There's a distinct change in tone as the 2025 sailing season – or indeed any annual sailing season - moves from June into July. Certainly in Ireland there's always a feeling that if the accelerating early-season programme in May and June has produced quality racing and a set of satisfactory results, then this will stand us to the good whatever the rest of the sailing year may bring.
At the moment there's every sign of an almost unsustainably hectic pace that will reach such a pitch that we'll welcome the quiet contemplation of the Centenary of John B Kearney's own-designed Ringsend-built yawl Mavis in Maine later in the summer to be useful in bringing us all back down to earth.
The restored Mavis making good speed in Maine
But for now, those gentle souls, those whose favourite forms of sailing do not include racing, may well be bemused by what difference we might find between "quality racing" and "satisfactory results". But your dyed-in-the-wool sporting spirit will immediately know that quality racing is provided by decent sailing breezes and well-set courses with a fleet of the right size.
PARTISAN ATTITUDE
But satisfactory results are when you or your good friends or your club or your region or your country or whatever do well in quality competitions appropriate to whatever level they're representing. In other words, it's just as crudely partisan as you wish to be, though while we're on the topic, could we remind certain crews that being a good and gracious winner at the end of the day is every bit as important for the spirit of the sport as being a good loser.
ROSE-TINTED IS NOW SMELLING OF ROSES
Admittedly we may have had to plot a rose-tinted course through May and June to get the picture we desire, and we write this with the final outcomes of the Sovereigns in Kinsale and Kiel Week (already with a Bronze for National YC's Finn Lynch) still in the balance, while the Sigma 33s conclude tomorrow (Sunday) at Howth. Nevertheless if we sensibly restrict ourselves to considering the Scottish Series in May and the Volvo Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race in June as the early-season highlights, everything goes from being merely rose-tinted to smelling of roses.
CLUB SPIRIT IN NATIONAL YC
The club spirit in the National Yacht Club's foraging party to the Scottish Series at Tarbert in late May was right on target, as the Hall family celebrated something like four decades of venturing north into the Western Clyde to find cold snow on top of Arran, but the warmest of welcomes in Loch Fyne. To this they responded in May 2025 by taking the top trophy in style with their up-graded veteran J/109 Something Else, with the only comparable showing being put in by clubmate Johnny Treanor with his much newer J/112e ValenTina.
ROUND IRELAND PIONEER
Your columnist can remember John, patriarch of the Hall family, initially making the national sailing news back in 1980 when he sailed in the first Round Ireland Race from Wicklow in a Prout catamaran. This was an odd-looking sloop-rigged machine with the mast so far aft that she was like a one-masted schooner, but it was the Prout brothers clever way of having all the major engineering loads concentrated in one section to provide confident seagoing multi-hull sailing.
Pre-start manoeuvres for the first Round Ireland race from Wicklow in 1980 include (on left) line honours winner Force Tension (Johnny Morris, Pwllheli and Abersoch), John Hall's (NYC) Prout catamaran in background, and overall winner, the Rival 34 Raasay of Melfort (Brian Coad, Waterford Harbour SC) on right. Photo: W M Nixon
That said, line honours in that 1980 race were taken by Johnny Morris of Pwllheli racing Tony Vernon's High Tension 36 Force Tension, with Brian Coad's Rival 34 Raasay of Melfort winning overall. But in time the Hall family moved towards mainstream sailing, and the J/109 concept in Something Else - with Brian Hall now skipper - has worked very well indeed for them.
VOLVO D2D TAKES OVER HORIZON
Then we'd barely recovered from the Lambay Weekend at Howth before the Volvo D2D took over the horizon with one of the best 40-boat fleets ever assembled in Ireland, full stop. It was inevitably going to be a cracker of a race, and with eight of the top J/109s in the fleet attracting some prodigiously talented crew, this was where the smart money went.
Tom Shanahan's J/109 Ruth (NYC) led at first on IRC as they beat south, but soon Johnny Murphy's sister-ship Outrajeous (Howth YC) had edged ahead by Six Mile Point to pace with the J/112e sisters The Big Picture (Evans bros, HYC) and ValenTina, all three going well but knowing that the new ebb would soften their cough with the stronger adverse streams at Wicklow Head.
