Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

#dbsc –The Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) prizegiving is a highlight of the Dun Laoghaire sailing season with an array of magnificent and ancient yachting silverware. This year's event was especially so because it marked the close of DBSC's 130th season.

Prizes were awarded in all of DBSC's 22 classes by Commodore Pat Shannon at a packed Royal St.George YC clubhouse last Friday night.

DBSC historian and Hon Sec Donal O'Sullivan provided insightful commentary to the award winners – and the trophies –  and we reproduce a sample flavour of this with Donal's citations for the club's 'Premier awards' below.

In its 130th season, the club – one of the largest yacht racing clubs of its type in Europe – was acclaimed by Afloat blogger WM Nixon who posed the question: Is Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) The Most Effective Sailing Organisation in the World?

Scroll down for awards photography of the evening by DBSC photographer Joe Fallon plus the full DBSC 2014 awards table.

PREMIER AWARDS

Dun Laoghaire Harbour Trophy
This is for the best new boat racing in the DBSC fleet. Cruisers I, with its strong contingent of J109s, is a vigorous, competitive fleet. Though a newcomer, the winning boat more than held her own in a very competitive racing environment – Jigamaree, Ronan Harris.

The George Arthur Newsom Cup
An important figure in the Dublin commercial life of his day, a director of Jacobs, of biscuit fame, Newsom was one of the early Dublin Bay pioneers who raced competitively in a number of fleets and contributed much to the development of DBSC. When he died in 1933 his wife presented this cup in his memory.
The owner and skipper of the winning boat in 2015, through her family has deep roots in the Dublin Bay sailing community. Besides racing locally, she has also sailed off-shore, bringing and navigating a boat on one occasion, I recall, to Iceland. The winning boat this year is the Shipman Gusto, Christine Heath.

The Waterhouse Shield
There has been a Waterhouse Shield at this event since the 1890s. Waterhouses were jewellers in Dame St and they used to do the engraving of the club's trophies in its early days. There are great names among the winners of the Waterhouse Shield and this year it's our pleasure to add a very competitive Cruiser 2 to the list- Red Rhum, sailed by the Nicholson brothers, Jonathan and Chris.

The Dr.Alf Delaney Cup
Dr Delaney first joined DBSC in 1932 and raced competitively until a few short years ago.This cup commemorates Alf's achievements as a sailor, both locally and elsewhere- he was one of the Irish team in one of the post-war Olympics. It's for the best boat on the dinghy course and this year it goes to the almost unbeatable Fireball 15061, sailed by Stephen Oram.

The Brendan Ebrill Cup
Brendan was my predecessor as hon secretary and organised this event over many years. The Ebrill trophy commemorates Brendan's' life-long commitment to DBSC. It's awarded to the highest-scoring boat with the highest attendance not winning a major trophy. The owners of the winning boat frequently grace this event, but this year they are without their partner, who died earlier this year. So, the winner of the Brendan Erill trophy in 2015 was Something Else – John and Brian Hall and the late Sue McDonnell.

The Viking Award
This award is for a notable able contribution to sailing. The recipient this year is an occasional DBSC Flying 15 sailor when he has the time but his greatest achievement in sailing was in a Fireball in 1995 when with John Lavery they won the Fireball Worlds. He is mostly known today as a marine journalist and publisher, performing a valuable public service in bringing maritime matters to public attention. He is chairman of the Irish Marine Federation, which inter alia, organises the boat show.
As publisher and editor of Afloat Magazine, despite a daunting publishing environment, he has continued over many years to maintain the magazine's high journalistic, typographical and design standard. Its associated web site is an extraordinary achievement - drawing news, information and comment from a wide range of sources in the maritime world. It's DBSC's pleasure this year to present the Viking Award to David O'Brien

All prizegiving photos by Joe Fallon