It wasn't fully realised at the time, but 1974 was a notably happening year for sailing in Ireland. The new marina was properly in place and up and running in Crosshaven to provide the user-friendly facilities that led, in 1974 in Cork Harbour, to the first winter frostbite series for cruisers. And in Dun Laoghaire, the mixed dinghy winter series run by a trio of eccentrics from the Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club, using a start line set from the green beside the Royal Irish YC, had been running for two years, and in 1974 was becoming firmly mainstream.
Across in Howth meanwhile, the new Laser single-hander had burst upon the scene. Dinghy sailors and keelboat racers alike took to the charismatic new boat as a way of seeing off the winter blues by providing off-season sport, useful exercise, and intense après-sailing in a manageable package afloat and ashore, before going home to a good snooze in front of the open fire at a time when we were assured that Peat Briquettes constituted "Smokeless Fuel".
Gordon Maguire introduces the Laser to Howth with an already well-used borrowed sail. Photo: W M Nixon
CONTINUOUS SAILING PROGRAMME FOR FIFTY YEARS
All of this means double celebration through 2024, as the first race of the traditional season at Howth in April 2024 meant the club had been running a continuous sailing programme for fifty years. And a week hence, Sunday November 3rd 2024, is the Golden Jubilee of HYC's Frostbite racing, with the timeless Laser – now the ILCA in its various rig permutations but still the same hull - continuing in a central role.
The Laser had first emerged in Canada in 1969 as the result of a phone conversation between journalist/boat designer Bruce Kirby and sailor and boatbuilder Ian Bruce of Performance Sailcraft. They felt the demanding solo-sailed Olympic Finn was too much a boat in terms of challenge and expense for the ordinary sailor, and they sensed there was a need was for a good-looking smaller alternative, developed with solo sailing so much in mind that the determinedly elegant hull would be imperceptibly but definitely fuller in shape where the lone sailor's weight would be located.
Laser designer Bruce Kirby looking none-too-pleased at a time when the boat's global success was causing legal trading disputes
HITTING THE TARGET FIRST TIME
Bruce Kirby's first rough sketch hit the button at first shot. Seldom can one phone call and its resulting scrap of paper have been so profitable. International expansion was rapid. By 1972, a Laser production facility was being planned and developed in Waterford, with Dun Laoghaire dinghy polymath Johnny Ross Murphy on the management team.
As he became fully aware of the exceptionally high standards of the company, with many early hulls being rejected for minor colour blemishes and other tiny faults, Johnny was right in his expectation that Irish sailors would be happy to buy these "flawed" boats at a realistic discount, provided they measured.
The Howth members who took advantage of this weren't necessarily dinghy sailors. In fact, one of the most active leaders of the new Howth Laser Pack was Arctic cruising enthusiast and regular keelboat sailor John Gore-Grimes. But having been one of the young sailors who had been in the midst of the fraught Heron-versus-Mirror "best junior training dinghy" row in the past, he quietly did his recruiting work behind the scenes among sailors of all sorts, before a fully-fledged Laser class blossomed in Howth in the Autumn of 1974.
John Gore-Grimes with his Blue Water Medal of the Cruising Club of America, awarded for his Arctic voyaging achievements that were made during the period in which he was involved in introducing the Laser to Howth for winter sailing. Photo: W M Nixon
It was an extraordinary mixture of people. Every kind of sailing interest seemed to fall for the Lasers in considerable numbers, and it became such a special focus at Howth that people like the Wallaces of Wexford (three generations of them now) were – and still are – prepared to travel some distance each winter Sunday morning to get involved.
DUBLIN EFFECT
Admittedly nowadays the suck-in effect of Dublin means that many who give their allegiance to a distant club are actually resident in the greater city area. But it was a matter of pride that the 2023-24 winter season at Howth included battles for racing honours between helmsmen sailing for Baltimore SC, Cove SC, Wexford Harbour Boat & Tennis Club, East Antrim BC, Blessington Lake SC, and the Obolon Sailing Club of Kyiv in Ukraine.
Back in the beginning, when the Howth Laser Frostbites in the new Lasers had more than half of the fleet made up of non-dinghy sailors. Photo: W M Nixon
OLYMPIC SILVER MEDAL OF 2016
The ILCA/Laser continues to be the backbone of it all, but it's intriguing that the world market has not seemed to welcome other boats in the Laser family with the same passion. While they haven't quite withered on the vine, these other boats were lost in the shadows as the Laser itself spread and spread to become an Olympic Class in 1996 (the Sailing Olympics needed the Laser more than the Laser needed the Olympics) while continuing to find worldwide popularity as a club and regional racing dinghy. That said, the Laser in the Olympics has provided Ireland with our most recent Olympic sailing medal, the Silver for Annalise Murphy at Rio in 2016.
