While most of the population looked forward to this weekend's forecast good weather, Ireland's cruiser-racer sailors had mixed feelings. For the projections for Day One (Friday) highlighted the possibility of calm in Dublin Bay. This was the situation as the centre of the dominating high pressure area moved steadily but slowly towards the northeast close to the north of us, tracking along the Hills of Oriel, and then out over the Irish Sea at Clogherhead, whence it went on towards the Isle of Man.
At the island, it stopped for a few hours in the afternoon and evening before being run out of town, and sent on its way to north England's Lake District and beyond.
Meanwhile to the south of it, the predicted wind arrows for Dublin Bay - mostly between east and northeast - were not showing much enthusiasm. Indeed, it seemed like a case of Workshy Friday Syndrome. So when the early morning revealed an onshore if ultra-light breezes, we wondered if the absolute dog end of August is too late for sea breezes to develop with any power, or might it just do the business?
Living history. Hal Sisk's restored Knud Reimers-designed 8 Metre Cruiser/Racer Marian Maid was built for his father John Sisk in his own Dalkey Yachtyard in 1954. Photo: Afloat.ie
Happily, the pessimists were wrong. They – that is, onshore sea breezes or something very like them – developed nicely from the northeast to provide what others might well call champagne sailing, even if we wouldn't dream of using that hackneyed phrase ourselves.
TWO RACES COMPLETED AT CIVILISED TIME
Regardless of what was happening to individual boats, the first day of the UNIO ICRA Nationals 2024 on Dublin Bay from the Royal Irish Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire was as pleasant sailing as we've had all year. With two races completed at a civilised time with the Race Officers Michael Tyrrell and Eddie Totterdell and their teams notching a clean set of results, a bit of relaxation would be in order were they not busy looking at refinements for Saturday.
In theory it should bring stronger breezes from the southeast as the High Pressure continues to move slowly away and a spot of weather develops in the Atlantic, but nothing is certain in this world.
Chris Johnston's Beneteau 31.7 Prospect has emerged from the first day's racing leading the class. Photo: Afloat.ie
CLASS 0
As it is, there was a touch of David and Goliath in the Cruiser 0 results, as in the first race in which Pete Smyth's Ker 46 took clear line honours, next down the fleet David Maguire's Cape 31 Valkyrie nipped across the finish line just seven seconds ahead of the Biggs/Cullen team in the comparatively majestic First 50 Checkmate XX.
VALENTINA AND IMPETUOUS SQUARE UP
Perhaps it's timely to remember that in the original story, it was David who smote Goliath big time. But either way, it shows there was enough bite in the breeze to make the uber-comfortable Checkmate XX a performer, such that at the end of the day the IRC battle was between Johnny Treanor's J/112e Valentina on 1,2 with the Welsh Corby 33 Impetuous second on 3,1 and Checkmate in the picture third OA with 2,6.
Johnny & Suzy Murphy's defending champion, the J/109 Outrajeous, has been making a strong defence with a youthful crew. Photo: Afloat.ie
CLASS 1
There's no escaping the reality – it's those pesky J/109s every which way in Cruisers 1. Barry Cunningham's Chimaera has been having a good year of it, and shows no sign of slackening the pace with a first and third on opening day, though challenged by overall defending champion Outrajeous which clocked a couple of seconds while John Maybury's Joker II with The Presence on board logged two thirds to lie third OA.
WALL-TO-WALL J/109s
It's of interest to note that overall on IRC it's wall-to-wall J/109s all the way down to sixth place, and here it's another J Boat, Mike & Richie Evans' J/99 Snapshot, which pops up to keep an X boat, Colin Byrne's Bon Exemple, back in seventh.
CLASS 2
Here be Classic Half Tonners. Or rather, here should be Half Tonners, but the Cork/Fingal Too Farr is sitting it out in order to pile the Lusk talent into the Kelly family's J/109 Storm, and so James Dwyer's legendary Swuzzlebubble from Cork is out on her own.
Classic Half Tonners set the style and pace in Cruisers 2. Photo: Afloat.ie
Or she would be, had not Crazy Diamond - Frank Whelan's other boat from Greystones – made a good debut with line honours in the first race. But when the numbers were crunched it was Nico Gore-Grimes' veteran X boat Dux from which took it on corrected time, with Swuzzlebubble second. In the second race, The Bubble reinforced this with a win, and concluded Day One on first OA with a 2,1 while Stephen Quinn's J/97 Lambay Rules (HYC) is second on 5,2 and Dux is third on 1,8.
CLASS 3
It's odd that somehow we don't think of the veteran J/24 as being part of the modern J/Boat family, yet she's the granny of them all. Wicklow is developing a gra for them, and it has had a real boost with WSC's Haughton, Flood, Heather & Kinnane team emerging from the first day of the ICRA Nats with their J/24 Jupiter leading Cruisers 3 after logging a 1,2.
