Howth Yacht Club sailors Dylan Gannon and Luke Malcolm are lying seventh overall after four races sailed on Ross Warburton’s Club Swan 50 Perhonen at this week's Swan Copa Del Rey Mapfre at Palma, Spain. 

As you would expect at a Swan Regatta, there's an endless list of big crew names in attendance, and in particular, tacticians are a who's who of America's Cup and Olympic sailing in the 16-boat Swan 50 fleet, including sailors from the Grand Prix circuits and Volvo Ocean Races too.

In all, seven Irish sailors are in action this week, with the regatta running until Saturday. Six are racing in the Swan 50s with Julie Tingle racing in the Swan 36 division.

On the Bay of Palma, it was one of Spain’s most decorated Olympic heroes, Iker Martinez, who guided Andrea Masi’s Italian flagged ClubSwan 50 Ulika to the best scores of the day, a first and second from the hot fleet which includes Olympic aces such as Jochen Schumann (ONEGroup) and Tom Slingsby (Earlybird).

King Philip VI rarely misses a regatta and this year is no exception. The Spanish monarch competes on ORC 1 division of the regatta on Aifos500

HYC's Gannon is back sailing with his regular team (downwind trim) on Perhonen, and clubmate Malcolm is making his Swan 50 debut as a bowman.

Fresh from success in the J/80s in Denmark, North Sails Ireland sailmaker Shane Hughes is back with his regular team (running the boat) on Mathilde. The National Yacht Club's Will Byrne from Dublin Bay is running the mid-bow on Mathilde, currently lying 13th at the halfway point of the regatta. 

Swan 50 racing in the Bay of Palma Photo: Ricardo Pinto

Cork Harbour native Tom McWilliam is a headsail trimmer on the Utekha and is joined by Ireland's Volvo Round the World champion Justin Slattery. 

Full crew lists are here. Full results here

Classic Lake Garda conditions returned for the penultimate day of the 2021 ILCA 6 Youth Worlds that saw Howth's Eve McMahon back on top of the leaderboard. 

Results are tight and the forecast is good for the final day of the championship tomorrow.

McMahon now leads by five points from Czech Republic's Alessia Palanti on 28 points. 

The top two have a gap of 19 points on Anja Von Allmen in third on 47 points in the 55-boat gold fleet.

The Facebook video below shows the powerful form of McMahon at mark one of race 3 of the Girls Gold Fleet.

Download results pdf below

Volatile weather in northern Italy is adding to the drama in the huge fleet racing the current Laser/ILCA Youth Worlds on Lake Garda. The threat of sudden and violent winds making if difficult for competitors and organisers alike to keep their cool as thunderstorms rumble around majestic peaks which make your average Irish mountain look like a foothill.

Yet despite all this and a fleet of 108 helms in the Girls Division, Howth’s Eve McMahon has been bearing up to the pressure of being the “target sailor”, a position she inevitably took on after winning the first two races, as Afloat reported earlier here.

Even though she slipped to a fifth in the third race, she continues two points clear overall of Switzerland’s Anja von Sllmen, and three on the Czech Republic’s Alessia Palanti.

Racing continues until Saturday - as and when electric storms permit.

Full results here

Howth Yacht Club's Eve McMahon has gone straight into the lead of the 2021 ILCA  6 Laser Radial  Youth World Championships in Arco, Italy. 

Morning thunderstorms held the fleets ashore for day one at the northern end of Lake Garda.

The typical south wind never developed, but a nice 10-12 knot northerly breeze allowed two races to be completed for all fleets.

McMahon and Robby Meek of the United States found the conditions to their liking, both posting perfect score lines in the girls and boys divisions respectively.

With a marginal forecast for tomorrow, the race committee has moved the start time forward three hours to try to get a full schedule of two races completed before the potential for bad weather in the afternoon.

McMahon is just one of a number of Irish sailors competing at the championships, click the link below for full results.

