A month ago, Afloat.ie ran a story around the now-defunct but much-mourned Kilbarrack Sailing Club, and how an entire generation of young sailors in Dublin Bay learned their sailing in the Jack Holt-designed 11ft Heron Class dinghies. But then, so the story went, after some ferocious inter-class politics, the Herons found themselves being completely displaced by the Mirrors. The Mirrors continue to thrive at several centres, but you'd be doing well to find a Heron in any sort of sailing condition anywhere. However, nature abhors a vacuum, and this new posting on the Howth YC Facebook page speaks for itself. As the Howth Marina Management Office puts it, "with the pandemic lockdown regulations easing, we’re starting to get all sorts of interesting visitors….”
Meanwhile, the rest of us wonder if pterodactyls really are extinct, or are they just hiding in plain sight?
See the heron in flight on the HYC Facebook page here