Did you know that the sublime Mark Mills-of-Wicklow-designed 72-footer Balthasar currently leads the Royal Ocean Racing Club Points Championship? But surely, say you, it's the team of our own Johnny Mordaunt co-skippering (with owner Christian Zugel) on the Volvo 70 Tschuss 2 that currently top any lists of real and enduring significance as the latest RORC Yacht of the Year, while the 2025 points table is headed by Rob Craigie's Sun Fast 3600 Bellini, co-crewed by RORC Commodore Deb Fish.
Current champion – Balthasar takes the lead in the 2026 RORC Points Championship with victory in the 2025 Rolex Middle Sea Race a month ago. Photo: RMYC
The answer, of course, is Yes and Yes and maybe Yes again. But we're not saying that because we're emergent from several medically-interesting days up above in Molly Bloom's bedroom in Eccles Street. On the contrary, it's the turning of the mighty wheel which is the annual year-round RORC programme that dictates the star of the moment. And while it was wall-to-wall Tschuss 2 as "Boat of the Year" and Bellini as Points Champon at the epic RORC and Fastnet Race Centenary Dinner and prize-giving last weekend, interest is now re-focusing on the developing 2026 fixtures.
Getting into the spirit of the Roaring Twenties, RORC Commodore Deb Fish puts on the flapper style a hundred years down the Fastnet Race line with shipmate Rob Craigie. Photo: RORC
2026 CHAMPIONSHIP ALREADY UNDER WAY
In fact, forget for the moment about 2025. The Rolex Middle Sea Race from Malta a month ago was the first race of the 2026 RORC Championship. It was won by Louis Balcaen's Balthasar. Next up is the RORC Caribbean 600 on 23rd February 2026. And though two other classics – the 80th Rolex Sydney-Hobart on December 26th 2025 and the Newport-Bermuda on 21st June 2026 – are stand-alones outside the RORC Championship, they're long-established integral parts of an international programme which provides willing Irish sailors with endless offshore racing opportunities, provided that they're prepared to demonstrate they qualify and go willingly with the motto: "Have Talent, Will Travel".
Travelling talent. Gordon Maguire in Hobart after another Sydney-Hobart overall win. His first RSHR victory was in 1991.
This in turn raises the question of how long we can continue to claim them as truly Irish. In reality they become Global Citizens, even if they continue to find an Irish passport can be a remarkably useful little document. But to take one notable example of success, Gordon Maguire has steadily morphed into a successful Australian sailing pro. And he led the way into proper professional status as an Australian sailor, as his registration is GMA#1.
GORDON MAGUIRE: DEBS' DELIGHT
But time was when he was my daughter's Escort for her Deb's Ball here in Howth, and played the role to perfection. Plus that, his sister lives just across the road. Yet we've now reached the stage where any reference to Gordon Maguire as a Howth sailor seems rather strained – the feeling on the peninsula is that if you don't know already, then it's not really with the bother of explanation.
It's something which is reflected in the mysterious world of top pro sailing. We're not talking here about the televised soap opera world of deck and galley slaves on superyachts, but rather about the secret world of the super-talent on the racing machines which are run on a big enough budget to provide the serious money to hire and retain sailing geniuses who in turn provide the input for the boat to show her true potential.
Showing true potential. New Zealand's Callisto – navigated by Ian Moore - sweeps into the Solent to win overall in the first race in the 2025 Admiral's Cup. It has been said that having the Carrickfergus-originating Moore as your navigator in a Transatlantic Race is as good as making the Atlantic 150 miles narrower
HIDDEN CAREER PATHS
The brutal answer to the question of how you get involved in this secret world with its hidden career paths is that if you have to ask, then you're obviously not savvy enough to fit in anyway. It's a jungle, but arguably much more interesting to follow than the "International Civil Service of Sailing" programme of a big countdown to small inshore races that fit into the standard World Championship/Olympic Sailing format.
There's a buccaneering mood to it all, with a supra-national brotherhood-of-the-sea attitude that was well lined up by Johnny Mordaunt at last weekend's RORC climax to an extraordinary Centenary Season, as he was able – working from Tchuss 2's admin HQ in Lymington in the West Hampshire Gaeltacht – to show the sheer range of talent that has kept Tschuss up to speed and on course for that "Boat of the Year" title.
A mighty machine – Tschuss 2 is currently the most successful former Volvo 70.
Of course there'll be those that say that for all practical purposes he is now part of the Lymington fortress of sailing mega-talent. But nevertheless in an exchange of info this past week he talked of "coming home" for a few days very shortly, and he didn't mean Lymington, while we have to admit – such is the spread of the tribe – that it's sometimes over-looked that his brother-in-law here in Howth also doubled-up as our eldest son's Best Man at the Tying-of-the-Knot on Bosham Quay quite a few years ago now.
RANGE OF ALL THE TALENTS
All of which is trotting round more words in order to keep circling round this Tschuss 2 Crew lineup, for seldom can a modern international offshore racing range of all the talents have been so tellingly assembled.
Indeed, it's so comprehensive that I make the suggestion that some bright young sailing writer who is well conversant with AI should use it to produce a book to tell us how each and every star that is in this photo has come to make the grade.
Didn't they clean up well? The former Volvo 70 Tschuss 2's crew at the RORC Centenary Prize-giving were (left to right): Campbell Field, Liam Newman, Freddie Shanks (hidden), Stu Bannatyne, Robyn Whitman, Cian Guilfoyle, Nin O'Leary, Pete Cummings, Neal McDonald, Sonia Zugel, owner Christian Zugel, co-skipper Johnny Mordaunt, Ed Myers, Simon Johnson and Andrew McClean. Photo: RORC
Their narratives may well be so diverse that any wannabee offshore and international racing pro will be left more confused than ever about the optimum career path, but the human stories will be so strong that it should be the nearest sailing gets to a bestseller these days.
It's reckoned there are at least 30 Irish sailors of real frontline ability now active in the truly international non-Olympic global arena, including – in addition to those on the Tschuss 2 list - such talents as Ian Moore, Maurice "Prof" O'Connell, Shane Hughes, Nigel Young, Mark Mansfield, Simon Johnson, Oisin McClelland, Hammy Baker, Grattan Roberts, Johnny Durcan, Barry Hurley and Revlin Minihane, while the Admiral's Cup re-birth brought in more potential talent.
FRENCH SCENE
Then too there's the French scene with 2024 Figaro Overall Winner Tom Dolan of Meath and the National YC and Class40 sailor Pam Lee of Greystones setting an impressive pace which is inevitably under the French umbrella even if here in Ireland we think otherwise.
On top of that, every so often a truly green streak comes out of the blue. For several years, as the Sydney-Hobart Race produced its annual duel of the leading TP52s between Gordon Maguire & Matt Allen with Ichi Ban and Sam Haynes with Celestial, we naturally emerged from our post-Christmas torpor rooting for Ichi Ban.
Frank O'Leary in Hobart with the Tattersall Cup
But then it was revealed that Celestial's crew included Frank O'Leary. He learned his sailing with his family in Kinsale, yet now lives on an island near Melbourne, and when he goes sailing it's the serious Big Boys' Game, as he's regularly on the strength of Celestial.
Thus we have the situation that if you're minded for year-round top-level sailing, don't be too bothered if you're not always personally available. For somewhere in the world there'll always be an Irish sailor doing it for you. 
Serious business. Johnny Mordaunt aboard Tschuss 2 racing to one of her Transatlantic victories.