Provisional results after two races:

Girls Division

1. Eve McMahon (IRL) 2 Pts.
2. Alessia Palanti (CZE) 4 Pts.
3. Anja Von Allmen (SUI) 6 Pts.
4. Marissa Ijben (NED) 9 Pts.
5. Amaya Escudero (USA) 9 Pts.
6. Linda Hensel (GER) 12 Pts.
7. Maria Martinez (ESP) 13 Pts.
8. Gemma Llamas Vallespir (ESP) 13 Pts.
9. Pia Conradi (GER) 15 Pts.
10. Sophia Montgomery (THA) 15 Pts.

Boys Division

2. Yogev Alcalay (ISR) 3 Pts.
3. Oskar Madonich (UKR) 4 Pts.
4. Hidde Schraffordt (NED) 5 Pts.
5. Mattia Cesana (ITA) 5 Pts.
6. Sebastian Kempe (BER) 7.2 Pts.
7. Javier Segui (ESP) 9 Pts.
8. Erik Norlen (SWE) 10 Pts.
9. Martins Atilla (LAT) 11 Pts.
10. Marcos Altarriba (ESP) 11 Pts.

Full results here

It was considered good going in the brief season of 2020 when Paul and Laura McMahon's 1978-vintage prototype Puppeteer 22 Shiggi Shiggi (sail number #1) emerged fresh but untried from the restoration laboratories and took the national title.

But in making their 2021 defence in a six-race series over this past sunny weekend in Howth, the McMahon boat by no means had it all her own way. In fact, the overnight leader after some highly photogenic competition in quite a decent sea breeze on Saturday was Trick or Treat (Alan Pearson & Alan Blay), and it was only by the third race that Shiggi Shiggi appeared to have found her mojo hidden in the back of a locker or wherever, waiting for its full deployment to win that particular contest from Scorie Walls in Gold Dust, with Trick or Treat in third.

On course for history – the leading Puppeteers head for the Portmarnock Mark, close under Portmarnock House, the former home of the legendary Jameson sailing (and whiskey) family. In the right foreground are Odyssey (#50, P & R Byrne) and Inter-Scepter (#34, Simon Knowles, which was restored in a 300-hour lockdown refurbishment project). Photo: Annraoi Blaney

HYC Vice Commodore Neil Murphy at the helm of Yellow Peril was among those vying for a podium place. Photo: Annraoi Blaney

Other who'd shown well in the first day included HYC Vice Commodore Neil Murphy helming Yellow Peril, and the May/Burke combo in Honey Badger. But on Sunday, Shiggi Shiggi took decisive control with three wins, and in the circumstances, the interest lay in who came second. Trick or Treat's Saturday success stood the Pearson/Blay team to the good, they were runners-up four points clear ahead of Gold Dust.

Winner trim. Shiggi Shiggi looking every inch a champion as she races through Howth Sound past the Martello Tower on Ireland's Eye. Photo: Annraoi Blaney

Shiggi Shiggi was going so fast that she even overcame the HPH handicap system to win on that as well, but other names came onto the podium, second going to Mr Punch (Ni Bhraonain Wilson) and third (on a tie break) to P & R Byrne's Odyssey – details here 

Paul McMahon and his winning crew have just crossed the final line….. In the weeks ahead, it may take a real effort of memory to recall that for a magic time in 2021, we sailed in temperatures like this. Photo: Annraois Blaney

It's not often that universally-agreed forecasts of exceptionally good weather will cause a reduction in numbers for an upcoming sailing race. But as the week drew on and yesterday (Saturday's) annual Aqua Restaurant-sponsored Two-Hander at Howth came steadily up the agenda, the number of authoritative predictions of "no wind at all unless a sea breeze happens to develop" were such that where in 2020 - in a lockdown-emerger - they'd 38 entries, this time round there were 29, and they'd to wait out a two-hour postponement until the sweetest sea breeze came in from between east and southeast.

The JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI (Conor O'Higgins) and the First 40.7 Tiger (Stephen Harris) getting into the groove. Photo: Annraoi Blaney

Former winner Checkmate XV (Dave Cullen and Aidan Beggan) gathers speed as she gets into open water. Photo: Annraoi Blaney

Dun Laoghaire visitor More Mischief (right) went home with a First Prize. Photo: Annraoi Blaney

Their patience was rewarded many times over, for as Annraoi Blaney's selection of Mediterranean-but-better photos indicate, this was the purest essence of summer sailing. This was a day which – when the dark damp glooms of winter are upon us – will be contemplated in loving wonder. And all power to Dave Murnane for having thought of it all some years ago and kept it going ever since, for the fact of everyone being two-handed forms a special bond, even in socially-distanced après sailing.

The only real danger was heat-stroke, and happily it seems that the only victim of this was the HYC Computer Results System. That said, it was trouble enough, for the electronics experienced such a wobbler that Race Officer Scorie Walls had to resort to pencil and paper to produce a reasonably accurate set of results in time for a prize-giving before two visitors from Dun Laoghaire – Conor O'Higgins with his family's renowned JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI, and Greg Kalinecki with his First 31 More Mischief – had to head for home.

Floating living history – the Ron Holland-designed Shamrock Class Silver Shamrock (Conor Fogerty & Suzanne Ennis) was Half Ton World Champion at Trieste in 1976 under Harold Cudmore's command. Photo: Annraoi Blaney

A busy ship is a happy ship – Robert Dix and Carla Fagan racing Jeannie to third place in the J/80s. Photo: Annraoi Blaney

It's at times like this that you realise why a J/80 is normally raced with a crew of four………Photo: Annraoi Blaney

As ever, it was a remarkably diverse fleet, with cruiser-racers ranging from the new J/99 Snapshot (Evans brothers, sailed by Mike Evans and Graham Curran) fresh from overall success at the Sovereigns in Kinsale, all the way back to the almost-fifty-years-old Shamrocks – Silver Shamrock (Conor Fogerty), the Half Ton World Champion of 1976, and Windsor Laudan and Steffi Ennis's Club Shamrock Demelza, which also started her winning career in the 1970s, in those distant days in the ownership of the Mansfield family of Crosshaven.

Are the East Coast of Ireland's tectonic plates shifting? Rockabill closes up on Ireland's Eye. Photo: Annraoi Blaney

In the Puppeteer 22s, Trick or Treat (Alan Blay & Alan Pearson, right) was to have the best of it. Photo: Annraoi Blaney

In the One-Design categories, the J/80s had a very healthy turnout, with Dan and Dylan O'Grady in Jammie getting first from Bryan Byrne and Keith Glynn in Beeboop & Ricksteady, while Robert Dix and Carla Fagan were third in Jeannie. And in a more modest fleet, the Puppeteer 22s saw the honours go to Alan Blay & Alan Pearson in Trick or Treat.

The cruiser results were worked every which way, but in straightforward line honours Snapshot – with Mike Evans teamed with Graham Curran – was first home, 28 seconds ahead of the First 40.7 Tiger (Stephen & Jennie Harris).

Provisional HYC Aqua Challenge 2021 results:

IRC Spinnaker Class: 1st Snapshot (J/99, Mike Evans & Graham Curran) 2nd Lambay Rules (J/97, Stephen Quinn & Dave Cotter).

IRC Spinnaker Class Under 940 Rating: More Mischief (First 31, Greg Kalinecki & Jakub Gajewski, Dun Laoghaire)

ECHO Spinnaker Class: 1st Indian (J/109, Simon Knowles & Colm Buckley); 2nd Checkmate XV (Half Ton Classic, Dave Cullen & Aidan Beggan).

IRC White Sails: 1st Tiger (First 40.7, Stephen & Jennie Harris).

ECHO White Sails: 1st Toughnut (MG34, Dermot Skehan & Conor Macken).

J/80: 1st Jammy (Dan & Dylan O'Grady); 2nd Beeboop & Rocjsteady (Bryan Byrne & Keith Glynn); 3rd Jeannie (Robert Dix & Carla Fagan).

