Pat O'Neill with a Howth Yacht Club crew and a local foredeck man has won the Danish J80 Championships at the Kongelig Dansk Yachtklub this afternoon.

The sole lrish competitors in the 23-boat fleet sailing 'Mojo' ended the eight-race series with an eight-point winning margin from Spain's Peru Mugica Elorza. 

O'Neill, sailing with regular crew Ryan Glynn, North Sails sailmaker Shane Hughes and Jakob Nybo on his J80 Mojo are in Denmark for the 2021 World Championships that begins this weekend at the Royal Danish Yacht Club in Copenhagen. 

As regular Afloat readers will know, O'Neill is the reigning Irish champion having taken a 2020 victory at the Royal St. George last September. 

See full results here

Scrub to 1.43 on the timeline to see the dockside interview with Pat in Denmark in the Facebook vid below

 

It's a serious-looking big poster that they've had newly-displayed for the past three days on Howth Yacht Club's gable wall. But then, the prospect of Rob Dickson of Howth and Sean Waddilove of Skerries representing Ireland in the Tokyo Olympics in the 49er in three weeks time is a serious business, a serious business given an extra edge as they only finally secured their Olympic place in the Last Chance Saloon Selection Series at Lanzarote at the end of April.

In fact, it's arguable that had the Olympics not been COVID-postponed for a year, they wouldn't be there at all, as their longterm target had been Paris/Marseille Olympics 2024, and they'd only suddenly been added to the 2020 possibilities when they won the 49er U23 Worlds in September 2018, but subsequently hadn't made the grade for Tokyo under the original 2020 schedule.

Yet for two months now, their place in Enoshima has been secured, and their two home clubs in Fingal have been factoring in a total Olympic dedication in their memberships from the first heats on July 27th until the Medal Race on August 2nd, while Silver Medal defender Annalise Murphy of the National YC has her first race on July 25th, and the Medal Race is August 1st.

All over Ireland and abroad, our sailing community will be closely following a global event which - let's face it, as the reality of the Delta variant sweeps the world - is still not 100% certain. Be that as it may, the resilient Irish sailing community has come vibrantly to life as the opportunities and regulation-easings permit, and in Howth they currently are on one of those rolls of concentrated success which, for one reason or another, come visiting – and welcome visitors too - at the Peninsula club from time to time.

Let the sunshine in – the serious new poster is centre stage at Howth. Photo: W M Nixon

Thus although the big poster – developed from an image secured during the Lanzarote trials – looked sombre enough as it was being put in place, next day saw a return of the bright sunshine which may be turning the moorlands of the Hill of Howth into a tinderbox, but it more accurately reflects the current mood of Howth sailing.

CHALLENGING ON LAKE GARDA, MEDALS IN MONTENEGRO

Right now on Lake Garda, HYC's Rocco Wright is in the thick of it among 51 nations and nearly 300 boats in the first days of the Optimist Worlds, having progressed towards them through two big preliminary regattas on the mighty lake, in which he took Bronze in the first, and Gold in the second.

Right in the thick of it – Rocco Wright (IRL 1636) working his way through a very international fleet on Lake Garda

Before that, Eve McMahon – just one of three prodigiously accomplished McMahon sailing siblings from Howth - placed fourth overall in the ILCA/Laser U21s in Montenegro, which was then upgraded to the Silver Medal in the U19s, while on the home front the J/24 U25 Development Programme – pioneered in Howth – continued to reap rewards with Head Case – helmed by Cillian Dickson and with HYC clubmate Sam O'Byrne on the strength – winning the season-starting J/24 Southerns at Foynes in convincing style.

 Eve McMahon on her way Silver Medal in the U19s in Montenegro

SOVEREIGN'S SUCCESS IN KINSALE

But it was at the Sovereigns Cup in Kinsale at the end of June where the Howth machine moved into top gear. Perhaps it's because the two ports are so utterly different, with Kinsale being a picturesque natural port on a serenely sheltered winding river, while Howth is a totally artificial harbour on a rugged and characterful peninsula – whatever, but Howth somehow always seems to aim for the Sovereigns with a special attitude of group determination. And even with social distancing, 2021 was a vintage year, with Bob Rendell's impressive new Grand Soleil 44 Samatom winning the biggest class – the IRC Coastal Division – while Mike and Richie Evans new J/99 Snapshot – with Howth's 1996 All-Ireland Champion Helm Laura Dillon on the strength – put in a hugely impressive performance in the hyper-hot IRC 1 to win the Sovereigns Cup itself.

