There’s a real buzz around Dun Laoghaire this weekend, with ocean voyaging pioneer Robin Knox-Johnston the star turn in a UNICEF fund-raising gala supper event yesterday evening at the Royal Marine Hotel, where the solo round the world pioneer (and achiever of much else) was in conversation with sailing’s radio man Bobby Kerr.
Meanwhile, down on the waterfront, the Annual General Meeting of the Irish Cruising Club was being staged in the Royal Irish YC, with the same venue being the setting today (Saturday) for the launching of a new Irish sail-training initiative that will draw on the unrivalled experience of Robin Knox-Johnston’s Clipper project.
Robin Knox-Johnston aboard his 32ft ketch Suhaili, approaching the finish of his pioneering non-stop global circuit in April 1969.
IRISH CRUISING CLUB ON CENTENARY COUNTDOWN
The ICC may be on the countdown towards its Centenary in 2029, but under Commodore Alan Markey of Howth (who continues in post for another year), the club was hyper-active throughout 2025 with such style that at New Year it became the MG Motor “Sailing Club of the Year 2026”.
Following the five-club Cruise-in-Company to the Outer Hebrides in July 2025, the senior flag officers of the Cruising Club of America sailed southwards to follow ICC Commodore Alan Markey to his home port at Howth Yacht Club, where the world’s most senior keelboat OD class, the Howth 17s, were holding their annual championship, aka “The Galactics”. The distinguished visitors were allowed to hold the Championship Cup, photo shows (left to right) Chace Anderson (Vice Commodore, CCA), Alan Markey (Commodore, ICC) and Jay Gowell (Commodore, CCA).
Apart from the extensive cruising and voyaging of its members (honoured with awards at the AGM, as we shall see), the ICC continued with up-dating its very useful Sailing Directions for all Irish coasts, while at sea it united with the Cruising Club of America, The Ocean Cruising Club, the Royal Cruising Club and the Clyde Cruising Club in a superbly-organised Cruise-in-Company to the west of Scotland and the Outer Hebrides.
Not as easy as it looks. The creation of a Sunflower Raft was one of the highlights of the five-club Cruise-in-Company to the Outer Hebrides
CONOR O’BRIEN CAPE HORN CENTENARY
As well, since 2023 the ICC has been putting together a series of events to celebrate the on-going Centenary of Conor O’Brien’s ultra-pioneering global circumnavigation from Dun Laoghaire in 1923-25, going south of the Great Capes with his own-designed Baltimore-built 42ft ketch Saoirse.
This replica of Conor O’Brien’s world-girding Saoirse was built by Liam Hegarty of Oldcourt near Baltimore for the late Fred Kinmonth in honour of the Saoirse circumnavigation a hundred years ago Photo: Kevin O'Farrell
The club’s efforts included a rally in Madeira in 2023 to celebrate it being O’Brien’s first port of call when outward bound in June 1923, and as well the club’s high-powered literary and publishing group swung into action to produce an extra-informative 8th Edition of Across Three Oceans, his classic account of the voyage.
Cape Horn veterans Jean Luc van den Heede and Robin Knox-Johnston, Vice President and President of the Cape Horners Association
This provided an accessible trove of information for the revival of interest in Conor O’Brien’s voyage, and particularly the fact that he was very much the first to round Cape Horn in a small yacht while making a long voyage in the Great Southern Ocean, and its completion’s Centenary was celebrated in a Cruise-in-Company organised by Rear Commodore Sally Cudmore of Cork, an event which brought an accumulating fleet from Baltimore to Dun Laoghaire precisely on time for the hundred years milestone on June 25th 2025.
CAPE HORN AWARD
As a result, the Cape Horners Association (French-based, but with Robin Knox-Johnston as President, while his deputy is the legendary Luc van den Heede) was able to make an accurate re-structuring of its records at the end of 2025, and in due course it may well be that O’Brien’s family – who were much involved with the ICC in the Centenary Celebrations – will receive a special “first past the post” Cape Horn Medal in honour of their doughty relative.
Conor O Brien and his wife Kitty Clausen, whom he married in 1928, hoisting sail aboard Saoirse. Photo: Courtesy O’Brien Family.
In addition to the Conor O’Brien links, Robin Knox-Johnston’s active connections to Dun Laoghaire go back to 1986. In 1984 the great Denis Doyle with Moonduster had sailed the Round Ireland Race from Wicklow with such style that he set a formidable course record by going so fast that they covered the entire coast of an Irish county in each watch.