Puppeteer 22: 1st Trick of Treat (Alan Bay & Alan Pearson); 2nd Odyssey (Philip & Barry Byrne)

Captain cool. Mike Evans brings Snapshot cleanly through the boats summer-anchored in Howth Sound at Ireland's Eye, on his way to line honours and the IRC win. Photo: Annraoi Blaney

After their first overall in the 2021 J/80 Danish Opens which acted as the preliminary for the upcoming Worlds at the same venue, Pat O’Neill of Howth and his crew knew the stakes would be much higher in the big one, as the Royal Danish YC is a J/80 magnet attracting a Worlds fleet in which getting into the top ten would be a major achievement. But they managed that - in fact, they were well clear of ten, finishing overall at sixth. The crew were Pat O’Neill, Shane Hughes, Ryan Glynn and Steve Ryan.

With good weather in prospect for the weekend, interest is quickening in Saturday’s (July 17th) Aqua Two-Handed Challenge at Howth Yacht Club. Contrary to popular opinion, this is an open event. But over the years, the Howthmen have managed to keep the prize of a gourmet dinner at the classy pier-end Aqua Restaurant on Howth Harbour as something to be enjoyed only by one of their own. Thus it’s surely time and more that sailors from neighbouring clubs dealt with this overly-possessive attitude…...

In 2020s truncated season, it was one of Howth YC’s highlight happenings afloat, with an entry of 38 boats on a magically sunny day seeing Sam O'Byrne and Ryan Glynn winning the IRC Division with the Wright Brothers/Rick De Neve-owned Classic Half Tonner Mata, while a good turnout in the J/80s - a seriously interesting boat to race two-handed - saw the honours go to Diana Kissane and Graham Curran in one of the HYC-owned boats.

Down the years, the Half Tonners seem to have been particularly favoured, and the word is that former winners Dave Cullen and Aidan Beggan with Checkmate XV were spotted doing some special training last weekend. This Saturday, the first gun is scheduled for 10:00, there’ll be separate starts for Cruiser-racers, White Sails, J/80s and Puppeteer 22s, and in a course which is expected to take in Lambay, the plan is to be finished after about three hours of racing. Full details here

Dave Cullen and longtime shipmate Aidan Beggan head into Howth Sound after a session of open water training for the Aqua Two-Handed Challenge with the classic Half Tonner Checkmate XV. Photo: HYC

When the Royal Cork Yacht Club unveiled the fresh concept of the Tony Castro-designed 1720 Sportsboat back in 1994, one of the tongue-in-cheek suggestions was that finance in developing the class could be through some grant scheme for Job Creation, as it was envisaged that each of these 26ft boats would be raced by a crew of five, and this was something which could surely be monetised.

Thus it means that any club hosting an event for this currently regenerating class can expect a good turnout of hungry and thirsty enthusiasts even when there's a modest entry list. And with a healthy entry of 15 boats sweeping into Howth on Friday for their BNRG-sponsored Eastern Championship, the pandemic-modified HYC hospitality machine was delighted to find that around a hundred extra consumers were grafted on to a home customer base which is already increasing with every race as people adjust to the new possibilities.

BNRG (David Maguire) heading out of Howth Harbour on Saturday morning with all the promise of an idyllic day of sea breeze racing. Photo: Annraoi Blaney

In short, in addition to boats in club racing and the developing Fingal Series for cruiser-racers, it meant that in Saturday's sunshine the joint was jumping – in socially-distanced style, of course. And in all, for the 1720s - in addition to three boats from the host club - nine other clubs were represented. Their geographical spread went halfway round the coast of Ireland, starting from Skerries (David Love with Mini Apple), and finishing with Galway Bay (Aodhan FitzGerald with After Midnight).