Neither today nor yesterday…..Howth Yacht Clubs fondness for invading Kinsale at Sovereigns Cup time goes back a long way.

Sovereigns Cup Kinsale 2021, and the successful Howth crews of Snapshot and Samatom get together.

Here it is, only the 3rd July in a season which was really only properly underway on June 7th, and Howth is already piling on the silverware in a way which is reminiscent of certain special periods in the Club's history. Not that they're resting on their laurels – this weekend they host the Optimist Leinsters, and in a week's time, it's the 1720 Championship – but nevertheless, a minute or two's pause to reflect on this almost freakish club 2021 scorecard is surely merited.

HOWTH UP AGAINST IT

For it seems that Howth and its sailing appear to thrive on adversity, and environmental adversity in particular. When Afloat.ie published the latest chart of the serious silting of the harbour recently, people elsewhere wondered how on earth they'd any keelboat sailing going on at all. In some places, there was practically dry land with grass growing where there should have been a clear all-tides channel.

The most recent survey of Howth Harbour shows depths continuing to deteriorate

Yet despite that, Howth Yacht Club managed a more-than-useful programme in 2020 even with the lockdown limitations. And this year after the preliminary starting signals had been given for some return towards normality from Monday June 7th, not only did five of the venerable Howth 17s make a point of having an official race at 10:30 hrs on that Monday morning, but the following Saturday – June 12th – saw a fleet of 78 HYC-only keelboats heralding the new season in the time-honoured Lambay Race, so they're definitely sailing well underway, even if the bigger keelboats sometimes find themselves ploughing a lonely furrow getting in and out of the harbour.

Some of the 78 keelboats which raced in HYC's Lambay Race on June 12th. The larger ones may have found themselves ploughing gently through soft mud as they left the harbour. Photo: Annraoi Blaney

Now admittedly the depths shown in that new chart will only bottom out three or four times a year. But you'd think – particularly when you compare it with a splendidly deep harbour like Dun Laoghaire – that the very fact of having to worry about those depths much of the time would impinge on Howth sailors' pursuit of their sport.

Work on Howth's Middle Pier is already well underway to expand trawler berthing. Photo: W M Nixon

Not a bit of it. On the contrary, as we've seen, Howth sailing in 2021 is already on a mighty roll of success. Yet this is despite the harbour engineers already intruding on the place with their work in progress on the Middle Pier. As to the village generally, work is at last underway on the waterfront Techrete site (formerly Parsons) immediately to the west of the harbour for the construction of a handful of 8-storey apartment blocks.

THE ESSENTIAL HOWTH HARBOUR DREDGING PLAN

Howth Harbour as it was until recently, as seen from the northeast. Work is now underway to enlarge the middle pier for trawlers with dredging, while outside the harbour immediately to the west on the north-facing waterfront (at centre of photo), work has started on building a development of apartment blocks on the former Techrete Factory site.

The future Howth Harbour? The proposal to infill the dredged spoil from within the harbour to the westward of the West Pier will create a completely new geographic and hydrographic dynamic, with a real possibility that the sand-carrying ebb tide running along the beach from the west will no longer be so distinctly re-directed as a silt-carrying offshoot into the harbour.

Thus already the insistent natter of the pile-driver blends with the liquid call of the curlew, the shrill trill of the oyster-catcher, and the demanding yapping of the herring gull far into the Howth summer nights. And beyond all that, once the much-anticipated dredging programme gets underway, it'll be like the re-building of central Dublin after 1916 on steroids, as the idea is that everything coming out of the harbour bed in several identifiable phases will in-filled to the west of the West Pier to create what we're told will in time be a new marine park, and getting it there could involve lorry-loads in their thousands unless special ways can be devised to get barges to take the spoil – after treatment – round to the new location.

The current plan for the phased dredging of Howth Harbour also indicates the stages for the creation of new land to the westward of the harbour. With the dredging area now clearly defined, alterations in the timeline and order of work might be a possibility, but either way, it will be quite a lengthy process.