40TH ANNIVERSARY OF ROUND IRELAND CHALLENGE
It was such a remarkable time – 3 days 16 hours and 15 minutes – that it attracted the attention of speedsters, and inevitably moved into the world of the new breed of big performance multi-hulls, with Robin Knox-Johnston’s 60ft British Airways the first to take it on in May 1986, which is surely deserving of a 40th Anniversary Celebration.
The most-demanding part of such challenges is waiting around for the best-possible expected weather pattern to develop, and RK-J and his crew – with all the usual suspects, including this columnist – passed the time with difficulty in Dun Laoghaire, but then shot away in a rising easterly which almost capsized us before we’d got past the Baily.
Thereafter, however, the wind pattern suited so well that we made comfortable record speed as far as Slyne Head. A particularly memorable passage was southwest from Tory Island on a reaching southeaster with a relatively smooth sea, when I found myself put on the wheel at Bloody Foreland right after breakfast, and so enjoyed the helming as we zapped across the mouth of Donegal Bay that it was a surprise to find it was still a little early for lunch as Eagle Island in Mayo was put swiftly astern off our port side.
BLASKET HEADWINDS
That was to be as good as it gets, for off the Blaskets headwind and a lumpy sea penalised our heavy multi-surface boat, and when we finally swept past the finish at the Kish Lighthouse (the attempt being monitored by the National YC), it was only to knock five hours off The Doyler’s time.
“EMINENTLY BEATABLE”
That left a record which our remarkable skipper cheerfully declared to be “eminently beatable”, and as soon as November 1986, Dickie Gomes (Royal Ulster YC) and Peter Phillips with the monstrously cumbersome but straight-line-fast 84ft catamaran Novacell did just that.
The 84ft Novanet didn’t score well in manoeuvrability, but her straight line sailing speed enabled her to take the Round Ireland Record in November 1986.
STEVE FOSSETT
They set a good new time that stood until 1993, when Con Murphy and Cathy McAleavey of the National persuaded Steve Fossett to bring his superb 60ft ultra-light trimaran Lakota to Ireland, and with Con and Cathy on board, they set a great new time which stood until 2016, when the MOD 70s moved the dial even further.
Robin Knox-Johnston on his Open 60 Grey Power on which he took third in a Transatlantic Race at the age of 75, only one of many oceanic racing successes achieved since the Suhaili voyage.
KNOX-JOHNSTON AWARDED ICC’S FASTNET TROPHY
By then, Robin Knox-Johnston had become involved with so many other projects and major maritime successes that in 2008 he became the first awardee of the Irish Cruising Club’s Fastnet International Trophy for special achievement, which takes us back again to last night’s meeting in the RIYC and the distribution of the club’s other trophies.
EXPERIENCED ADJUDICATOR FOR ICC LOGS
The cruising logs for 2025 were adjudicated by the much-travelled Ed Wheeler of Strangford Lough, an ICC member of 51 years standing and a deserved receiver of many major trophies, whose remarkable voyaging experiences include ocean crossings, sailing to Spain and ending up in China, taking his boat deep into the heart of Africa via the Gambia River, and cruising to obscure river anchorages in northern Australia where you can make only one mistake with the formidable saltwater crocodile.
Ed Wheeler brings more than 70 years of cruising and voyaging experience to adjudicating the ICC logs
PROFESSIONAL PRODUCTION
All the awarded winning ICC logs and many others are in the ICC Annual, again compiled and edited with style by Maire Breathnach of Dungarvan, who does it with such professional style that you wonder if she was a graphic designer in another life. Yet at the same time she performs her role as President of the newly-formed Irish Polar Institute with total attention, and regularly sails with her husband Andrew Wilkes in the 64ft overall length steel gaff cutter Annabel J as he gets into his new role as Editor of the ICC Sailing Directions, having taken over this central position from the long-serving Norman Kean and Geraldine Hennigan of Courtmacsherry early in the 2025 season.
Andrew Wilkes’ pilot-cutter-style gaff cutter Annabel J is the Irish Cruising Club’s newly-appointed Honorary Research & Survey vessel
As it nears its Centenary, the Irish Cruising Club has accumulated many trophies donated by members or their families in celebration of the personal pleasure that being involved with this special organization provides, and thus a mountain of silverware is seen to be on its well-illustrated way to many and various recipients, but the main trophies were allocated as follows:
Brody Sweeney’s restored 46-year-old Jeanneau 32 Wotan has been awarded the ICC’s premier trophy
THE MAIN TROPHIES
FAULKNER CUP (best cruise of year)
Brody Sweeny of Dun Laoghaire took his restored 46-year-old Jeanneau 32 Wotan southwards single-handed to Galicia where crew joined, and thereafter he cruised in detail along the coasts of Spain, Portugal and the surprisingly rarely visited Morocco to the Canaries, thereby providing a rich mixture of cruising at its best.
