Let us begin by simply setting out the pillar events of the 2024 season in Ireland, while including the major international happenings which will be of interest to our sailing community. And then we’ll provide a further take on it all after agreeing that Dun Laoghaire – and the Royal Irish Yacht Club in particular – is going to be one very busy place in late August and the first half of September.
- December 26th 2023 Sydney-Hobart Race Cr. YC of Australia
- February 19th 2024 RORC Caribbean 600 Antigua
- April 4th-7th Irish Youth Sailing Nationals Royal Cork YC
- April 23rd Opening Day for 2024 season Dublin Bay SC
- May 6th First ISORA Races (coastals) National YC & Pwllheli SC
- May 24th to 26th Wave Regatta Howth YC
- June 12th -15th WIORA Championship Foynes YC
- June 22nd SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race Wicklow SC
- June 27th-30th Bangor Town Regatta, Belfast Lough
- July 12th Kingstown to Queenstown Race Dun Laoghaire & Cork
- July 15th to 19th Volvo Cork Week Royal Cork YC
- July 16th MacDara’s Day in Connemara Galway Hooker Assoc.
- July 27th – August 2nd Cowes Week Cowes Combined Clubs
- July 28th –August 8th Paris Olympics Sailing Marseille
- August 6th – 9th Calves Week Schull Harbour SC
- August 9th - 11th 45th Cruinniu na mBad Kinvara
- August 15th - 24 Optimist Nationals Howth YC
- August 22nd – October 20th 37th America’s Cup Barcelona
- August 30th – September 1st ICRA Nats Royal Irish YC
- Sept 6th – 13th 80th Dragon Gold Cup Kinsale YC
- Sept 7th-8th Key Yachting J-Cup Ireland Royal Irish YC
- Sept 10th – 15th IRC European Champs. RORC/Royal Irish YC
- Sept 21-22nd Jnr. Champ. of Champs. Fastnet Marine Ctr., Schull
- Oct 5th – 6th Snr. Champ. Of Champs. Royal North of Ireland YC
- Oct 24th Rolex Middle Sea Race Royal Malta YC
- Dec 26th Sydney-Hobart Race Cr. YC of Australia
The recently-introduced Melges 15 revelling in Dublin Bay conditions. With the class spreading to other centres, its group performance in 2024 will be closely monitored
PREDICTION AND PLANNING
When we add in happenings like the annual ISORA and SCORA series for offshore racers, and the multiple national and regional championships for the inshore keelboats and dinghies, it can become a complexity of choices. But there has been a certain paring back of the pillar numbers as organisers acknowledge the reality of today’s tasting menu approach, and changing domestic and family priorities.
So inevitably in the Irish context, we find that if anything the need to acknowledge family expectations is greater than ever, with the almost sacred nature of the Bank Holiday in the first weekend of June being indicated by current MG Motor Sailing Club of the Year Howth YC moving their biennial Wave Regatta - by popular demand - to the last weekend of May 2024, while part of Calves Week’s success at Schull is down to the fact that it doesn’t intrude into August’s Bank Holiday Monday, and well before that, the Youth Nationals at Crosshaven will have come clear after Easter.
The Howth Wave dates clashes directly with the Scottish Series in the Clyde, for long a favourite with a small but select group of top-level Irish cruiser-racers, mostly from the north. But in Howth’s case, they’ve taken on board the sage sailing administrators’ advice that you simply have to look at the potential numbers, and thus it becomes no contest as regards making that move back into May.
UNKNOWN TERRITORY AND ‘THE PLAN’
In some ways this seemingly ruthless re-jigging takes us into unknown territory, but then there are so many factors involved in the vehicle sport of many levels sailing that sometimes it is anyone’s bet as to how it turns out.
The Royal Cork YC’s Gavin Deane (left) with Commandant Barry Byrne and Minister for Defence Simon Coveney TD at Volvo Cork Week, when Commandant Byrne skippered the Defence Forces’ entry in the inter-forces Beaufort Cup to victory with John Maybury’s J/109 Joker II, having earlier in the season taken first in the Corinthians and a very close second overall in the 2018 Round Ireland Race from Wicklow . Photo: RCYC
For as very many have said, “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future”, with perhaps the most distinguished being Denmark’s Niels Bohr, the Nobel physics laureate. Another twist comes with trying to implement The Plan, with the Defence Force’s high-achieving offshore sailing star Commandant Barry Byrne – originally of Wicklow, and now a recognised international leader in corporate knowledge management - affirming that distance race tactics – and arguably life in general - should follow the Eisenhower dictum.
The very effective General Eisenhower asserted that you may well have started your campaign with A Plan, but if you don’t immediately re-programme your approach when the show is on the road with a mind re-set to Continuous Planning, then you’re really not going to be at the races at all.
