One minute it’s winter, and a socially-constrained pandemic-plagued winter at that. And next thing you know, it’s summer, freedom is declared, and our clubs are switching into instant overdrive as sailors go crazy trying to compensate for two years of social purdah and covid clampdown.
Oh for sure, there was as much sailing going on as was possible to hit the limits of permitted activity as they changed from time to time. And the thanks of all of us are due to the photographers who grabbed any chance to record the best of it whether there was sunshine or not, for the greatest test of maritime camera skill is making a sunless sailing scene as eye-catching as one where the sun highlights every last vivid detail.
But it was all happening as though everybody had one arm tied behind their backs. You zapped as quickly and as isolated as possible from the home bubble down to the boat bubble, and you did your sailing thing while trying to work out if you were getting near the limit of two kilometres or five kilometres from home, or whatever was law at the time. And then, even as things eased, your après sailing was very constrained, as scrupulously-regarded social-distancing was very inimical to the popular sailing habit of ingesting performance-enhancing drugs after the event in a crowded setting.
Life goes on – the much-anticipated Royal Cork YC 300 may not have happened as planned in 2020, but the Tricentenary + 2 will make Cork Week 2022 something very special indeed. Photo: Robert Bateman
You may well wonder why we’re recording all this at a time when everybody is fed up with pandemics, knows everything of its life-limiting effects only too well, and wants to think only of the changed present, the promising future, and peace in our time if Vladimir RasPutin will just allow us and everyone else to get on with our lives.
AWARENESS OF SPANISH FLU TAKEN FOR GRANTED
But the fact is that, in looking back to reports of the sailing seasons of 1919, 1920, and 1921, we haven’t yet found a single reference to the adverse effects of the highly fatal Spanish flu pandemic of the time, and with every week there was less and less reference to the dreadful toll of the 1918-ended Great War, particularly among the young men who’d been the backbone of the top amateur racing crews pre-war.
The Strangford Lough River Class of 1921 were a necessary response to the realities of life after the Great War of 1914-18. Photo: W M Nixon
Yet the inescapable effects were there, even if you had to find evidence in private correspondence or in recollections of long-ago conversations. Thus last year, when the River Class of Strangford Lough celebrated their Centenary with all twelve boats in fine racing trim, in producing a handsome history to coincide with the Big One Hundred they moved heaven and earth to try to find a record of one of the stipulations for the new 28ft 6ins One Design from Alfred Mylne, which was to become the world’s first Bermudan-rigged OD.
The Rivers were Bermuda-rigged because it was seen as more easily-handled than classic gaff, and an early requirement mentioned was of the need for a boat “which could be raced by a man and his daughters”. This was no sudden arrival of feminism. On the contrary, it was a stark realization that many of the best young sailors had tragically disappeared in the mud of the Somme. But it’s a stipulation that now has to be accepted as only having been mentioned at some stage in preliminary exchanges, for it wasn’t in the specification provided by the new Class Association to the designer.
BELFAST LOUGH STARS REVERT TO SIMPLICITY
Another telling illustration in the north was provided by the Belfast Lough Star Class, 20ft LWL gunter-rigged Mylne-designed sloops which originated in 1899, and in some ways were the precursors of the Dublin Bay 21s of 1902. But while the DB21s in their original form majored in complexity of rig with a cutter fore-triangle and an enormous jackyard topsail, the Belfast Lough Stars were the essence of simplicity in being gunter-rigged sloops.
The Belfast Lough Star Class of 1899 was the essence of simplicity in her rig…
…….but around 1906, the Stars were persuaded to upgrade their rig with a jackyard topsail.
Yet some time between 1899 and 1914, the Stars were persuaded that they ought to carry a jackyard topsail, and they changed their rigs accordingly. But when sailing resumed in 1919, there wasn’t the manpower available to handle the big topsails, and they reverted to their original simple gunter rigs, and raced under them until the class was replaced by the new Glen ODs in the late 1940s.
