It’s one thing to declare an interest in contesting an up-coming iteration of the biennial 704-mile SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race from Wicklow. But it is quite something else to divvy up an entry fee, and sign on the dotted line. But when a gathering of the great and the good assembled in the Wicklow County Council Campus in Rathnew on Monday morning this week to announce that the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race from Wicklow on June 22nd was very much going to be a major part of the Irish sailing scene in 2024, there wasn’t one completed entry in existence. Yet Race Organiser and former Wicklow SC Commodore Kyran O’Grady was confident that the official opening of the entry list next day, Tuesday January 29th, would soon see tangible results.
At the launch of the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race 2024 at the Wicklow County Council Campus in Rathnew were (left to right) Michael Nicholson (Director of Service at WCC), Senator Pat Casey, Aoife Flynn Kennedy (Cathaoirleach of Wicklow County Council), Karen Kissane (Commodore of Wicklow Sailing Club), Barry Kilcline (head of Offshore Ireland at SSE Renewables), Lorraine Gallagher (Director of Services at WCC), Kyran O’Grady (Round Ireland Committee, Wicklow Sailing Club) and Brian Gleeson (Head of Finance, WCC). Photo; Mkchael Kelly
How right he was. And it was the Mother-Club it came from, in the form of the first entry being Royal Cork YC’s hype-keen Noel Coleman with his family’s Oyster 37 Blue Oyster. So if the senior club in Ireland – indeed, the senior club in the world - could come up with the first formal entry, how would others among the bigger clubs shape up in supporting this major assertion of Irish sailing identity.
First out of the box – Noel Coleman’s Oyster 37 Blue Oyster (Royal Cork YC) heads the entry list for the 2024 Round Ireland Race. Photo: Robert Bateman
Well, as it happens, Entry 2 covered many bases, as it is the successful First 50 Checkmate XXV, which is raced by Nigel Biggs in partnership with Dave Cullen, who also happens to be Commodore of the Irish Cruiser Racing Association, while both add Howth YC to their club affiliations.
The First 50 Checkmate XX sweeps towards the finish line and victory in the coastal race in the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien
Thus with just two entries, Wicklow Sailing Cub’s big race had already comfortably included Ireland’s senior yacht club in the RCYC, it had also brought in the premier club with the RIYC, and with that there was also the numerically largest club in HYC, while in addition they’d the active support of the national cruiser-racer organisation through the personal participation of its top honcho.
But fortunately this immediate and enthusiastic involvement of the talent from the heavy metal in the big club lineup does nothing to frighten off entries from smaller clubs. On the contrary, with Wicklow SC itself being smaller than many, sailors from the small clubs feel a special supportive affinity with it, and thereby with the Round Ireland. Thus a notable early entry is from Kilmore Quay Boat Club on the south coast of Wexford in the form of the Mills 36 Prime Suspect, in which the lead partner is the indefatiguable Keith Milller, supported by shipmates Tom O’Connor and Donal McLoughlin.
Prime Suspect from Kilmore Quay is a Mills 36 campaigned by Keith Miller with Tom O’Connor and Donal McLoughlin
The first Scottish entry is interesting on many counts, as Alan Crichton counts the Solway Yacht Club at Kippford on the north shore of the broad and often shallow Solway Firth as the home club for his Sun Fast 3300 Aqua Marine. With Cian McCarthy and Sam Hunt of Kinsale doing remarkable things with their home-based Sun Fast 3300 Cinnamon Girl in home waters and a similarly-named sister-ship in Australia, the advent of another 3300 is always of interest, especially when it’s with a boat whose home club has to live with such a large tidal range that he also gives affiliation to the Royal Naval Sailing Association.
Solway YC at Kippford has lovely sailing water on one of Scotland’s few south-facing coasts of any significant length, but the tide does go out a very long way
Further up the size scale, another entry of special note is Simon Harris’s J/112E J’Ouvert, but as he limits his club affiliation to the RORC, we’ll need further info and time to find his real base. As it is, two of the bigger entries in this first tranche - Michael O’Donnell’s J/121 Darkwood, and Hiroshi Nakajima’s Sparkman & Stephen 49 Hiro Maru – bringing enough club affiliations with them to cover half the globe.
Senior sailors will remember the younger Michael O’Donnell as a junior who had learnt his sailing in Kinsale before going on to crew with his father on the Oyster 37 Sundowner (a survivor of the 1979 Fastnet Race storm) out of the Royal Irish Yacht Club.
But these days he’s largely-based in the south of England, and is an active participant in the RORC programme with his successful J/121 Darkwood, while his club needs are met by the Royal Yacht Squadron (where he’s on the committee) in Cowes, the Royal Thames YC in London, and the RORC in both locations.
Michael O’Donnell’s J/121 tuning up to speed. You start with the outermost sail, and then work your way back through the other headsails to the main, when it’s time to start all over again.
However, that impressive quiver-full of club links is well-matched by the American entry, Hiroshi Nakajima’s S&S49 Hiro Maru, which first arrived in Europe with the New York YC’s Transatlantic Race to Cowes in 2019. Covid interrupted bits of the planned programme, but the vintage Hiro Maru managed some sailing in Europe and a lot of racing, notably in the Fastnet and the Round Ireland, which she sailed in 2022.
Hiro Maru reaches the finish at the RYS in Cowes in July 2019 after racing Transatlantic
In it, they won the Maybird Mast trophy for the oldest boat to complete the course. But there was more to it than that, as they place a good 16th overall, well ahead of the next boats in line for the oldest boat award. And then there was a special completeness to it all, with Hiro Maru over-wintering in Crosshaven, for as Darryl Hughes had not commissioned Maybird that year owing to a major house renovation, the classic S&S sloop was able to enhance the Drake’s Pool anchorage by lying to the Tyrrell ketch’s all-seasons mooring.
Owner-skipper Hiroshi Nakajima in the midst of Hiro Maru’s crew in Wicklow after wining the Maybird Mast Trophy in 2022
The llst of affiliated clubs that Hiro Maru brings to the Round Ireland is mind-boggling, as they include Stamford YC, Cruising Club of America, Storm Trysail Club, New York YC, Royal Thames YC, and the Royal Ocean Racing Club. But though she intends to sail back to America after the 2024 Round Ireland is completed, the time enjoying the US facilities could be brief enough, as June 2025 will see a West-East Transatlantic Race to Cowes to bring the cream of the American fleet to Europe for the Centenary of both the Fastnet Race and the RORC.
Former contender Eric de Turckheim has indicated that he will be returning to the Round Ireland with his NMD 54 Teasing Machine
But meanwhile the movers and shakers in the RORC are putting their full support behind 2024’s Round Ireland Race, as a visit by Kyran O’Grady to the annual RORC awards dinner in December resulted in current Commodore Deborah Fish committing to take part with the Sun Fast 3600 Bellino, outgoing Commodore and Round Ireland veteran James Neville also committed with his Carkeek 45 Ino Noir, and the irrepressible Eric de Turckheim – no stranger to the Wicklow starting line – is on course to be with us with his NMD 54 Teasing Machine.
Summertime in Wicklow, and in a couple of hours the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race will be under way. Photo: W M Nixon