For those who are wondering how the harbour came to be so silted, please don't ask. Were Howth a port in the Netherlands, the harbour would be dredged as a matter of course every five years. But once the major project which broadly gave us today's Howth Harbour was completed in 1982, that was it - the place has seen only small-scale piecemeal dredging since, and the fishing fleet and recreational boats alike have been increasingly hampered in their activities as the siltation quietly builds up such that in the Outer Harbour, a drone photo at low water reveals each boat to be reposing in its own circular mud bed.

Low water in the Outer Harbour, where 40 years of siltation have resulted in an all-enveloping layer of soft mud where each boat on a swinging mooring has gently created its own bed, normally invisible except from an aerial photo. Photo: Tom Ryan

In the circumstances, the default attitude among Howth's maritime population is quiet yet not undue pessimism, for we know that official grand schemes such as that now being contemplated - or indeed relatively standard schemes - tend to run over time and over budget, and we know that in Howth that is not necessarily an undesirable outcome.

And even when underway, such major projects can be overcome as environmental obstructions. For instance, in 1981 in the midst of the biggest harbour works programme of all, Howth Yacht Club hosted the Optimist Worlds simple by moving all operations westwards along Claremont beach to a new HQ at the Claremont Hotel.

As for Howth's own sailing performance at such times, the impetus is strong to seek success elsewhere, and thereby get away from the noise and inconvenience of harbour works at home. This happened with one major dredging project in 1966-1970, it happened again in 1979 to 1982, and though some very clever and creative minds are being applied to seeking out the least disruptive ways of implementing the current dredging proposals, the results thus obtained in 2021 suggest an increase in HYC's already healthy tendency to look outwards.

"ACCIDENTAL" BENEFITS

When the major scheme of 1979-1982 was nearing completion, it was found there was nothing left in the public kitty to demolish the haphazard row of ancient buildings down the West Pier, as had been planned. For long enough, they simply stayed there with many of them empty. But as Howth Yacht Club's stratospheric sporting, social, and hospitality success in the 1980s and 1990s contributed to the harbour developing its own special attraction as a destination venue, that quaint row of buildings – which you could never have planned deliberately - became such successful little restaurants that on a warm summer's evening the atmosphere and aroma is like a good Breton or Galician fishing port.

So who knows what may come of the creation of a new bit of Ireland to the west of the harbour? Admittedly if it's carried through to completion as planned, the popular over-water Aqua Restaurant at the end of the West Pier will have lost its unique sea-dominated position, something which we can't see being lightly relinquished.

But beyond that, the proposed overall shape will affect the tidal flow in a way which may reduce the future need for dredging. At the moment, when the flood comes through Howth Sound north of the East Pier lighthouse nib, it flows on clear in a west to northwest direction. Yet when the ebb starts to run eastward, there's a strong line of it starting from Baldoyle Creek and sweeping along Claremont Beach, with a significant sand-carrying offshoot being deflected into Howth Harbour.

Yet if the most northwesterly "headland" of the new bit of Ireland west of the pier is at the location shown, there'll be much less inclination for the sand-carrying ebb to be side-tracked into the harbour, and with any luck the tendency towards silting will be reduced.

But whether or not people see this new little bit of land to the west of the harbour as attractive recreational space is another matter. The fact is, when people go out for a bracing walk at a harbour, they want to be able to stride down a pier with the sea close bedside them left and right.

The new land to the west, showing clearly how it will direct the ebb tide stream further away the harbour entrance. And surely it has many more possible uses – such as Kite-Surfing Central - than just another a dull seaside mini-park and strolling area

However, that amorphous green space planned to the west of the West Pier looks altogether too vague. Its exposure to the prevailing westerlies will limit any green space and mini-park development potential, and its very location relatively out of sight and out of mind on the perimeter of the harbour suggests nefarious purposes – in fact, they might as well put up a sign saying: "This Way to the
Flash Mob Rioting and Anti-Social Behaviour Zones".

KITE-SURFING CENTRAL?

Yet not so far away along Claremont and Burrow Strands, the new building or up-grading of trendy beachside houses is currently going on at such a pace it makes you think it should be re-named Dermot Bannon Boulevard. Is it unthinkable that some west-facing waterfront properties on that new bit of Ireland is an idea that is out of the question? Or how about a choice location for a kite-surfing centre…..?