Power sailing. Annalise Murphy leads the Lasers Photo: Thom Touw
Dunmanus Bay in West Cork, where the lone Laser sailor loses track of time. Photo: W M Nixon
LASER IS "CHARMER TO SAIL"
And they're absolute charmers simply to sail. Having been immersed in cruising and offshore racing in the 1970s, the only dinghy sailing of any convenience came each year in early September in West Cork, where we'd the loan of a waterside house with a couple of Lasers beached in the cove. Being on Dunmanus Bay, the contrast was total from busy Schull just over the hill. There were few other boats around, yet sailing completely alone in a Laser in that loveliest of places was so enchanting that there were quite the few miles logged by the time supper was being sought back ashore.
LASER ROUND IRELAND
But the great Rob Henshall of Fermanagh and Cultra really pushed the envelope. He sailed solo and unaccompanied by any other boat or shore team round Ireland with a Laser in 1990, and he then did the same thing with a Bic sailboard in 1992. But the stylishness of the Laser circuit proved the little boat to be something special indeed, and enough in itself to build a unique reputation for the designer.
Rob Henshall and the Laser he sailed solo, and unaccompanied by another boat, around Ireland in 1990
Nevertheless Bruce Kirby designed one other total winner. The multi-purpose Sonar keeled dayboat. Like the original Laser, she does several set things, and she does them very well. The Sonar is both the keelboat for the Disabled Sailing Olympics, and a delightful boat to sail by anyone.
It was the designer himself who set this in perspective. He died in 2021 aged 92, and was sailing to the end despite the inevitably growing aches. As he said himself: "I've a Sonar within easy reach, and after ten minutes of sailing her, the aches and pains have been forgotten".
Bruce Kirby at 90, still sailing thanks to the Sonar
"The Boat that takes away Aches and Pains" – the Kirby-designed Sonar was sailed to Paralympic success by John Twomey of Kinsale
GETTING OUT THE SUPER-SENIORS FROM 1974
That said, while there are still quite a few seniors about who sailed in that first Laser winter series at Howth, it remains to be seen if some sort of Golden Jubilee event afloat in ILCAs can be arranged for them on Sunday, November 3rd. For with the detailed re-development of the harbour, there's very little of the extensive sheltered space that was available at high water in the harbour of 1974.
However, this morning the distant forecast for Sunday November 3rd shows a slowly declining high of 1040 sitting plumb over Ireland, which may mean little or no wind, but it also may also mean fog until noon. We shall see.
Meanwhile, the "trio of eccentrics from Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club" who led the way by codifying the whole business of winter racing in the harbour (it's now the Viking Marine DMYC Dun Laoghaire Dinghy Frostbites) deserve proper attention.
TRIO OF ECCENTRICS
They were Norman Long and Theo & Avril Harris. Norman was English and came to Dublin with a posting in a big insurance company, and soon went native. Theo and Avril were from down Waterford way, and had sailed at Waterford Harbour SC at Dunmore East. But after moving to Dublin, between themselves and Norman they were soon putting fresh ideas into action in Dun Laoghaire sailing through the DMYC.
There, Avril became Ireland's first woman Commodore, while Norman and Theo became so enthusiastic about Mirror class development that they rigged one out as a ketch in order to demonstrate the marvellous little boat's versatility, and just out of plain mischief.
Theo Harris and Norman Long broaden the Mirror Dinghy's potential by making her a ketch with five sails in all
NORMAN THE LONG-HAIRED HIPSTER
When I first met Norman, he was going through his hipster stage with hair down to his shoulders, but had decided to move on from the Mirror. As I had reached the stage of needing one as the family were emerging from Optimists, I secured first refusal, and popped round to Glenageary expecting to bring home an excellent standard Mirror dinghy.
She was indeed an excellent Mirror. But as Norman was then in full flower power mode, the boat had become very pink, with garlands of many multi-coloured flowers painted in meticulous detail from bow to stern.
SMOOTHING THE FLOWER RIDGES
Nevertheless the deal was completed, and we got the boat home on the roof of the little car and into the garage pronto. Then when she re-emerged in the spring, she was pure white top and bottom, with the most elegant classic dark green boot-top you ever saw. But it had taken hours, days even, to sand down the little ridges that ran along the edges of each and every accursed painted flower.
NAUTICAL OPERETTA
Back in Dun Laoghaire, Norman was hyper-busy with his other interest of amateur operetta, and for several years his company The Waterfront Players performed in all the clubs, and anywhere else that could claim a nautical connection. But meanwhile he himself was moving centre stage in the sailing scene, becoming a pillar of the Royal Irish YC, and a mover and shaker in that pioneering body, the Royal Alfred Yacht Club.
Pioneers from within – Commodores of the innovative Royal Alfred YC include (left to right) Clare Hogan, Geoff Whelan, Tim Goodbody, Tino Hyland and Norman Long
RELEVANT TO SAILING WORLDWIDE
Even though it is now subsumed into Dublin Bay SC, the innovative race organisation ideas introduced over many years by the Royal Alfred YC continue to be relevant in sailing worldwide.
So it takes quite an effort, when looking at the lineup of the Commodores of the RAYC with Norman Long among them, to realise that this is the long-haired finger-clicking hipster who sold us a pink flower-covered Mirror Dinghy back in 1977, and had played a key role in making frostbite sailing part of the mainstream before that.