Barry Byrne on the helm on Joker II, on the way to Defence Forces’ success in the 2018 Round Ireland Race from his boyhood home town of Wicklow. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien
Thus we find something similar in the approach of crews to the 2024’s busy sailing programme. In this season of goodwill we’ll tend to assume that most owners and crews will have amiable discussions about what they’ll be doing next year, and reach a consensus after much friendly discussion.
APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE
But we know that the reality more often is that the VRO will have his or her own programme in mind, and will have a sufficiently large crew panel to draw on in order to stick to it, reflecting the fact that many boats are benevolent dictatorships rather than easygoing democracies. For in extreme situations at sea, inspirational, positive, rapid and clear leadership is often the only way out of a crisis – there’s no time for a cup of tea and a chat.
No time for a cup of tea and a chat – Puppeteer 22s in a quick and definitive decision-making situation in racing at Howth. Photo: Annraoi Blaney
Indeed, we know of one often successful skipper whose PA used to circulate the crew panel - ideally, it had at least twice as many people as the boat needed to race properly – with a planned fixtures list, prefacing the proposed programme with the statement: “Mr X would like to apologise in advance for anything unpleasant he might say in the most heated moments of these races, but he knows that his friends and shipmates will appreciate that this is all a by-product of the wish for shared success”.
THE JOY OF SILENT SUCCESS
That said, there is something utterly wonderful in having a crew so skilled that scarcely a word needs to be said in the course of a successful race. We once had a midship hauler and a point man who worked so well together with our oversize fore-triangle – with spinnaker boom like a telegraph pole - that the longterm cockpit crew were raised to new heights of co-operation and achievement, all with few, if any, words said.
With the over-size fore-triangle on the heavy-displacement Contessa 35 Witchcraft of Howth in ISORA Week 1991 at Howth, the deck crew ruled the roost. Photo: Patrick Roache
The only trouble was that the other side of our dynamic duo’s foredeck silence while successfully racing was a tendency towards verbose cockiness ashore during the après sailing as the party went into overdrive. This once manifested itself to such an extent that in one crowded clubhouse, the bellow from the hosting club’s top honcho to our point man was heard across the heaving crowd: “Z, you’re outta here! And take your father with you!”
Glandore Harbour YC’s Lawrie Smith (second left), also known in West Cork as The Squire of Tralong, with his winning crew after clinching the Dragon Gold Cup 2023 at Torbay
This sort of thing is of course is totally out of court in the more genteel classes. The fact that the 80th Dragon Gold Cup, sponsored by Astra Construction at Kinsale in September 2024 and the third time Kinsale YC has staged this mega-contest with Lawrie Smith of Glandore Harbour YC as defending champion, makes for such a highlight that it reminds us of a time when, although all the Belfast Lough Dragons were all road-trailed to Kinsale’s hospitable south coast glue pot for a major, some of the owners and crews travelled there in a vintage high-speed motor-yacht of classic American origins. This was a splendid vessel that spread a certain confusion in her wake, and aboard which they continued to live in style right at the heart of things at the venue, while achieving mixed success during the racing.
GENTEEL DRAGON CLASS
The championship concluded with the prize-giving dinner in the clubhouse on a true summer’s evening of such warmth that the menfolk were permitted to remove their reefer jackets. This meant that, when the owner-skipper of the large motor-yacht suddenly announced that it was time to head back north despite the party being at its height, there was some confusion as to whose jacket was where before they roared off seaward into the velvet night.
“Where summer evenings can be long, warm, and confusing…” The hospitable port of Kinsale embraces the sea
Consequently when the dining room was finally clearing at dawn, one of the most senior and hugely respectable Kinsale skippers found that his only jacket option was an ancient Edwardian item of many buttons with every evidence of a well-lived life, but definitely not his own.
This meant that eventually, beside Belfast Lough, it was noted that one of Cork tailor Joe Fitzgerald’s very best and beautifully kept reefer jackets was now in the north, three hundred miles from its rightful home in Kinsale. But by this time, the senior Kinsale figure had become so concerned about the absence of his beloved jacket that he had gone through the many pockets of the abandoned antiquity to try to find who might own it.
He found many things, but none to indicate ownership. However, when the problem was finally solved, it was agreed that as I knew both parties to the clothing confusion, I’d have a role in ensuring that the jacket which had gone north would be delivered to a Dun Laoghaire club, where the antiquity left in Kinsale would be waiting.
ROMANTIC OPTIMISM
There was one final comment from the Kinsale skipper: “I can perfectly understand the romantic optimism of having intensely personal medical items in every pocket. But it’s a harsh pre-judgement on our club chef that this Dragon sailor should have felt it necessary to go to a Kinsale Yacht Club dinner with at least two tubes of Colman’s Full-Strength Mustard ready in his jacket.”