Western entry – Aodhan FitzGerald and his crew from Galway Bay SC with After Midnight find that the "soft" east coast can serve up its own cliffs with features like the gannet-laden Stack at Ireland's Eye off Howth. Photo: Annraoi Blaney

The breeze firming in to provide a neat start for an entry list that came from ten very diverse clubs. Photo: Annraoi Blaney  

It tells us much about the ports which are hitching themselves to the accelerating 1720 train that the other clubs were Royal Irish, Royal St George and Irish National SC from Dun Laoghaire, Arklow SC, Wexford Harbour Boat & Tennis Club, Waterford Harbour SC (Dunmore East), Royal Cork YC, and Baltimore SC, whose Rob O'Leary is the defending overall 1720 champion.

The two days of racing both provided easterly winds, but of very different type. Saturday's was a strongly sunlit-strengthened sea breeze of a sparkling type which we'd thought had almost become extinct for all the talk of global warming, whereas Sunday's was an eventually rain-bearing grey wind which showed that normal service had been resumed, but both days provided super racing nevertheless.

"Blue days at sea" – summertime for the 1720s off the coast of Fingal. Photo: Annraoi Blaney

Action stations! If the 1720s were provided with neat furlers for their jibs, it might lead to job losses in a vulnerable sector of the maritime workforce………Photo: Annraoi Blaney

And everything seemed to be going to plan with the first race, as the winner was the sponsor' own boat, BNRG sailed by David Maguire of Howth. But then for those following the leaderboard, a mystery of sorts emerged, as the remaining five races were won by some boat called Atara, registered as raced by the Mc Bearla clan under the Howth YC colours.

The battle lines are drawn – Atara emerging ahead of Wet & Ready. Photo: Annraoi Blaney

We got Poirot on the job, and he came up with the info that McBearla is the Irish name for anyone called English, and the last time the name Atara figured in really big headlines in Irish sailing was when John Storey's Farr 43 of that name was overall winner for Ireland of the 1991 Sydney-Hobart Race, with promising young fellows like Harold Cudmore and Gordon Maguire on the strength.

The ancestral and direct links in the current 1720 class to that giddy time when Ireland also won the Southern Cross Series would take for ever to detail, but sufficient to say that the McBearlas on Atara are Ross McDonald and Aoife English on Rope Dock, and after they'd won the second race there was no stopping them.

Neck and neck for the new Easterns Champion Atara (aka Rope Dock) and Wet & Ready. Photo: Annraoi Blaney

Dan O'Grady, a personal veteran of that 1991 Australia campaign, managed to keep ahead of Rob O'Leary for the second overall, but it was close enough with the Baltimore skipper comfortably third overall by the finish, and thereafter in the body of the fleet there was enough variety in the scorelines to suggest that the 1720s in their new wave are on a healthy learning curve.

Full details here

Sportboats have started to arrive in Howth Yacht Club for the BNRG sponsored 1720 Eastern Championships to be hosted by the club this weekend.

The event has 15 confirmed entries with teams from Dublin, Cork, Galway and Northern Ireland. Seven races will be sailed over Saturday and Sunday, and racing is expected to be tight in this one design sportsboat fleet. 

Under strict class rules, teams must weigh in before starting to ensure they do not exceed the maximum weight of 450 kg. This means that crews are limited to between five and six on each boat.

As Afloat previously reported, as the first open event for the class, this year is expected to be exciting as the teams have been waiting to get the season started for some time.

'Dutch Gold' is Favourite for 1720 Honours

Rob O'Leary on Dutch Gold is tipped as event favourite but there are also a number of Olympians and National Champions in the fleet aiming to give the current Champion a run for his money. Local Howth talent includes Dan O'Grady's Wet N'Ready, Ross McDonald on Altara and David Maguire helming BNRG. This trio will hope that a little local knowledge may give them the edge.

A training event is scheduled for 2 pm on Friday, when most of the fleet is expected to test their starts against one another. With such tight racing expected and the first race for some time, there may be some close encounters.

Event sponsor BNRG is an Irish renewable energy company that has been building solar projects globally for over 14 years.