built S&S 49ft sloop Hiro Maru ex-Scaramouche - and the CCA Centenary.

Hiro Maru crossing the finish line at the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes to complete the Transatlantic Race

Hiro Maru’s oceanic routing in recent seasons has included a Transatlantic Race, the 2021 Fastnet Race, and now the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race 2022, in which, despite her many years, she took 16th overall, tenth in class, and fifth of the overseas entries, a very good score in competition of this quality.

Darryl Hughes’ Maybird lying serenely to her moorings in Crosshaven, which is now her home port. Photo: Robert Bateman

And there is one very special award which has gone straight to Hiro Maru. It’s new to the race this year, and is the DBOGA Maybird Mast Trophy for the oldest boat to complete the course. Donated by Dublin Bay Old Gaffers Association Honorary Secretary Darryl Hughes, it’s in fond memory of the time in 2018 he went round in the oldest boat ever to complete the course, the 1937 Tyrrell of Arklow 43ft gaff ketch Maybird.

Round Ireland Race Organiser Hal Fitzgerald with Hiroshi Najima and the DBOGA Maybird Mast Trophy 

Maybird’s home port is now Crosshaven, and she may be joined there in due course by Hiro Maru, as one scenario being sketched out last winter for the boat’s continuing 2022 programme was contesting the K2Q, aka the Kingstown to Queenstown Race on July 7h, and then competing in the Classics Division in Volvo Cork Week. Whatever the outcome, despite being faced by the historic likes of Marie Tabarly’s Pen Duick VI, Ian Hickey’s Granada 38 Cavatina, and Tony Kingston’s Swan 40 Shindig, Hiro Maru was the oldest boat to finish the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race 2022. And as it happens, she beat that very distinguished yet marginally younger threesome on corrected time as well.

Built in 1971 to a Sparkman & Stephens design by Palmer Johnson of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, the 49ft Hiro Maru ex-Scaramouche is a classic example from the era when the finest alloy yachts in America were built by boatyards on the Great Lakes