STRANGFORD CUP (alternative best cruise)
Mark and Dawn Sweetnam’s Najad 420 Don Carlos spent the entire summer in the far north of Norway, and while the Midnight Sun was a regular experience, they and their crew including Paddy Barry (who maintained the log) set themselves some successfully handled pilotage challenges that are a wonder to behold, but they assure us it’s just a matter of careful planning.
Mark and Dawn Sweetnam’s Najad 320 Don Carlos spent the entire summer in northern waters.
The Sweetnam crew regularly experienced the Midnight Sun. This was taken around 01:00 hrs near North Cape
Snakes & ladders? Don Carlos came successfully through this sector of the Norwegian coast under sail only, albeit with a fair wind.
ROUND IRELAND CUP
Straightforward Round Ireland cruises were almost a novelty for a few years as ICC members flexed their voyaging muscles as the Irish economy soared. But having done so they now realise the grass really is greener at home, and Rob Henshall’s information-filled account of his circuit from Sligo with the Contessa 32 Maria gets the cup.
Rob Henshall with the Ireland-circling Maria at Kitchen Cove, aka Ahakista, in Dunmanus Bay. When younger, he circumnavigated Ireland in a Laser and then on a Windsurfer.
WYBRANTS CUP (best cruise in Scottish waters)
Cruising to the Hebrides has been part of ICC life from the club’s inception, but the improved speeds of modern boats means that nowadays, cruising gently in Scotland is sometimes taken as a reward as you head home from battling the ultra-steep Faroes, where the sometimes very strong winds go up and down in vertical gusts, and the ferocious tides have very little range, yet in places they move horizontally at a ridiculous pace. Julian and Patricia Morgan in their 46ft cutter Cappella of Belfast experienced some dreadful weather among the Faroes and in Scotland, but they grabbed any good gaps going, and even managed an overnight at the rarely-visited Mingulay in the Outer Hebrides to show that the much-loved Mingulay Boat Song has a basis in reality, even if the last islanders left in 1912.
The anchorage at deserted Mingulay provides good shelter from the Atlantic westerlies.
WILD GOOSE CUP (log of literary merit)
Back in 1979, Sam Davis of Strangford Lough came blithely in towards Ireland, returning from an Atlantic circuit cruise with his vintage West Solent OD Suvretta just as the Fastnet Storm caused mayhem in the Fastnet Race fleet. Sam is tough, and he brought the little Suvretta through it all in one piece, but since then he has cruised to the Pacific and round Cape Horn in a hefty Rival 41, also called Suvretta. The little Suvretta meanwhile has been completely restored for her Centenary in 2025, and Sam movingly recounts joining her owners and restorers in the Solent for her Centenary regattas.
The restored Suvretta celebrating her Centenary in style in 2025. In 1979, Sam Davis of Strangford Lough came through the Fastnet Storm with her to complete an Atlantic circuit cruise.
Fortnight Cup & Marie Trophy: Conor O’Byrne (Galway) Sadler 26 Calico Jack.
Glengarriff Trophy: Donal Walsh (Dungaran) Lady Belle
Fingal Cup: Frank Cassidy (Dun Laoghaire).
John B Kearney Cup (Open Award for Services to Sailing) Bill O’Hara of Ballyholme.
Olympic sailor and international race officer Bill O’Hara of Ballyholme was celebrated with the John B Kearney Cup for Services to Sailing.
PROGRAMME FOR 2026
Commodore Markey and his team will lead a busy programme in 2026, for in addition to the usual neighbourhood rallies in Ireland and the annual rally in northwest Spain, Dun Laoghaire-based member Frank O’Beirne is in the key role of organising a rally in Norway.
But for the majority of Irish Cruising Club members, the central ethos of their activity afloat continues to be found in lone boats of many types, setting off from ports all round Ireland on voyages and cruises of all lengths and scope, each one bound – in the immortal phraseology of maritime law - for “other places beyond the seas”.
Commodore Alan Markey ICC at the helm of his Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 36i Altaria. In 2026 he is leading his club into another busy and successful year.
