You never really know when you’re experiencing history in the making. It was early in March 1973 when we were invited to Portaferry, along the east side of the Narrows going into Strangford Lough, on a Saturday morning. The idea was to sail the first Ruffian 23 to come off Dick & Billy Brown’s rudimentary making-it-up-as-we-go-along “production line” for their new company Weatherly Yachts.
The Brown brothers were Portaferry men through and through, and they were determined to bring some proper employment-providing industry to their slightly isolated little town. Billy was a highly qualified mathematician/technician/teacher – properly speaking, he was Dr Billy Brown – but he also ran the neighbourhood television, radio and electronics shop, while Dick had several local businesses on the go, mostly based around agriculture.
THE ORIGINAL RUFFIAN
Yet in 1970-1971, they’d pooled some of their other talents, and Billy had designed the 35ft offshore-racing sloop Ruffian for the naturally-skilled Dickie to build in multi-skin timber construction in a large shed at the foot of the field beside his new house on the side of the hill at Bankmore.
This was immediately south of Portaferry, just above the narrowest part of the Narrows, where the tide can runs at nine knots and more, and the mini-whirlpool of the Routen Wheel does its thing. On the north side of the hill nearby, the convenient new building shed had been designated a pig shed for ease of planning purposes, as Dickie did indeed have a thriving pig business among his many interests.
A PIG SHED?
But I have no recollection of seeing a pig next or near the place 52 and more years ago. On the contrary, it had become a destination of pilgrimage for serious sailors interested in seeing what promised to be a very successful boat under construction, and the atmosphere was something special.
Ruffian lived up to performance expectations, winning the well-supported Northern Ireland offshore championship in her first season of 1971, and then becoming overall champion in ISORA’s first and very hotly-contested season in 1972, while also making her successful mark in Clyde and Solent racing.
The original 35ft Ruffian going smooth as silk through the summer haze to put down her first marker with the overall win in the 1971 Ailsa Craig Race. Photo: W M Nixon
RUFFIAN MYTHOLOGY HAD A REAL BASIS
Yet she also became something else. The Ruffian story was developing to become a legend of sorts. Some might say it was almost a cult. And so there was a growing feeling that a more economical smaller version would provide an excellent all-round local one-design for inshore and offshore racing to international standards, as the thinking was that she could be fitted into the parameters for the new International Offshore Racing Rule’s Quarter Ton Class.
So Billy set to work on the design board, usually around three o’clock in the morning when he said the air around his head was relatively clear of other people’s distracting thoughts. And as the lines of the Ruffian 23 gradually emerged in all her distinctive style, the thoughts of what she might do developed steadily.
MAD MARCH MORNING
But the fulfilment of all the performance possibilities were still in the future when we drove down the Ards Peninsula to Portaferry on that cold but increasingly sunny mad March morning, with a blustery gustery nor’easter that seemed to have arrived unhindered from the Arctic. With me were my brother James and longtime shipmate Ed Wheeler, which was a minor miracle in itself, as their career paths in those days could have found them thousands of miles away.
Thus we’d reverted to boyhood banter attitudes, lessened in no way on arrival by the fact that we’d known the Brown brothers for years, from the time when they’d been sailing the hugely characterful gaff cutter Marie Michon until Dickie had a rush of blood to the head, and bought the extreme ultra-light-displacement van der Stadt offshore racer Black Soo to cut a swathe through the North Channel scene.
The Brown brother first became known outside Strangford Lough for their skilled sailing of the very traditional gaff cutter Marie Michon…….Photo: W M Nixon
….and then they leapt to fame when Dickie Brown acquired the exteme van der Stadt offshore racer Black Soo, seen here undergoing “minor repairs” at Portaferry pier. Photo: W M Nixon
More recently, Dick and Billy had been with me in the 1969 Fastnet Race in the new 35ft Mayro of Skerries, which I’d been involved in creating with Ronnie Wayte in that renowned yacht-building centre of Carrickmacross in County Monaghan, while most recently I’d crewed for Dickie in Ruffian herself in a class win in the final offshore of the 1972 season, when he’d also clinched the win of the overall ISORA Championship.
BOAT FINISHED THE NIGHT BEFORE
So it was definitely a Ruffian Movement morning, particularly when we discovered that the new smaller boat had only been finished the night before. She’d been launched an hour or so earlier that morning, and they’d only just completed rigging her. Thus the up-coming sail in that Siberian wind would be her maiden sail, even if it was planned as a complete programme, with a boat photo session first, and then Dickie and Billy would leave us with the boat and the prospect of a no-holds-barred blast around the lively open waters of the lough.