The Cobh Mafia are getting to grips with campaigning the Classic Quarter Tonner Snoopy. Photo: Afloat.ie
Another veteran boat, Stephen Mullaney's Sigma 33 Insider from Howth, also did the business with a 4,1 to make second overall, while the Quarter Tonner Snoopy, now Cork Harbour-based and campaigned by the mysterious Snoopy Race team from Cobh, provides a healthy spread of results across disparate sailing centres to be third OA on 3,3.
CLASS 4 (Non-Spin)
Colm Bermingham's Elan 333 Bite the Bullet from Howth is making something of a career these days out of doing well in races where coloured sails forward of the mast do not feature, and he did it agin in Dublin Bay with a 2,1 in Class 4, with clubmate Splashdance, a Dufour 40, taking 1 and 2.
Colm Bermingham's Elan 333 Bite the Bullet from Howth Photo: Afloat.ie
BENETEAU 31.7
The substantial flotilla of Beneteau 31.7s in Dun Laoghaire will have thanked their lucky stars that they decided to throw in their lot with the ICRA Nats for their annual championship, as everything is set up for them on the water such all they've had to do is add boats and crew, and the sunshine comes free.
David and Goliath scenario – David Maguire's Cape 3l Valkyrie comes to the mark just clear of the First 50 Checkmate XX. Photo: Afloat.ie
Chris Johnston with Prospect put his mark on it from the off, winning the first race and notching third in the second. In the latter, Michael Bryson with Bluefin Two secured the win, but his first race was less assured with a fourth, and consequently, Prospect leads OA, with Bluefin second Michael Blaney's After You Too ditto second, but back in third on the usual formula, which has an element of the consultation of chicken entrails in it, but so be it.
TGIF AFLOAT
So there they all were, TGIF and a wonderful summer day's racing carved out of an unlikely time of the year. Only a week ago, the International Dragons were battling early inset Autumn on exactly the same waters. Day One of the UNIO ICRA Nats 2024 has been a real community tonic.
"Just add celebrating sailors". A mood of anticipation around the deserted Royal Irish Yacht Club when the hundreds of sailors are at sea. Photo: Afloat.ie
But why has it been such a balm for Ireland's bruised sailors? After all, while the summer of 2024 where has been less than ideal for the good reason that the particularly noxious weather periods seemed to coincide with major events, at least there was enough wind to get the programmes completed, and there has been some great racing.
WE ARE ALL AFFECTED BY INTERNATIONAL SAILING SETBACKS
However, in this age of global sailing communication, we are all affected – worldwide and likewise in Ireland – by major setbacks to our sport in every part of its diverse aspects. Some highly specialised or narrow-interest sailing folk might shrug their shoulders and say some negative event in another form of sailing and yachting elsewhere "Doesn't affect me, mate", but they're deluding themselves and fooling few others.
For in global terms, sailing folk are a tiny minority of the population, and the general perception is of us all sharing any setback, however remote we personally may like to think ourselves to be. And the reality is that August 2024 has been a very poor month indeed for glossing up sailing's world image.
NEGATIVITY TOWARDS MARSEILLE
Thus the Sailing Olympics at Marseilles provided a mostly negative picture. After all, this was very much the Paris Olympics 2024, and as far as the general media was concerned, Marseille was just a footnote, both geographically and image-wise. The main scene of the action in Paris was so compellingly televisual and so completely dominated by stadium events that the sailing seemed to be stuck into any report at the very end.
SHORT COURSES
And in a hurry too, once they'd made contact with the deep south and found there'd been no racing because there was no wind. Yet even when there was racing, it might have been over courses so short that they could retain public interest, but genuine sailors thought this extreme shortness so total that it was plain silly.
THE HOODOO OF THE MEDALS RACE
On top of that, Ireland's Olympic sailors seem to be great starters in any international series, but less confident finishers. This mindset is exacerbated by concluding the Olympics with the double scoring Medals Race. The format of the Medals Race – introduced in 2008 when the main games were in Beijing and the sailing was at Qingdao – might have been specifically devised as a particularly exquisite form of torture for the Irish mindset.
It was only after Annalise Murphy did some very focused training on this "Medals Race Mindset", after slipping to fourth in the Olympic scoreline in the 2012 Games, that it showed to the good in Rio 2016.
Annalise Murphy with her Silver Medal in 2016, after turning the problem of the double-scoring medals race into an opportunity
Annalise is getting married today, and all Ireland's sailors and many others wish her well as we very happily recall that 2016 Medals Race. Going into it, most folk thought it was a real problem to be faced, but she turned it into an opportunity, moving with one mighty leap from being a challenged Bronze Medal hopeful into a triumphant Silver Medallist.
SHOULD WE REVERSE OLYMPIC TRAINING?
Thus might we suggest that all Irish Olympic Sailing training from now on be done back-to-front, starting with discerning those who have the right mental structures to be strengthened towards a winning performance under the extreme pressures of a Medals Race.