Stranger things have happened. And these are strangely exciting times in Howth, both in sailing and in harbour and village development alike.

MORE HYC SUCCESS ABROAD

But meanwhile in the real world of current sailing achievement, as of yesterday evening (Friday), HYC’s Pat O’Neill with his J/80 Mojo has been confirmed as the Danish Open J/80 Champion in Rungsted in advance of the Worlds there next week, Eve McMahon is returning very impressive results in the Laser Radial Youth Europeans in Croatia, and Rocco Wright has got off to a cracking start in the Optimist Worlds on Lake Garda with a 1st and a 5th.

The flags are up for the Provident CRM Optimist Leinsters and the Howth Yacht Club boat park is being cleared of other boats, to make space for the 65 or so Optimists who will compete for the Leinster Championships this weekend. These young sailors are itching to get going with their first regional event of 2021.

In order to make the event happen, Howth YC came up with an innovative plan to split the club premises in two, with sailors, coaches and volunteers having exclusive access to the boat park area of the club. This has ensured the event stays within the 100 persons limit from a Covid perspective, while still enabling the members to enjoy the club too.

The reigning (2019) Senior Fleet champion, HYC's Rocco Wright has bigger prizes on his mind this weekend at the Optimist Worlds in Lake Garda, with the current Junior Fleet champion Cillian Twomey, also of the host club aiming to lift the Senior title this weekend. There will be lots of competition though, with the current Junior Fleet National Champion Caoilinn Geraghty McDonnell from RStGYC and Des Turvey from HYC among the favourites in their first year in the Senior fleet. There are a number of others too who plan to have their say on proceedings.

The scene at Howth with flags flying for the Provident CRM Optimist Leinster Championships

The Junior Fleet (Age 12 & under) is wide open, with a number of newer sailors in the fleet determined to make their mark.

International Race Officer David Lovegrove and his experienced team will oversee the racing, with both fleets sailing together to keep proceedings moving briskly along.

The Leinster Championships is being generously sponsored by Provident CRM.

A really important element of the Optimist scene is the Regatta Fleet, who enjoy coached racing at these events.

An early decision was taken by IODAI to move the Regatta Fleet Leinster Championships to Malahide YC on the weekend of 10/11 July. This allows numbers to be maximised in all fleets, and offers the mainly younger Regatta Fleet sailors the chance to enjoy the excellent and slightly more benign waters of the Broadmeadows in Malahide.

Local favourites at the first 1720 event of the year, the sportsboat Eastern Championships, will be “Atara” helmed by Howth Yacht Club's Ross McDonald as well as “Wet N Ready” helmed by another Howth ace, Dan O’Grady.

Despite the local challenge, however, it is hard to deny that the overall favourite going into the expected 15-boat event on July 10/11 will be “Dutch Gold” helmed by Rob O’Leary. As Afloat reported, O'Leary won all three of last seasons 1720 events.

The season was meant to start in May at the Sportsboat Cup in Dun Laoghaire but that was unfortunately postponed due to COVID as was the Class European Championships at Waterford Harbour in June that will now sail in September.

There is a plan for an informal 1720 training session on Friday, July 9th preceding the event, although final details are yet to be confirmed.

Download the Notice of Race below.

A month ago, Afloat.ie ran a story around the now-defunct but much-mourned Kilbarrack Sailing Club, and how an entire generation of young sailors in Dublin Bay learned their sailing in the Jack Holt-designed 11ft Heron Class dinghies. But then, so the story went, after some ferocious inter-class politics, the Herons found themselves being completely displaced by the Mirrors. The Mirrors continue to thrive at several centres, but you'd be doing well to find a Heron in any sort of sailing condition anywhere. However, nature abhors a vacuum, and this new posting on the Howth YC Facebook page speaks for itself. As the Howth Marina Management Office puts it, "with the pandemic lockdown regulations easing, we’re starting to get all sorts of interesting visitors….”

Meanwhile, the rest of us wonder if pterodactyls really are extinct, or are they just hiding in plain sight?

See the heron in flight on the HYC Facebook page here

With official club racing only permissible since last Monday, June 7th, and many fit-out schedules delayed through May's atrocious weather, the realists had been hoping for a turnout of maybe around 40 boats for Howth YC's opening major event of this "make it up as you go along" 2021 season, the time-honoured annual Lambay Race on Saturday which was further restricted in numbers by being billed as a club-only event.

