themselves to create a blueprint for centreboard sailing.
The IDRA 14 class celebrated its Golden jubilee in Clontarf last weekend with its biggest-ever turn out of 42 dinghies (including six which need restoration).
As fiftieth birthday celebrations move across Dublin bay to Dun Laoghaire this weekend, the party provided further proof that Irish sailing's love affair with dinghy sailing is, against the odds, now more than fifty years
old and still going strong.
Fittingly the Clontarf event replicated the first open meeting in September 1946 at the same venue. This preceded the first national championships the following year in Dun Laoghaire - appropriately won by the founder of the
IDRA Douglas Heard.
Last weekend's jubilee, of course, is a tribute to organiser Ian Sargent against the pressures of change and not least the arrival of dozens of new classes in recent years.
Sargent, a 14 class champion many times, admits to scavenging clinker boats from sheds, gardens and farmhouses for the rally of boats last Sunday in Clontarf to salute the performance dinghy of the post war years.
The sail past - sponsored by Dublin Port - according to Sargent amounted to the largest-ever gathering of the class.
The occasion was recorded in a special programme for RTE's Seascapes and broadcast last Monday.
Messages of support for the event were received from the USA, UK, South Africa and Australia for a 14-foot dinghy that began its life as the first performance dinghy of the Irish Dinghy Racing Association, now the Irish
Sailing Association.
Among the large turnout of former skippers and crews were two people who had sailed in the boats in 1946; John Patterson, who crewed with Ian's father Charlie; and Vera Humphries who crewed with her husband Niall.
From the one of the oldest classes to the newest, the rise of the modern Feva class to 50 boats in just one season continues to raise eyebrows among some of the more established senior dinghy classes where numbers have been
stagnant.
The news is all good healthy stuff that flies in the face of naysayers who have been predicting the death of the dinghy for a decade or more.
Two weeks ago this column made the point that as kids get to grips with the Feva's assymetric spinnaker, there’d be a knock-on benefit to senior fleets as junior sailors mature with skills for performance classes.
Reaction from some quarters was that I was feeding the 'false impression' that so-called performance classes are the only options available to enthusiastic youth wishing to stay in dinghies after youth classes.
Of course it’s a valid point but not really the matter at heart.
As the IDRA 14's golden jubilee testifies, dinghy sailing is resilient but there is now more competition between classes than ever before. There are new designs appearing each season. Some say there are far too many classes.
Others say people are entitled to choice and that competition such as this will ensure the strongest will survive.
Either way the problem today is essentially one of dilution: too few sailors spread across too many classes.
The hope now, of course, is that the Feva will embed itself where others (except the Mirror) have not. And of course the real issue is not what class a junior wants to move into - an IDRA 14 or a 420 - but the fact that they
want to stay with dinghy sailing.
In this regard there is a lot that could be achieved if dinghy interests could come together and map out a plan for the future of their sport. The boost to dinghy sailing provided by this season’s new arrival is proof enough of that and evidence too perhaps that, after a gap of 50 years, an Irish dinghy racing association needs to be revived?
In cruiser news, on the east coast, the hectic Class 0 racing schedule this season has taken its toll on those crews, as there are no non-Howth boats competing in the opening race of the Anglo Irish Bank Autumn League this
Sunday morning (September 17).
The entry list for the Anglo Irish Bank Autumn League starting at Howth Yacht Club this Sunday (September 17) stands at a healthy 146 across ten classes, slightly down on last year.
The two biggest classes so far are Class 2 and White Sails with 27 and 25 entries respectively, while in the one-design classes the Puppeteers with 19 and Etchells with 17 are the two biggest fleets.
The six-race series continues until Saturday 21st October.
