Back in the day, Bangor Grammar School was seen by a small but significant sector of its pupils as a sailing school with a grammar problem. This was in a time when it was an establishment of friendly size, located along the suburban College Avenue on usefully higher ground within a mile of Ballyholme Bay on the south shore of Belfast Lough. In a brisk sou’west breeze, the BGS’s unsupervised group of boat-mad delinquents could zap out of school by bike the moment the bell rang, and coast down to Ballyholme Yacht Club with scarcely any use of the pedals.
The more alert – skilled sailors of course - free-wheeled nearly all the way to this small bit of sailing heaven. There, some managed a bit of private-enterprise term-time sailing, but others – forbidden by their parents to indulge in the distraction of boats in study time – hung out secretly in the magic recesses of the boatman’s hut in a rich aroma of Stockholm tar and the boatmen’s heavy tobacco smoke.
In a brisk onshore breeze, Ballyholme Bay is a character-building sort of place in which to be self-taught sailing by trial and error
LEARNING SAILING BY OSMOSIS
There was little or no formalised sailing instruction. It was assumed that you absorbed sailing ability by some sort of osmosis, either through being of a sailing family, or from friends who had inspired an interest. When we think that in effect Ballyholme is now Northern Ireland’s national dinghy sailor centre, and a highly organised place with formalized instruction at all level of sailing while all the keelboats have long since been safely moved from the exposed moorings to Bangor Marina, it’s clear the past at Ballyholme is a very different country.
Before the advent of GP14s, Cadets and Enterprises, the boat of choice for Ballyholme youngsters was the robust 14ft Insect, so heavy she had to be kept on moorings despite the very exposed nature of the anchorage
REMOTE NEW CAMPUS
For nowadays, the school has moved to a much larger campus on the distant southwest side of town, seemingly so remote that former pupils from the time of comfortable proximity to sailing reckon that today’s Bangor Grammar School is virtually in Newtownards, and not a natural part of the sailing scene at all, let alone central to Ballyholme life.
Be that as it may, there was a time when Bangor Grammar School played a certain role in the underground movement which was sailing in the north. In the town, sailing had the image of an elitist interest as seen in the Royal Ulster Yacht Club, whose activities were sometime more appropriate to reporting in the big newspapers’ social pages.
Alternatively, there was the more DIY-oriented scene as experienced down by the bay at Ballyholme Yacht Club, whose busy summer programme was faithfully recorded for the local weekly paper by a wordsmith member, who would then be rewarded by the newspaper’s publishers each Christmas with a gift box of linen handerchiefs.
Seldom did sailing break into the main provincial headlines, and thus when ace Cultra sailor Ronnie Adams of Royal North of Ireland YC further up the lough won the Monte Carlo Rally in 1956 in a Jaguar saloon and achieved such fame that he even appeared on local television, the fact that he was also a top sailor was never mentioned.
CAR RALLY WINNERS
For the north was a place of petrol-heads, and when Paddy Hopkirk built a very successful international career in Rallying, it was likewise never mentioned that his brothers Frank and Eric had been notably successful Royal Ocean Racing Club contenders with their vintage cutter Glance.
Paddy Hopkirk the super-successful rally driver was nationally famous, but few knew that his older brothers Frank and Eric successfully campaigned the RORC circuit with the vintage cutter Glance, seen here at the start of the 1953 Fastnet Race
In fact, you could be forgiven for thinking that the north’s sailing community have a certain pride in so much of their activities being under the radar of popular publicity that they encouraged secrecy, such that some sort of subtle search machine is needed to maintain the NI Sailing Hall of Fame.
MORE AWARDS FOR LARNE
Typical of it is Andy Thompson – originally of Larne – who shows no sign, at age 52 or thereabouts, of any slowing down in his successful enjoyment of crewing for top helms in what we might call the Parallel International Classes.
For the reality of international sailing is that there’s the narrow focus of the excessively-highlighted Olympic classes, which seem to be about as far as the general run of the powers-that-be in central government wish to go in their limited comprehension of international sailing and its inshore racing classes.
Yet beyond that, there’s the enormous yet very real parallel world of the global One Design dinghy and keelboat classes, which maybe total about 150 different boat types in all.
Another notch in the tiller – trapezist Andy Thompson and helm Tom Gillard after winning the Fireball Worlds 2024, retaining the title they won on Lough Derg in 2022. Photo: Down Under Sail
A classic case is the Fireball, where Andy – crewing again for Tom Gillard of Sheffield Vikings - has retained the Fireball Worlds title in Australia that they won on Lough Derg with much enjoyment in 2022, their more recent success voiced here:
The Fireball has waxed and waned and waxed again in its popularity since it was introduced more than sixty years ago by designer Peter Milne in 1961-62. He was inspired – and clearly so – by the American lake sailing scows. And that seems to be a case of what goes round comes round again, for in recent years one of the interests in world offshore racing is how far the scow concept will go as it gets promoted primarily by International Class40, their latest show-casing being in the RORC Caribbean 600 this week.