Having a blast – Dickie Brown helming the first production-built Ruffian 23 on her maiden sail, March 1973. Photo: W M Nixon
Between the squalls, the attractions of the new Ruffian 23 became more clearly evident back in March ’73. Photo: W M Nixon
Well, it all held together, though memory eludes me as to what was used for a photographer’s launch. But we can be reasonably sure that it was of such a minimal size that the photography had to be limited to the more sheltered waters of the Narrows. Then off went the Browns – probably to have their breakfast – and the Three Musketeers blasted off into the lough with that fresh-out-of-the-wrappers boat.
Strangford Lough may be perceived as a place of sheltered and serene waters, but a strong wind-over-tide nor’easter turns its more open southern area into a different place, and creates quite the lively little seaway. But the Ruffian 23 loved it, we just loved the Ruffian 23, and the afternoon was well spent when we finally swept back to Portaferry and a very lively de-briefing session in the Weatherly Yachts Executive Suite, otherwise known as Dumigan’s, where the juices flowed freely.
ONWARDS AND UPWARDS
After that very special day more than fifty years ago, it was onwards and upwards towards a steady more organised output of new Ruffian 23s. In 1973’s Quarter Ton Worlds raced at Poole in the south of England, the winner may have been a young New Zealander called Ron Holland with his own-designed Eyghthene, but a very respectable performance was put in by former Strangford Lough dinghy star Barry Bramwell with his new Ruffian 23, and observers were much taken by the jaunty look of the boat from Portaferry. Ever since, there’s been something about the Ruffian 23’s almost puppy-like enthusiastic appearance that has strongly appealed to a wide variety of sailors worldwide.
Inevitably, the enormous Ruffian 23 fore-triangle means a king-size spinnaker, as seen here with the Dublin Bay fleet. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien
Fifty years later, her enormous fore-triangle – all the rage at the time – may seem a bit OTT, an impression in no way lessened by the lively sail she provides under spinnaker. But very quickly people learned that she could carry a crew of five for inshore racing, and in some of the more clubbable sailing centres, the numerous crew – often in syndicates – is seen as a sociable advantage, with partnerships lasting for years.
WHAT KEEPS A LOCAL RUFFIAN 23 CLASS THRIVING?
Initially, one of the cornerstones of starting the building programme was that the boat would become the new Royal Ulster Yacht Club One Design at Bangor on Belfast Lough, and it did fill that role for a while. But the RUYC has never really shaken off the gung-ho attitude of its glory years in the 1890s and the early decades of the 20th Century when - before the Great War of 1914 - Belfast was the Dallas of its day, and any energetic entrepreneur could become a millionaire and more within a couple of year. Thus new ideas – including new One-Design yachts – were taken up with enthusiasm, but then peaked and faded in less – often much less - than a decade.
So it has taken less excitable sailing communities to have the Ruffian 23 still thriving mightily in its Golden Jubilee year. These are places where people take a broader view than the purely competitive, they appreciate the Ruffian 23’s excellent value nowadays, and see any successful class’s need to have both a socially significant role for its members, and an exemplary position within its own sailing community, with all that in addition to being aware of sailing’s position in the community generally.
BROWN BROTHERS’ TRADITION
As it happens, all that is in keeping with Dick and Billy Brown’s original aspiration of bringing fresh prosperity and vitality to Portaferry. Thus we find that today the Ruffian 23 is thriving in Dun Laoghaire and Poolbeg on Dublin Bay, Wicklow, Westport in County Mayo, Carrickfergus in County Antrim, and Hong Kong in the Far East, while nascent classes are emerging at ports such as Schull, with one or two boats in other places where a key sector of the sailing population may eventually share the feeling of the established Ruffian 23 sailing centres, that an admittedly special boat and its class’s long-term viability is probably more important for the greater social and truly sporting good than any obsession with novelty.
Exotic location. Seen at night, one of the Hong Kong Ruffian 23 fleet continues to show the “puppy-like enthusiasm” of the little boat’s hull shape and general appearance
And that list of current Ruffian 23 strongholds is a hint of the way the class blossomed during its expansionist years. An early expression of interest from Hong Kong developed into such reality that the class in the Royal Hong Yacht Club (where Bangor’s own Jamie Boag is the Sailing Manager) continues to thrive, albeit with some rather more exotic sails than other fleets, as some Ruffian sailors out there work in the giant Hong Kong sail-making factories, and thus have access to fabrics most sailors can only dream of.
ICELANDIC FLEET
Another distant offshoot was Iceland, where five boats were ordered, and their owners turned up to enjoy life in Portaferry for a few days before simply sailing them home, an 800-mile passage which proved the little boats’ seaworthiness beyond all doubt. But the Icelandic winter is a savage environment for the long-term survival in good order of even a tough fibreglass boat built with the integrity of a Ruffian 23, and thus, the Icelandic fleet has slipped off the radar in recent years.