The great Don Street – now 93 – celebrated his 90th birthday in Glandore as only a Dragon man can
That was all a long time ago, when Dragons were more individualistic and often of different colours. The great Don Street of Glandore, Dragon skipper emeritus at the age of 93, is beating the drum for the vintage Dragons - in which Glandore is in a league of its own - with the classic Dragons becoming an increasing interest despite the fact that almost all modern Dragons are plastic fantastic, and very uniformly white.
TAKING OFF WITH THE WRONG BOAT
But this in turn has produced its own folklore, with one noted Dun Laoghaire crew taking off on their road trail in a hurry after a major event in Brittany, and only noticing when they had a pit stop halfway to Roscoff that they had the wrong boat in tow.
Anybody can make a boat ID mistake – as seen here in a huge fleet start off Cannes, the modern Dragons are like peas in a pod
So in some cases an eement of anonymity doesn’t go amiss, and the quality of the sport may well be improved by maintaining a certain privacy about some special class’s doings. Thus although Afloat.ie publishes regular but short weekly briefings about the results in the 1887-founded Dublin Bay Water Wags, the inner doings of this exceptional class remain a matter of smoke and mirrors to the rest of us.
As to the activities of the Shannon One Designs with their centenary in 2022, and the Howth 17s with their equally successfully-celebrated 125th in 2023, both had skillfully managed blazes of national and international publicity during the special years, but now they retreat into their secret worlds, often apparently communicating by telepathy for the implementation of successfully busy annual programmes with highlight which are very much class-limited affairs.
CLASSES WITH A MIND TO EXPAND
In the other hand, there are classes with a mind to expand and proselytise, and the Flying Fifteens have found a happy hunting ground in Connemara, that magic area which proved sufficiently connected to the world as the rest of us know it to provide the 2023 F/F champion in the Nationals sailed at Whitehead on Belfast Lough.
The invigorating attraction of Flying Fifteen sailing – seen here in Dublin Bay – has been appreciated in Connemara with such success that the 2023 Irish Champion came from the west.
WARY EYE ON MELGES 15s
Belfast Lough also provided the champion and the championship for the Squibs at Cultra, but it is RS400 dinghies that will be used for the Championship of Champions at RNIYC in October 2024. In dinghies generally, there’ll be a close eye on the growth of the Melges 15s, with 12 being parachuted into Howth to take on the 15 already in Dun Laoghaire. As for the small keelboats, both Squibs and Flying Fifteens – and SB20s too, come to that – will be keeping a wary eye on how big a showing the RS 21s make with their Irish debut at Volvo Cork Week in July.
Squib numbers are growing again, and they’re expected to be the boats used in the Championship of Champions at Cultra with Royal North of Ireland YC in October 2024. Photo: Robert Bateman
CORK HARBOUR INTERNATIONAL CLASSICS REGATTA?
And on another tack, Crosshaven is now home to three completely restored gold standard classic yachts in the form of Anthony & Sally O’Leary’s Sandy Balfour/Berthon Boat Company superstar Northele, the Royal Cork YC’s own Fife-designed Cork Harbour OD Jap revived by Duncan Walker, and Darryl Hughes 1937 Tyrrell ketch Maybird, while Damien McGovern’s vintage Fife-designed Clyde 30 Brynoth from East Ferry was the object of Duncan Walker’s 17th major project, though just for hull restoration.
Northele looked classy pre-restoration as seen here, but now she is Crosshaven’s gold standard classic. Photo: Robert Bateman
With such a quality selection, Crosshaven surely has the makings of a genuine Cork Coast International Classics Regatta to take over where Glandore appears to have left off. And in a final notion of what might be called trans-migration, may we repeat again that if the GAA really wants to show its credentials as the premier national sporting organization, then it should have its own entry in the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race from Wicklow in June.
A real mixum gatherum….the Round Ireland Race start at Wicklow is always an adrelin-fuelled event
GAA IN THE ROUND IRELAND YACHT RACE
Ideally, this GAA sailing challenge would come from Cork Harbour, even though there are some ferociously successful Gaelic clubs in the Dun Laoghaire Harbour hinterland. For as we reminded everyone recently, recreational sailing was first brought to Cork and Ireland early in the 1660s when frequent fighter Murrough O’Brien of Limerick regained a foothold in Munster as the first Earl of Inchiquin, with his base at Rostellan on the east shore of Cork Harbour. Yet, with the changes of history, Rostellan is now the home of Aghada GAA Club.
Who knows. But after seeing how well sailing in Ireland dealt with the obtuse weather of 2023, the prospect of 2024 with its turbo-powered programme is fascinating.
Well, why not? Why not a GAA entry in the Round Ireland race? Recreational sailing came to the south coast of Ireland in the 1660s with Limerick’s “sword for hire” Murrough O’Brien gaining a foothold as the 1st Earl of Inchiquin here, at Rostellan on the east shore of Cork Harbour. Rostellan now provides the playing fields of Aghada GAA Club
