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Displaying items by tag: 5o5

Thirteen Class 1 dinghies sailed the penultimate day of league racing at Monkstown Bay Sailing Club in Cork Harbour.

Racing for the season will conclude this Saturday, with prizegiving afterwards in the clubhouse.

Dinghies are the club’s only racing boats and, despite the varying weather patterns this season, there has been strong support. For many sailors, dinghies are the introduction to the sport, so are a vital step into sailing and, often, lead to a lifetime in the sport.

With final league racing scheduled for this Saturday, the Class 1fleet is led by the 505 crew of Ewen Barry, Charles Dwyer, John Coakley on 5 points, seven clear of second-placed Laser sailor, Brendan Dwyer on 12. Veteran Laser sailor, Davy O’Connell, who has been a monthly winner during the season, is third on 21 points.

In Class 2 the leader is Olin Bateman, sailing a Laser 4.7 and looking the certain overall winner on 5 points, well clear of second-placed Ethel Bateman in another Laser 4.7 on 25. Third is the RS Feva XL of Isobelle Clarke Waterman and Conor Donald Kelly on 56 points.

Measurement and registration is underway at the Royal Cork Yacht Club in Crosshaven today (Weds) and tomorrow (Thursday) for the 505 World Championships, in which racing gets underway on Monday.

This is the fourth time the Championships will be held at the RCYC.

“80 boats, now fully carbon, have travelled from across the globe to compete,” say the RCYC organisers.

12 Irish boats are entered, including three Barry brothers under the Royal Cork & Monkstown Bay burgees; Peter Scannell and John Dunlea who currently live on the East Coast of the US but return to Cork for the event; Monkstown Bay Commodore Sandy Rimmington teams up with John Downey and an unmissable name on the list is Denis O’Sullivan with crew Jan Van Der Puil. The Irish fleet will be under pressure to beat Harold Cudmore and Chris Bruen’s podium finish in the 1969 Worlds in Argentina.

The entry list is a who’s who of World Sailing; Luke Payne of Australia joins us fresh from the Sail GP event in the UK, multiple World Champions and Rolex Yachtsmen of the year Mike Martin and Adam Lowry are here along with fierce rivals and fellow multiple World Champions Mike Holt and Rob Woelful, all round sailing legend Howie Hamlin has come from California, Olympic medallist Caleb Paine teams up with Olympian and Melges 24 World Champion Stu McNay from the USA.

There will be pre-Worlds sailing on Friday and Saturday.

The Championships will be raced on Monday and Tuesday, there is a Lay Day on Wednesday and racing will continue on Friday and conclude on Saturday of next week.

Published in Royal Cork YC

The launch of the long-awaited 5o5 Book telling the story of the 5o5 and how it has come to dominate the performance dinghy scene will finally be launched at the World Championship in Cork.

2022 is already shaping up to be a great year for the 5o5 Class, for after being forced by Covid to cancel their last two World Championships, scheduled for Sweden and Bermuda, the good news is that this event will return to Cork, in Southern Ireland next August.

As Afloat reported previously, this will be the fourth time that the Royal Cork Yacht Club will have hosted this prestigious event, with 1959, 1964 and the 1982 World Championships being regarded as classics, held across a wide range of conditions.

With the Royal Cork being acknowledged as the world's oldest yacht club, it is fitting that mid-championship next year that they will be hosting the launch of the long-awaited book telling the story of the 5o5, and how it has come to dominate the performance dinghy scene.

There is a very good saying that warns readers to 'not judge a book by its cover' but this is one occasion when the cover itself will have a big part to play, as it will lead the reader into the detailed narrative set out in the book. There are lots of fantastic pictures of FiveOs out there, as the boat has always been very photogenic, but for the book cover something special will be needed.

Luckily, Christophe Favreau, the famous international marine photographer has long enjoyed a close association with the 5o5 Class, and over the years has captured the best of the action at events around the world. Now, as the book moves towards being launched, Christophe has generously donated a selection of some of his iconic photos, one of which will be selected on the book cover.

