Friendship, family and sailing enjoyment expressed enthusiastically through quietly efficient organisations - that was the warm theme which dominated Thursday evening’s convivial gathering in the National Yacht Club on Dun Laoghaire waterfront.
The successful hosting club and the Golden Jubilee-celebrating Ruffian 23 Association were being jointly presented with the MG Motor “Sailing Club of the Year 2024 ” award. Yet despite being a shared award, that too was a matter of celebration rather than any hidden rivalry, as was the linking of sailing with a distinguished marque that is now a pace-setter in all-electric vehicles.
Frank Keane, founder of the Frank Keane Group which includes MG Motor Ireland, with National YC Commodore Peter Sherry and SB20 and J80 sailor Billy Riordan, Chairman of Frank Keane Holdings. Photo: Michael Chester
The special links between the two sailing organisations go all the way back to 1975, when NYC members Jim Poole and Eamonn Crosbie competed in the former’s new Ruffian 23 Ruffino in an early three stage two-handed Round Ireland race/rally from Ballyholme. Despite being the smallest boat in the fleet, they finished second overall at the beginning of what were very notable shared and then individual national and international offshore racing careers.
Ruffian 23 enhusiasts at the National YC include (left to right) Feena Lynch (Class Captain 2023), Eoin O’Eochaidh (Class Captain 2024), Ann Kirwan (Captain of Team for Hong Kong Inter-port), Heather Kennedy and Will Brown (daughter and son of designer Billy Brown, and senior owner Michael Cutliffe of DMYC. Photo: Michael Chester
TAKING SUCCESS IN THEIR STRIDE
That the National Yacht Club can take such special achievements effortlessly in its stride was demonstrated just a week ago, when Commodore Peter Sherry hosted the club’s Achievers of 2023 ceremony here, a boisterous event which highlighted the club’s extraordinary range of local, national and international achievements afloat during 2023, and leaves us in the happy position of now having the space to highlight those tireless voluntary workers – often behind the scenes – who keep Ireland’s hugely varied sailing show on the road.
The leaders. Peter Sherry was Commodore of the National YC during 2023, while Feena Lynch Captained the Ruffian 23 Class. Photo: Michael Chester
Because although the National YC and the Ruffian 23 Association have clearcut and different objectives, they both share the blessing of having a significant cohort of members who go beyond President John F Kennedy’s definition of a good citizen. At a time now when - in life generally - everybody seems to be complaining about more or less everything, we would do well to remember that more than sixty years ago, at his inauguration, Kennedy defined good citizenship as being expressed in the statement: “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country”.
ASPIRATIONS AND SPECIAL EFFORT
Well, in both the National YC and the Ruffian 23 Association, we find key people who quietly get on with living up to this aspiration as it affects their group and its sailing. And in the case of the National in particular, it goes well beyond the needs of their own sailing organisation with its bricks and mortar clubhouse, as they play a huge role in the bigger picture with key positions in Dublin Bay Sailing Club, as well as ISORA (where former NYC Commodore Peter Ryan is Chairman), and class groupings with a particular inspiration recently being Fionan de Barra and Hal Sisk’s new life for the ancient yet ever-young Dublin Bay 21 class.
The National Yacht Club today. It has been in existence as a club at this location under various names since 1870
The Ruffian 23s likewise make their broader input, with Ann Kirwan being the Team Captain with the 20-strong squad that made a successful Golden Jubilee journey to Hong Kong in October for the Triennial series against the Royal Hong YC Ruffians. It all went off as smoothly run as you’d expect from someone whose CV includes being Commodore of Dublin Bay SC when it in turn won the MG Motor Club of the Year Award.
VERY SPECIAL SEASON
But equally, keeping the show on the road at home throughout the season was a demanding task for the Class Captain, and in 2023 that was Feena Lynch, who presided over a very special season in which highlights included an East-West team series in Clew Bay which was won by the Mayo SC team, while the Ruffian 23 Golden Jubilee Nationals were staged by the National YC (who else?) at the end of July, when the winner was Stephen Penney of Carickfergus Sailing Club with his immaculately-prepared Hot Orange.
The Champions – Stephen Penney’s beautifully-prepared Ruffian 23 Hot Orange from Carrickfergus. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien
But before that, a very high bar had been set with an all-fleets Golden Jubilee Regatta in mid-June at Portaferry, hosted by Heather Brown - now Heather Kennedy - daughter of Ruffian 23 designer Billy Brown, whose presence with her brother Will at Thursday night’s reception really was the icing on the cake.
That said, there was icing already on the cake from Portaferry, as the overall winner of the rally/regatta was Michael Cutliffe of Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club, who is the class’s senior owner as he has been happily cruising and racing Ruffles since 1979. It was good to see him there in great form on Thursday evening, when his beloved class of boats received the MG Motor accolade.