Meet the cousins: The Class40 scow-bow LHOROne (seen above racing in this week’s RORC Caribbean 600) is design-related to the International Fireball, seen (below) racing in the 2022 Worlds on Lough Derg
HARD CHINES RETAINED
Yet despite the Fireball’s determined use of hard-chine construction to facilitate DIY home building with plywood, as fibreglass was gradually introduced there was no suggestion that a significantly softer-chined version was now desirable.
For although you could still read in some of the more pompous yachting magazines that “no gentleman would be seen sailing a hard-chined boat”, there were signs that skilled use of chines in hull shape could provide performance enhancement, a trend particularly followed these days by Marc Lombard, whose wall-sided Lombard 34 won the two-handed division in the recent Sydney-Hobart Race.
Although Andy Thompson’s trophy shelf is back in Larne where his successes are noted with pride by his home club of East Antrim Boat Club, several of the northern sailors who are noted for consistently good international performance in large but non-Olympic classes are, like Andy, much involved with the marine industry in England, such as Ross Kearney of Cultra, who nevertheless keeps closely in touch with the scene at home.
BELFAST LOUGH’S ODs REAFFIRMED LOCAL IDENTITY
The northern scene has long been something different, partly thanks to the fact that in the 1890s, Belfast Lough led the world in the development of One Design Keelboat classes. This made sailing in the lough a matter of national and international interest. But as it also encouraged other centres to establish their own new purpose-designed One Designs, it was a situation that if anything in time emphasized the north as a place apart.
Northern Ireland’s more senior One Design classes are in a world of their own. The very existence of the Mylne-designed River Class on Strangford Lough was little known until it went public with its Centenary in 2021, yet the class includes many sailors with international racing connections, and another point of interest is that it was the world’s first One Design class to carry Bermudan rig from the start. Photo: River Class
It had seemed that at first when the Fife-designed Dublin Bay 25s were initially mooted in 1897, they’d be sister-ships of the newly-formed Belfast Lough No 1 Class. But where all the No 1s had been built by the notably strict plans-adherent John Hilditch in Carrickfergus, the DB 25s not only started out with a hull shape slightly different in its mid-ship sections, but inter-boatyard competition to provide sure winners was so intense among its several constructors around Dublin Bay, that it was sardonically observed they were actually creating the Dublin Bay 26 class.
INTERNATIONAL CLASSES ARRIVE
This sense of all sailing centres being in their own bubble all started to change in the 1930s, when the new Strangford Lough YC at Whiterock was based around the American-designed hard-shine International Snipe Class dinghy, while at RNIYC at Cultra, the world was never the same once the International Dragons from Scandinavia had made their debut when they were already on the way to becoming an Olympic class.
Emerging stars. Adrian & Maeve Bell of Lough Neagh and Strangford Lough with the trophy as Irish Fireball Champions at Kinsale in 1977. They were regularly on the podium in the worlds, and continue on awards lists today with extensive Baltic cruising
This produced the north’s first recognized Olympic standard helmsman in Eric Strain, but his selection as the British Dragon sailor for the first post-war sailing Olympics at Torbay in 1948 provided mixed memories.
OLYMPIC COUNCIL COMES THE HEAVY (IN EVERY WAY)
He’d gained his place by winning the Dragon Gold Cup in 1947. But as the boat he helmed, Billy Barnett’s Ceres, was of the simplest and lightest pre-war Scandinavian construction, the post-war mood saw the British Olympic Council insisting that he race a British-built boat. The resulting Ceres II – while beautifully constructed – didn’t have the same superstar performance as Ceres I, and Eric Strain narrowly missed a medal by finishing fourth overall at the Olympics in 1948.
In time, he emigrated to Australia, where he found further success with the Sydney Harbour Dragon fleet to such an extent that he was reserve helm to the legendary Gordon Ingate on Frank Packer’s America’s Cup-challenging.
Meanwhile the Dragon Class in Cultra had lost its edge with his departure, and when Cultra first staged the new Dragon Edinburgh Cup in 1953, it was won by Jimmy Mooney who sailed north from Dublin Bay in the Dragon Ashaka, and after a hard-racing week, sailed south again with the Edinburgh Cup wrapped in a couple of sailing jerseys and stowed under the foredeck.
Bill O’Hara racing his Laser/ILCA at the regatta in Ballyholme for his 50th birthday. He first came to national sailing prominence by helming for Bangor Grammar School to win the schools championship on the Clyde
The north’s Olympic sailing interests were put on the back burner for a while, and it was the Schools & Universities Championship in the Clyde each August which provided a showcase for up-and-coming sailors. Barry Bramwell of Strangford Lough had won it for St Columba’s College of Dublin in 1947, and then in the 1950s Queens University Belfast got involved and very much in the frame.