After the Great War, shortage of crew meant the Belfast Lough Stars had to revert to the simpler gunter rig, as seen here in the 1920s.
That’s how it was in the north of the country. But a hundred years ago in the south, while the Civil War in the new Free State wasn’t exactly raging, nevertheless in those parts of the country directly affected, it was certainly very much the big thing in everyday life. Yet it was very far from the contemporary concept of total war, and though everyone was acutely aware it was going on, life of sorts went on elsewhere, with the new Shannon One Designs having their first races in August 1922 largely as intended.
FANCY CAPS MAKE FOR MARKED MEN
This was despite a pair of potential contenders, who were wearing traditional semi-formal yachting caps, being detained for a while on Lough Ree by the local Irregular Forces, who were under the impression that yachting caps constituted the uniform of the newly-formed Irish Free State Army.
Yacht designer George O’Brien Kennedy
Meanwhile on the other side of the country in north County Wicklow, yacht designer O’Brien Kennedy in his memoir Not All At Sea! recalls an early 1920s childhood in which most things proceeded as normal, with regular picnics into the Wicklow Hills in his father’s beloved car, interspersed with racing the family’s Dublin Bay Water Wag which Kennedy Snr had built himself. In doing so he was typical of the growing interests of the early 1920s, for the father dearly loved his workshop where he built boats and maintained the car and did anything else rather than go into dreary round in the offices of family’s large, long-established and successful solicitor’s practice in the city, an approach shared by his brother which resulted in them being known as “Dublin’s Most Invisible Solicitors”.
For in those variously-disturbed days of the early 1920s, everyone was so aware of disruptive background circumstances that contemporary journalists – producing “the first draft of history” – didn’t feel the need to mention them. So who knows, but maybe by mentioning this weekend of The Great Change, we’ll be doing future sailing historians a favour - that is, if any of us has a future, and there are subsequent historians to record it.
Yet now, we’re living in a reversal of a hundred years ago. In 1918, pandemic came as war ended. In 2022, war comes as pandemic ends. The uncertainty affects us all, and we were reminded yet again of the very unpleasant new reality by yesterday’s announcement from the up-coming St Maarten Heineken Regatta, which in normal times is perceived as the ultimate fun event when Caribbean sailing is at its very best, while at the same time signalling that Spring is starting to arrive in Europe. But for 2022, it makes for sombre reading:
ST. MAARTEN HEINEKEN REGATTA STATEMENT CONCERNING THE SITUATION IN UKRAINE
St. Maarten Heineken Regatta is an international sailing event that for over 40 years has welcomed sailors of all nations to share in friendly competition and celebration of the inclusivity of our great sport.
Due to the recent developments in Ukraine and hostilities on behalf of the Russian government, which our organization condemns, we cannot maintain the friendliness between all of our competitors without suspending the participation of teams registered as Russian and Belarusian. While we wish that sailing could be free from politics and we can all race together on the water, the current situation and feelings of the sailing community at large makes this impossible.
The St Maarten Heineken Regatta would have been though of as the ultimate away-from-it-all event, but this week’s announcement excluding Russian and Belarussian crews was a harsh encroachment of the new reality
As a result, St. Maarten Heineken Regatta will not be hosting Russian or Belarusian affiliated teams for this year's regatta. This decision is not meant to punish or ostracize any individuals, but rather uphold the integrity of all competitors and the event as a whole. The St. Maarten Heineken Regatta stands in unison with the international sailing community and recommendations as per the official statements released by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and World Sailing.
We hope that by the 43rd edition of the event, the international situation will be positively resolved and we can once again welcome teams from all nations to sail together in peace. Until then, we must stand by World Sailing and endeavour to make the best decisions for the community as a whole.