Celebrated by all. The exact Centenary of the completion of Conor O'Brien's global circumnavigation is commemorated in Dun Laoghaire with the DB21 Oola (built Portrush 1903) leading in the 1926 Baltimore-built 56ft ketch Ilen. Photo: Afloat.ie
SAOIRSE CIRCUMNAVIGATION CENTENARY ANOTHER HIGHLIGHT
It tells us much about the inter-linked nature of the Irish sailing scene that the Outrajeous branch of the Murphys should be connected to the Murphys who are closely related to the O'Briens of Foynes Island and Conor O'Brien and Saoirse Round-the-World fame. So it was at the Saoirse Circumnavigation Centenary Dinner in the Royal Irish YC on Friday night (June 20th) that we got the lowdown from Johnny on just how close to Wicklow Head the Outrajeous crew had to scrape along to be as much inside the adverse tide as possible.
Six days earlier, he'd been collecting the top D2D trophies in Dingle. Johnny Murphy (foreground) at the Conor O'Brien Saoirse Circumnavigation Centenary Dinner in the RIYC on Friday June 20th with (right) Tom Fitzpatrick, former Vice Commodore Irish Cr Club & Commodore Howth YC, Donal Gallagher (centre), Honorary Secretary Irish Cruising Club, and Stephanie McCarthy Gallagher (left).
CLIFF-FACE IN TOUCHING DISTANCE
The offhand comment from Johnny was that, at several stages, anyone on their starboard rail could have reached out and touched the cliff face. But they were dissuaded from doing so, as any other crew hearing of this might have seriously considered protesting them for touching a mark of the course.
The winning Outrajeous crew in Dingle
This of course begs the question as to whether anyone going aground or striking a rock during an offshore race that involves rounding a landmass is automatically disqualified. But either, way if this Race Tracker is still live you can get an idea of what Outrajeous had to do at Wicklow Head to maintain and improve her lead.
With the Dragon Championship going on at the RIYC at the same time (Little Fella from Kinsale won) there as no denying that the season of 2025 is fully under way, yet it was only Midsummmer's Eve, and the Irish summer is not really official until July is well upon us.
MAYO SC ROSMONEY GOLDEN JUBILEE CELEBRATIONS
Be that as it may, up in far Mayo they were celebrating the new vitality which the Ruffian 23 class is experiencing – particularly in Connacht – with their star turn in the WIORA Championship 2025, while Hot Orange from Carrickfergus won the Ruffian 23 Nationals. It was also Golden Jubilee time for the hosting Mayo SC as Commodore Pat Aylward led his members in remembering how Jack Cahill and then Derek Jago moved the club through its first tentative steps to the powerhouse it is today, with the burgee currently being displayed in Argentina as Jack's son James has been cruising there in his 54ft Amel ketch Saol Nua, a fine ship which has the luxury of her own quay back home in Rosmoney.
Mayo SC's setup at Rosmoney at the head of Clew Bay. The ketch at her private quay (beyond) is James Cahill's Amel-built Saol Nua, which is currently in South America. Photo: MSC
FORTY YEARS OF GARRYKENNEDY SAILING CLUB
Time was when the beautiful miniature harbour of Garrykennedy in the southeast of Lough Derg was of major commercial and safety significance. It was used for shipping slate from local quarries, and in winter storms (and the occasional summertime devil wind) the barges conveying kegs of Guinness from Dublin to Limerick via canal, lake and River Shannon could find shelter there until conditions eased enough to take on Parker Point, the Cape Horn of Tipperary.
Admittedly it was in the previous millennium when we first docked there, and it was still just the one little harbour. But since then Garrykennedy has expanded at a prodigious rate as a boating and sailing centre, and in recent weeks the Garrykennnedy SC has been celebrating its 40th anniversary. It's mainly about cruiser-racing, and it's aimed at fun sailing, while ashore they diplomatically alternate their custom between Ciss Ryan's or Larkins, and this image of Commodores past and present gives a good indication of the spirit of the club:
Celebrating 40 years of Garrykennedy SC are former Commodores (left to right): Declan Moore, Peter O Callahan, Brian Hicky, Brendan O'Connor, Sue Concannon, Tadg Murphy, Fergal Fahey, Brendan Power, Brendan Watson, Sean Hayes and Henry Hogg
TOM DOLAN UP-SIZES
There's so much going in at home and in nearby waters that the news that Tom Dolan of County Meath and the National YC – currently defending Figaro champion – is taking his first steps in the IMOCA 60 class is not really getting the attention it deserves. And he's doing it by a sound career path, through sailing with Jeremy Bayou as one of the crew of four on Charal in the 2,000 mile round the Capes circuit of Britain and Ireland, which starts from Boulougne tomorrow (Sunday).