COMMODORES AND PATRIARCHS
In fact, it was quite the evening for the gathering of patriarchs on all sides, as the MG Motor party included the legendary Frank Keane Snr himself, that longtime giant of the Irish motor industry, whose unstinting sponsorship support for the demanding but worthwhile concept of an Irish “Sailing Club of the Year” goes unbroken all the way back to 1986.
The attendance included sailors at all levels from beginners to Olympic participants. Photo: Michael Chester
As it happens, if there was an all-powerful underlying theme to Thursday night’s informal ceremony, it was the sense of quietly celebrating longtime commitment and dedication. The very presence of Heather Brown Kennedy and her brother Will Brown was a reminder of times long ago when their father Billy Brown first sketched out the lines of the Ruffian 23 over several nights around three o’clock in the morning, a special time when he reckoned “the air is uncluttered by other people’s thoughts”.
Then his can-do younger brother Dick brought the first production boat off the line in time for her to have her “straight out of the wrappings” test sail exactly 51 years ago this morning, on the first Saturday of March 1973.
Early days - building the Ruffian 23s in 1974 is featured in an early video
You can check out the four minute video here
But although Billy may have preferred to be alone with his thoughts when designing boats, he was very much of the local community in every other way, and he and Dick saw the creation of Weatherly Yachts, the Ruffian 23 builders, as part of a larger project to increase Portaferry’s prosperity. And they increased its maritime awareness too, through the creation of the Portaferry RNLI station, in which Billy was the first Launching Officer, a role now held by Heather.
President Hillery with designer Billy Brown aboard a Ruffian 23 at Dun Laoghaire Boat Show 1976
POPULAR COMMODORES
As for those who have served their time as Commodore of the National Yacht Club, it shows all the signs of being a role in which the agreed incumbent receives so much support from their fellow members that they enjoy reverting to being a fully involved ordinary member afterwards, which is not necessarily the case in every other sailing organisation.
Billy Riordan with former National YC Commodore Con Murphy, who held the Round Ireland Sailing Record from 1993 to 2016, and is active in the sport internationally at many levels. Photo: Michael Chester
Certainly on Thursday night the number of happy former NYC Commodores present was a great encouragement to the current administration, but equally the length and breadth of involvement by Commodores over the many years with the Ruffian 23s is remarkable.
CRUISING SIGNIFICANT PART OF ACHIEVEMENT
Cruising is very much in the agenda at the club these days, as current Irish Cruising Club awardee Frank Cassidy is quietly re-invigorating the NYC’s Cruising Group. But equally we can remember that back in the day, subsequent NYC Commodore Ronan Beirne was awarded the ICC’s Round Ireland Cup in 1981 for a cruising circuit with his Ruffian 23 Rila while at the same time being Hon Editor of the ICC Annual, and some years later former NYC Commodore Franz Winkelmann was up on the ICC prizeboard for a cruise to St Kilda with the Ruffian 23 Seamrog.
Equally, in straightforward Ruffian 23 sailing in Dublin Bay, former Commodore Martin McCarthy – who was in the NYC’s hot seat when guidance was needed through the pandemic – represented the many in the National, and many other clubs near and far, who find their sport and camaraderie in the Ruffian 23s.
The man in the hard hat and the hot seat – Commodore Martin McCarthy at work during a restrictions-compliant crane-in day as the pandemic lock-down was eased. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien
But so many in the National YC and the Ruffian 23s spread their energies and enthusiasm into other sailing organisations that there was as much a sense of the future as there was of the present and the past, and another topic high on the agenda was that this year marks the 140th Anniversary of Dublin Bay Sailing Club, a very special organisation that has sailing innovation in a determining position in its DNA.
DUBLIN BAY SC “MEGAFEST” IN 2034
Now of course there’ll be a sailing megafest when the 150th comes around in 2034. But in the meantime, the arrival of the 140th provides an opportunity for some groundwork on the early history, and NYC stalwarts Chris Moore and Rosemary Roy – the immediately past and current Honorary Secretaries of Dublin Bay SC – were working the room in seeking every source of information.
Chris Moore, former Commodore National YC, is also a former Dublin Bay SC Commodore, and he used the occasion to gather further information about DBSC for its 140th Anniversary this year. Photo: Michael Chester
And in Chris Moore you have the NYC ethos personified, as he has served that club in many roles right up to Commodore, and equally has been Commodore and Honorary Secretary of DBSC, while Rosemary and her much-missed late husband Jack were the top team in running Dublin Bay and other races, and now Rosemary has taken on the overall DBSC job in which she was preceded by NYC members Chris Moore and Donal O’Sullivan.
This is how it is with healthy sailing organisations. There’s a sense of past, present, and future moving along in a living continuum, and it was well celebrated on Thursday night in the spirit of the Ruffian 23 Association and the National Yacht Club with their sharing of the MG Motor Award for 2024.
Commodore Peter Sherry with MG Motor’s Frank Keane Jnr, Gerard Rice, and Andy Johnson. Photo: Michael Chester