But the most impressive string of success went to the newly-involved Bangor Grammar School, which finally saw recognition given to its anarchic sailing group on Ballyholme Bay when they sailed across the North Channel in a 9-ton cutter in 1957, and returned from the School’s Championship with the trophy, the helm being Michael Nixon.
This began a cross-channel stream of challenges, with the crews from schools and QUB almost invariably sailing across in cruising boats which they used for accommodation at the event in te Gareloch at Clynder, and then almost invariably had to beat back home into a sou’west gale, as often as not with some trophy.
This throughput of BGS talent reached something of a height in the early 60s when James Nixon won the Universities Cup for TCD in Scotland in 1963, co-skippered the overall winner of the first Round Isle of Man Race in 1964, and won the All Ireland Helmsman’s Championship at Skerries in 1965, racing in Mermaids.
BILL O’HARA MAKES THE SCENE
It was some years later that a young Bill O’Hara won the trophy for Bangor Grammar School again, and this introduced a new element, as most of Northern Ireland’s top sailors were staying determinedly in the Corinthian and local one design lane, but Bill was of a new generation that aimed at Olympic standards and full-on international competition.
Having achieved sailing success to world level while racing, Bill O’Hara is now highly regarded as a race officer and umpire
It had already been demonstrated by his Ballyholme clubmate Bill Whisker, who had emerged as one of the stars of the rapidly increasing GP 14 Class, and won the GP14 Worlds in 1975 crewed by Jimmy McKee. The GP14 and the Enterprise dinghies might have been designed with Northern Ireland’s sailing needs in mind, but an elite group in the north also played a leading role in the twenty or so years of all-Ireland and international glory in the wonderful International 505 class. And then of course when the Fireballs appeared, the north was right in there, providing the most-consistent long-term participants – nationally and internationally – in the husband-and-wife duo of Adrian and Maeve Bell.
FLYING FIFTEENS AND SQUIBS
Strangford Lough became synonymous with the Flying Fifteens, starting with Bill Carson who won the top championship with a boat he’d built himself in Tufnol. His talented sailing daughter Diana became half of the Tom and Diana Andrews campaign team both in the Flying Fifteens and offshore with the Contessa 35 Gumdrop, and the mantle of F/F success was worn with equal skill by Terence and Bridget Kennedy whose son Peter’s successes include Olympic participation and overall victory in the Helmsman’s Championship.
Flying Fifteens in Dublin Bay. For many years the national and internationally dominant fleet was in Strangford Lough, but the current Irish champions come from the growing Connemara fleet. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien
And for those whom the Flying Fifteens seemed too racing-oriented, the Squibs provided a more-than-viable alternative. Introduced – as the Dragons had been – by RNIYC at Cultra, they have provided popular Ireland-wide, and RNIYC sailors continue at the front of the fleet.
LASERS FOR EVERYONE
Then of course, there were the Lasers, nationwide from the early 1970s onwards, with Ballyholme providing the 43-year service of Ron Hutchieson as Laser Class Ireland Honorary Secretary for a class which finally - in 1996 – achieved the rare distinction of becoming an Olympic class while continuing to be a boat that is universally popular at every level, with Bill O’Hara emerging as Ireland’s top talent at home and abroad.
"Warriors About to Go into Battle". This properly serious-looking foursome from the cream of the 1982 Irish Laser Class, with their mentor Ron Hutchieson on right, are (left to right) Simon Brien (later multiple Dragon Edinburgh Cup winner and other majors), multiple champion Charlie Taylor (still at it in the Laser Masters), Olympian Bill O'Hara, and Dave Cummins, All-Ireland Helmsmans Champion 1981 and 1982 Credit: courtesy Bill O'Hara
This bare-bones listing of top sailors from the north barely scratches the surface, as we haven’t even detailed the likes of Johnny McWilliam, Hugh Kennnedy, John McCleary, Kevin MacLaverty, Dickie Gomes, Brian Law and many others. Taken all in all, a very few are household names. A few more are household names in their own households. And there are others who aren’t even that, for sailing enthusiasm is not always a shared family thing.
Many sailors quite like it that way. They like their boats and sailing to be a very private passion. For it has to be said that if that’s the way it is, then you don’t have to waste time and energy trying to explain it all to people who are determined not to understand.
Ron Hutchieson retires after 43 years as Honorary Secretary of the Irish Laser Association at the Nationals in Crosshaven in August 2017 with (left to right) incoming Hon. Sec. Annamarie Fegan (now Admiral, Royal Cork YC), Colin Leonard (outgoing Honorary Treasurer and Silver Medallist 2024 ILCA Masters), Ron Hutchieson, incoming Hon. Treasurer Nick Walsh, and Class Chairman Aidan Staunton