So has a class in Fleetwood in Lancashire, where the tide goes out forever and so too - apparently - have the local Ruffian 23s. But this explains how, from time to time, Ruffian 23s turn up in the most unexpected places in England, and people get the special joy of feeling they’ve discovered a very reasonably-priced hidden gem of profound historical significance that deserves the most tender loving care.
GOLDEN JUBILEE REVEALS MUCH-CHERISHED BOATS
The objects of this special TLC have emerged in new strength during this Golden Jubilee year, in which beautifully-kept Ruffian 23s – often totally owner-maintained – have impressed with their quality and performance, none more so than former dinghy ace Stephen Penney’s Hot Orange from Carrickfergus, which sailed south to take part in the 50th Anniversary Irish Nationals in Dublin Bay at the end of July, and marched home again with the title.
The good weather of June 2023 provided welcoming conditions for the Ruffian 23s returning to Portaferry and Strangford Lough for their Golden Jubilee Gathering. Photo: Ann Kirwan
But by the time the class reached the excitement of a lively championship in Dublin Bay, the Golden Jubilee celebrations had started for real in June’s good weather with a major get together in Strangford Lough based at Portaferry, but using all the lough to cruise-in-company to such hospitable locations as the Down Cruising Club’s former lightship headquarters at Ballydorn.
That said, it was the friendly support of Portaferry Sailing Club which made it all possible, and the racing programme produced a very satisfactory result as the overall winner was Michael Cutliffe from the Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club sailing Ruffles, a popular win for a Dublin Bay sailing family whose Ruffian 23 involvement goes back for decades.
“Our friends from the North” – Stephen Penney’s 2023 National Champion Hot Orange from Carrickfergus very tellingly demonstrates just how attractive and competitive a properly-run owner-maintained vintage Ruffian 23 can be. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien
The overall organiser was Billy Brown’s daughter Heather Kennedy, for in Portaferry, Weatherly Yachts has long since become a fond memory, and both Billy and Dickie are gone from among us too. But since then, other builders have taken to using the Ruffian 23 moulds, such that most of the main sailing centres have classes which include locally-built boats.
THE WEST’S AWAKE
Nevertheless it was quite something when the Western Division – based around fourteen Ruffian 23s home-ported at Mayo Sailing Club in Clew Bay – hosted an inter-regional competition for the 50th anniversary celebrations. It was somehow very satisfying for those of us who have followed the fortunes of this memory-laden little boat for more than fifty years when it was demonstrated that the west is very much awake – they won.
Now, with Autumn and its distinctly sharp temperatures very much upon us, it’s time for the post-Covid revival of the biennial contest with the Hong Kong fleet, last sailed in 2018 when the RHKYC Ruffians descended on Dun Laoghaire, and were only narrowly defeated.
Next Wednesday, thanks to the efficient organisation you’d expect from Ruffian 23 stalwart Ann Kirwan, the award-winning former Commodore of Dublin Bay SC, twenty Ruffian 23 crews representative of the Irish fleets will fly out to Hong Kong in the hope that the sailing there is enjoying the Autumn’s reputation as the best weather time in the local sailing calendar, and hoping too that they can give of their best in some of those very souped-up HK boats.
IRISH TEAM FOR HONG KONG
- Ann Kirwan – National YC & Schull Harbour SC
- Brendan Briscoe - NYC & SHSC
- Brian Cullen - NYC
- Brian Buggy - NYC
- Markie Becker - NYC
- Mark Bourne - NYC
- Feena Lynch - NYC
- Nick Miller – Sailing in Dublin
- Ian Cuttliffe – Dun Laoghaire Motor YC
- Andrew Beatty – Mayo SC
- Maeve Curley - MSC
- Cian Mullee - MSC
- Aoife Hall - SID
- Eimear NI Mhealoid - DMYC & SID
- Natalia Niewidok - SID
- Declan McCarthy - DMYC
- Eoin O hEochaidh - DMYC
- Helen Bradley - DMY
- Shane Brodie – Clontarf Yacht & Boat Club
- Charain Fong – Hong Kong Ruffians
In these internationally troubled times, it’s good to know that the Golden Jubilee Celebration of a remarkable little boat first conceived in Portaferry in County Down quite a long time ago is being celebrated on the other side of the globe in an encouraging gesture of friendship, rounding out a splendid 50th anniversary season of widespread success.
“Our friends from the East” – the Hong Kong team taking their departure from the National Yacht Club in 2018. After Covid cancellations, the international biennial series resumes next weekend in Hong Kong, with a 20-strong Irish team flying out from Dublin on Wednesday. Photo courtesy Ann Kirwan