Even without the competition of current champion Charlie Dalin through illness, it's a formidable lineup, and the title of Course des Caps is a winner even if cynics point out that there are only three capes within the entire course area – Cape Wrath in Scotland, Cape Clear in Ireland, and Cape Cornwall in England - and none of them is actually a course mark in the race, which is aimed round places like Mizen Head, St Kilda, Muckle Flugga, Out Skerries, Lowestoft Ness, and North Foreland.
It's not a Cape, but when one of the most important marks of the IMOCA 60 class's new Course des Caps has the marvellous name of Muckle Flugga, who would dare to change it?
OTHER-WORLDLY AMERICA'S CUP
Before coming back down to earth, while still in stratospheric sailing we recall that when we rushed into the limelight with the new that Italy and Naples were to host the 2027 America's Cup, some prudent international friends dropped us a line that it wasn't sealed until it was counter-signed by the Challenger of Record, upon which we replied that Giorgia's finger-prints were all over it, this was the first time a government was leading the hosting, and next day photos were taken in the Vatican Garden (of course) with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni clasping the Auld Mug, so it seemed the deal was done regardless of who had signed what.
Done deal. Grant Dalton, aka Mr America's Cup (second left), seems happy enough with Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni and her Government ensuring that the 2027 staging of the 38th America's Cup will be in Naples. Photo: Facebook
But now it has moved on to an utterly bizarre level with the news that leading Italian challenger Luna Rossa have hired Kiwi ace Peter Burling to be their lead helm. Thus the man who helmed the successful defence of 2024 for New Zealand will be sailing for the Italian challengers in the first year ever in which the series is raced in a challenging country.
M'learned friends who specialise in nationality rules might make enough money out of this to challenge themelves. Meanwhile, as a reminder of reality, here's the photo by Ian Budgen of himself and Peter Burling racing the 115ft Nikata to line honours in the 2017 Fastnet Race.
When life was simpler. Ian Budgen (left) and Peter Burling at the Fastnet Rock in the Race of 2017 in the dawn's early light aboard the 115ft Nikata, long before Burling finds himself hired to be Italy's top helm in the 38th America's Cup. Photo: Ian Budgen
That is a reminder that the Centenary Fastnet and the revived Admiral's Cup are upon us almost as soon as everyone has recovered from the Sovereigns and then got over the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta. We need an antidote to provide peace of some kind from this hectic pace, and it's to be found in Maine USA, where the re-built Dublin Bay 24 Zephyra is sailing after being rescued from the overgrown yard of a castle in Connacht, and the great 39ft yawl Mavis, John Kearney's masterpiece of 1925 and restored for her Centenary by Ron Hawkins of Camden, will be a star of the show in Maine in late July.
The Dublin Bay 24 Zephyra sailing in Maine after re-build by The Apprenticeshop. Photo: Apprenticeshop
In her glory days, Mavis was inextricably linked with the National YC, but fortunately, that devoted NYC member Johnny Smullen is US-based and will be in Maine in late July, so the link will be maintained.
CLONTARF Y&BC 150TH
Meanwhile, back on the north shores of Dublin Bay, the 150th Anniversary celebrations of Clontarf Yacht & Boat Club reach a high point with the annual At Home on the weekend of July 26th-27th. With their tidal anchorage, a lot of ducks have to be in a row for the CY&BC 150th "At Home" to run smoothly, but memories of great regattas in times past bring in sailing visitors from both sides of Dublin Bay and upriver at Poolbeg too, so we keep our fingers crossed.
The Clontarf Y&BC clubhouse of Belvedere was a farmhouse and then a suburban home before it became the CY&BC clubhouse in 1875.