All of which assumes that there will be any sailing events in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. We wrote last week of the dogs barking as the caravan of global sailing interest moved on from Marseille towards the America's Cup in Barcelona, but since then the barking dogs within Olympic sailing have been oddly silent.
KEEPING SAILING IN THE OLYMPICS
For it may well be that the only thing that keeps the sailing in the 2028 Olympics is the fact that Los Angeles is a coastal city with sailing possible on the sea as required, and immediately off the town as well. Then too, Los Angeles 1984 was the last time any hosting city showed a clear profit on staging the Olympics.
Our Man on the Coast – Los Angeles YC Commodore Ken Corry (originally from Cork) welcoming sailing folk from several places with (left to right) Ken's mother Sheila, Ron Holland down from Vancouver, Ken himself, and Ron Holland's daughter Kelly
On top of that, the mighty Los Angeles Yacht Club currently has Ken Corry - originally from Cork - as its Commodore, so its sailing heart is in the right place. And if we need dogs barking the right way, Snoop Dogg's 2028 Olympics support gives the LA barking some real heft, and it's encouraging to note he and his family take their few holidays on yachts. So Los Angeles's enthusiasm for hosting sailing in 2028 may well be a factor in its retention for another four years.
Outside the Olympic bubble, another encouragement as August came in was the class victory in Cowes Week of the Jones family's J/122 Jellybaby from Cork, a clearcut win with which all club sailors could identify.
A success we can share – Jellybaby on her way to victory at Cowes Week 2024
Yet no sooner had the Olympics gone off the screen that our interests took another mighty blow with the horror sinking of the super-yacht Bayesian. We might be judged wanting in simple humanity in trying to look beyond the utter horror of this tragedy, which is still difficult - if not impossible - to grasp.
Beyond comprehension – the sudden sinking of the Bayesian may have technical explanations, but the reality of it all is almost impossible to grasp
But the fact is that however remote your average Irish sailor may be from the world of ultra-super-yachts, we can grasp the salient points of this disaster and its human meaning more readily than most. And once the word got out that the big boat was kept stable for sailing by an enormous and hugely heavy lifting keel, the though that it may not have been deployed made a sense of the sinking which sailors now appreciate more than most.
Again, if you think it has nothing to do with you, you must have the hide of a rhinoceros, and good luck to you. But at its most crude, the sinking of Bayesian has to be seen as a bruising setback for sailing in its broadest sense.
FIGARO FINISH FARCE
Thus as the approach of the finish at Giijon in Spain of the long leg of the 2024 Figaro Solo series during this past week approached, the news that Tom Dolan was in with better than a shout of a Stage Win was something to be cherished. Then all the leaders concertinaed together in a flat patch five miles from the finish.
Tom Dolan in action. Photo: Afloat.ie
How can you explain to a non-sailor (or indeed a potential sponsor) that a 617 sea miles race effectively re-starts with the finishing line in sight because the motive power for the whole thing takes a day off, with Ireland's genuine and well-earned hope of a win suddenly slipping to ninth? It's not a good look for the promotion of sport as a whole.
SEEKING GOOD NEWS THROUGH AUGUST
So we have stumbled on through August grasping at any straw of sailing feel-good facts, and secretly hoping that there might be a last gasp of summer for the ICRA Nats. It seems to have come to pass. But in our sailing worldview from Ireland, we have to use it to offset more bad news on the global stage.
For last Thursday was when the 37th America's Cup – dating from 1851 and the world's oldest international sporting fixture – got going at full power off Barcelona. The first day's sailing was a success, but it almost immediately went pear-shaped shoreside.
GOOD AFLOAT, NIGHTMARE ASHORE
The reality is that the better an ultra-modern sailing machine is in the challenging of attaining more speed on the water, then the more difficult it is to move that same machine ashore. And the ludicrously expensive America's Cup machines are absolutely tops in difficult shoreside handling.
Thus when news came back of a power failure to the lifting crane for the New Zealand boat as it was being lowered into its cradle, there was only one brutal question: How far?
The 2024 America's Cup boat. They look very odd, they're difficult to handle ashore, but they sail very fast.
NO HIGHLY-TUNED STRUCTURE COULD SURVIVE BEING DROPPED 22 FEET
The answer is 7 metres. So in writing this on Friday afternoon as we await further good news of quality racing from the ICRA Nats, we're going to stick our neck out and say the New Zealand boat may be a write-off.
For if its hull is capable of surviving in a re-buildable form after being dropped 22 feet onto relatively small and localized cradle supports, then that hull was grossly over-built in the first place, and that is clearly not the case.
EVIL GENIUS?
The America's Cup 2024 without New Zealand competing in top order is Hamlet without the Prince. If somebody was looking to sabotage the 37th America's Cup in Barcelona, then it has to be said that they've displayed evil genius in doing it by clicking a switch.
So to offset that, we need as much good news as we can get from the UNIO ICRA Nats 2024, and Friday August 30th has done that in style.
See day one results below