The 12 cover shots to be posted starting December 25.

More here

Published in Royal Cork YC
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Howth 17 information

The oldest one-design keelboat racing class in the world is still competing today to its original 1897 design exclusively at Howth Yacht club.

Howth 17 FAQs

The Howth 17 is a type of keelboat. It is a 3-man single-design keelboat designed to race in the waters off Howth and Dublin Bay.

The Howth Seventeen is just 22ft 6ins in hull length.

The Howth 17 class is raced and maintained by the Association members preserving the unique heritage of the boats. Association Members maintain the vibrancy of the Class by racing and cruising together as a class and also encourage new participants to the Class in order to maintain succession. This philosophy is taken account of and explained when the boats are sold.

The boat is the oldest one-design keelboat racing class in the world and it is still racing today to its original design exclusively at Howth Yacht club. It has important historical and heritage value keep alive by a vibrant class of members who race and cruise the boats.

Although 21 boats are in existence, a full fleet rarely sails buy turnouts for the annual championships are regularly in the high teens.

The plans of the Howth 17 were originally drawn by Walter Herbert Boyd in 1897 for Howth Sailing Club. The boat was launched in Ireland in 1898.

They were originally built by John Hilditch at Carrickfergus, County Down. Initially, five boats were constructed by him and sailed the 90-mile passage to Howth in the spring of 1898. The latest Number 21 was built in France in 2017.

The Howth 17s were designed to combat local conditions in Howth that many of the keel-less boats of that era such as the 'Half-Rater' would have found difficult.

The original fleet of five, Rita, Leila, Silver Moon, Aura and Hera, was increased in 1900 with the addition of Pauline, Zaida and Anita. By 1913 the class had increased to fourteen boats. The extra nine were commissioned by Dublin Bay Sailing Club for racing from Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire) - Echo, Sylvia, Mimosa, Deilginis, Rosemary, Gladys, Bobolink, Eileen and Nautilus. Gradually the boats found their way to Howth from various places, including the Solent and by the latter part of the 20th century they were all based there. The class, however, was reduced to 15 due to mishaps and storm damage for a few short years but in May 1988 Isobel and Erica were launched at Howth Yacht Club, the boats having been built in a shed at Howth Castle - the first of the class actually built in Howth.

The basic wooden Howth 17 specification was for a stem and keel of oak and elm, deadwood and frames of oak, planking of yellow pine above the waterline and red pine below, a shelf of pitch pine and a topstrake of teak, larch deck-beams and yellow pine planking and Baltic spruce spars with a keel of lead. Other than the inclusion of teak, the boats were designed to be built of materials which at that time were readily available. However today yellow pine and pitch pine are scarce, their properties of endurance and longevity much appreciated and very much in evidence on the original five boats.

 

It is always a busy 60-race season of regular midweek evening and Saturday afternoon contests plus regattas and the Howth Autumn League.

In 2017, a new Howth 17 Orla, No 21, was built for Ian Malcolm. The construction of Orla began in September 2016 at Skol ar Mor, the boat-building school run by American Mike Newmeyer and his dedicated team of instructor-craftsmen at Mesquer in southern Brittany. In 2018, Storm Emma wrought extensive destruction through the seven Howth Seventeens stored in their much-damaged shed on Howth’s East Pier at the beginning of March 2018, it was feared that several of the boats – which since 1898 have been the very heart of Howth sailing – would be written off. But in the end only one – David O’Connell’s Anita built in 1900 by James Clancy of Dun Laoghaire – was assessed as needing a complete re-build. Anita was rebuilt by Paul Robert and his team at Les Ateliers de l’Enfer in Douarnenez in Brittany in 2019 and Brought home to Howth.

The Howth 17 has a gaff rig.

The total sail area is 305 sq ft (28.3 m2).

©Afloat 2020