Yet a little miracle took place at the Fingal peninsular port. The weather became summery as the week went on, the mood improved with it, and with the inspiration of five of the venerable Howth 17s staging the club's first "official" race for some time at 10:30hrs on Bank Holiday Monday June 7th, clearly it behoved anything which moved and floated and set sails to get out there and celebrate with the Lambay circuit.

The Howth 17s mustered 12 boats and found a flash of sunshine for their start, with Peter Courtney's Oonagh (17) and the Turvey brothers' Isobel getting the best of it at the far end of the line. Photo: Annraoi Blaney  

Orla and Isobel crossing tacks north of Lambay. Photo: Annraoi Blaney

This was only slightly hampered by the wind managing to blow from every direction between southeast and west during the course of the race, while – apart from the occasional flash of brightness – the sun stayed behind cloud until most of the racing was over. But at least there nearly always was wind, and it was a warm breeze at that, making the intricacies of getting round the island – in addition to many other set course challenges – a gentle business even when you were making to wind.

IRC 2 on the wind with Half Tonners King One and Mata trying to find their way past the X302 Xebec. A long time ago, King One was Half Ton World Champion in the ownership of four times Olympic Gold Medallist Paul Elvstrom of Denmark, and now - as part of the Kelly stable - she was class winner round Lambay. Photo: Annraoi Blaney.

Not surprisingly, the largest single turnout – 19 boats – was in the non-spinnaker class, where some cruising boats which hadn't raced in years were caught up in the mood of the moment to display amazingly sharp performances.

Among the One-Design Classes, the Puppeteer 22s had shaken off enough of the cobwebs to have a turnout of 13, with the Howth 17s next in line with the round dozen, while the three hot IRC Classes all mustered good quorums with a set of results which will keep the directors of J Boats Europe purring with content.

The Half Tonner Mata (Wright brothers & Rick DeNeve). If you want to do well in the Lambay Race, exclude all marine ornithologists from your crew, as their concentration will al most immediately be elsewhere. Photo: Annraoi Blaney  

The Half Tonner Mata (Wright brothers & Rick DeNeve). If you want to do well in the Lambay Race, exclude all marine ornithologists from your crew, as their concentration will al most immediately be elsewhere. Photo: Annraoi Blaney

All the results are here in detail, while the headline placing were:

• White Sail HPH: 1st Zarquon (M & J Wenski) 2:33:16; 2nd Spellbound (Burrows/Skeffington) 2:38:13; 3rd Blue Extra (M. Carroll) 2:20:46.
• White Sails IRC 1st Bite the Bullet (Elan 333, Colm Bermingham) 2:31:37; 2nd Toughnut (MG 34, D Skehan) 2:36:46; 3rd Spellbound (Burrows/Skeffington) 2:38:33
• IRC 1: 1st Lambay Rules (J/97, S Quinn), 2:59:10; 2nd Snapshot (J/99, M & R Evan, J/99) 2:59:31; 3rd Outrajeous (J/109, R Colwell & J Murphy) 3:01:48.
• IRC 2: 1st King One (Elvstrom Half Tonner, D.Kelly) 2.55.27; 2nd Mata (Classic Half Tonnner, Wright bros & R DeNeve) 2:56:12; 3rd Checkmate XV (Humphreys Half Tonner, D Cullen) 2.59:17
• IRC 3: 1st Legal Alien (Sommerville & Kavanagh) 2:39:44; 2nd Insider (S & D Mullaney, Sigma 33) 2:39:39; 3rd Animal (G O'Sullivan, Formula 28) 2:40:23
• J/80: 1st Jeannie (R Dix, 3:15:04; 2nd Red Cloud (N Reilly) 3:16:22; 3rd Jammy (D O'Grady, 3:16:50
• Howth 17: 1st Deilginis (Massey/Toomey/Kenny) 3:47:17 2nd Aura (I Malcolm) 3:48:52; 3rd Anita (D Massey) 3:51:36
• Puppeteer 22: 1st Gold Dust (Walls/Brown) 3:26:35; 2nd Trick or Treat (A Pearson & A Blay) 3:28:35; 3rd Yellow Peril (N Murphy & C Costello) 3:31:46
• Squibs: 1st Crackertoo (S Kay) 3:42:04; 2nd 3point9 (F O'Kelly) 3:42:57; 3rd Tears for Fears (N Monks) 3:45:19.