It’s when a notably light-hearted event like this has to go all serious that we become acutely aware of the reality of the times we live in. But life goes on - it must go on. And as yesterday’s positive March Newsletter from Kinsale YC made clear, life is very much going on, and it’s getting up to sailing speed at clubs all over the country. Indeed, the pace is almost too hectic in Dublin. Apart from knowing that every-day clubhouse use is resuming everywhere, let’s look at four specials taking place ashore in addition to DBSC’s Spring Chicken Race tomorrow (Sunday) morning.
BUSY WEEKEND FOR CLUBHOUSE ACTIVITY
Last night saw the generous presentation in Poolbeg Yacht & Boat Club of the €18,000 raised by December's All In A Row oar-boat festival on the Liffey in December, with the money shared between the Lifeboats and the Underwater Search & Retrieval Unit.
HYC Commodores Ian Byrne and Paddy Judge demonstrating social-distancing as regulations began to ease
At the same time out in Howth, HYC Commodore Paddy Judge was hosting a celebratory dinner to say thank you to the many volunteers who had quietly made the extra effort to comply with pandemic regulations while making possible the staging of as much racing and sailing as could be fitted in within the changing regulations. The pace in this was set by his predecessor Ian Byrne, who made it his business to analyse completely each new set of regulations as they came into force under the changing circumstances, thereby providing a service for the entire Irish sailing community.
No sunshine but plenty of photographic action – Howth racing with Kevin Darmody’s X302 Viking nipping across ahead of Stephen O’Flaherty’s Sprit 54 Soufriere. Photo: Annraoi Blaney
Today, the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire is Irish Sailing Central, with the management team headed by Commodore Conor O’Regan (a global sailing circumnavigation veteran) welcoming the Annual Conference of the Irish Cruiser Racing Association this morning, while this evening there’s the first Centenary Dinner of the Shannon One Design Association.
TOP OWNER-SKIPPER
With multiple nominations for the Committee, ICRA Commodore Richard Colwell of Howth may well be contemplating some sort of election process, but the highlight of the gathering will be the presence of Tom Kneen of Plymouth, currently the world’s most successful offshore racing owner-skipper. His JPK 11.80 Sunshine was RORC Champion in 2020, Fastnet Race winner 2021 and Middle Sea Race winner as well by any standards of reasonable fairness. Either way, she was the highly-acclaimed RORC Boat of the Year in 2021, and already this year she has kept up the pace by winning her class in the RORC Caribbean 600 in February.
Man of the Moment – Tom Kneen of Plymouth is currently the world’s top offshore racing owner-skipper
As for successful owner-skippers, they’ll be a dime-a-dozen at tonight’s First Centenary Dinner of the Shannon One Designs in the NYC. It has acquired the nickname of ‘First Centenary Dinner” because when the Centenary Year Programme was first being outlined by Class Chairman Philip Mayne and Honorary Secretary Naomi Algeo, they’d no idea what restriction would be in place as each major happening came up, so they pencilled in 5th March 2022 as “Centenary Dinner NYC”, as a Dublin venue makes sense early in the year, with so many SOD owners living in the Greater Dublin Area.
“Irish Sailing Central” – the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire is hosting two major events today
But as they’d originally set a numbers limit at 110 to comply with the then-existing regulations, it was booked out within twelve hours. However, the National YC being renowned for its expandable feasts, apparently they’ve now been able to up the numbers while realising that some more Centenary Dinners will become necessary as the class reaches its traditional time of peak activity in August.
Hyper-sociability of times past……Shannon One Designs passing through Athlone Lock during their Long Distance Race down-Shannon from Lough Ree to Lough Derg.
And as for successful owner-skippers being a dime-a-dozen in any gathering of Shannon One Design owners, believe me you’re a successful owner-skipper if you can just manage to finish a race on Lough Derg or Lough Ree in a SOD when the big winds from the Atlantic are galloping in across Connacht…….
When the big winds come in from the Atlantic…….hairy sailing for Shannon One Designs on Lough Derg