The Lambay Lady Trophy goes to the boat with the biggest margin between her first place and the next in class, and initial assessments suggest that Colm Bermingham's Elan 333 Bite the Bullet (White Sails IRC) wins it by 11 seconds from Zarquon (M & J Wenski), but some classes using the Orthodox Coptic PH system may yet come up with a larger margin.

Storm is back in town……the Kelly family's successful J/109 Storm getting back in racing trim, with the unmistakable and unemployed Ringsend smokestacks very visible across the Sutton isthmus. When the stacks were first built in 1974, everybody objected to "these eyesores". Now that they're redundant and the powers-that-be expect to take them down, everybody is objecting to the "wanton destruction of these much-loved landmarks". Photo: Annraoi Blaney

With so many people now gaining their first experiences afloat in alternative ways to sailing such as kayaking and paddleboarding, Howth Yacht Club is developing and expanding its Come Sailing initiative with the recruitment of a full-time On-the-water Coordinator to assist and support these newcomers in their chosen activity, while additionally offering them the opportunity to avail of the Club's Go Sailing initiative, which builds towards more advanced sailing in the HYC flotilla of J/80s.

The Coordinator is also seen as being able to provide encouragement for HYC members who may have stopped sailing for the entire duration of the pandemic, and thus feel that their skills in a boat may have become slightly rusty.

Paddleboarders on a learning curve under safe conditions at Howth YC. Photo: HYC

With the attractive island of Ireland's Eye right on its doorstep, and beaches and the cliffs of Howth Head nearby, the Howth area is proving to be a magnet for those availing of the newest international ranges of affordable self-propelled watercraft of all types and sizes. Howth Yacht Club's position of having been at the heart of the harbour for 126 years gives it unrivalled experience in the introduction and training of beginners, and ensuring the quiet but effective regulation of safety measures as a natural feature of life afloat.

Details of the new position – for which applications close on 26th May - are here

Next step up – the basics of sailing are outlined for beginners aboard one of the Howth YC J/80s. Photo: HYC

Under the current lockdown-easing programme, Saturday, June 12th will mark the first weekend when full-scale in-club officially sanctioned races will be possible. The latest word on the waterfront is that last night (Monday), the monthly meeting of Howth Yacht Club’s General Committee gave their support to the HYC Sailing Committee’s proposal of last Friday, suggesting that the Club stage its traditional weekend Lambay Race just as soon as legally possible, which is Saturday, June 12th. The oldest Lambay trophy dates back to 1899, but the earliest record of the race actually taking place is 1904, which still gives it special antiquity, such that racing round Lambay at least once a year is seen as integral to a proper Howth sailing season.

Howth Harbour

Meanwhile, Howth Harbour has been springing back to tentative life. There are two days in the year when the Harbour will see at least three cranes in action transferring boat between land in seas. The two standing cranes at the Howth YC marina are available on a year-round basis, though usually, only the main one is in frequent use. But on two set days in Spring and Autumn, the Howth Boat Club fleet - which lays up ashore at the lighthouse end of the East Pier, where the club has its HQ in the former Howth Sailing Club premises - becomes the peak focus of activity.

Howth YC training session Oppies get round-the-mooring-buoys slalom action while the Howth Boat Club fleet - berthed end-on to the East Pier beyond - moves steadily towards full numbers. Photo: HYC

HBC members recently organised upwards of two dozen of their fleet to get splashed in one neatly co-ordinated programme with a hire crane. But as most of them have their berths end-on to the East Pier, the newly re-commissioned moorings in the Outer Harbour will remain unoccupied for a while as people get used to the idea that the officially-sanctioned sailing season is only weeks away. In last weekend’s stronger winds, the HYC training fleets - mainly in Laser 470s and Optimists - found space for plenty of action in the Outer Harbour’s convenient shelter, with the mooring buoys giving extra options for slalom manoeuvres. And all the signs are that training fleets are going to increase in size until “Freedom Day” on Monday, June 9th releases everyone into the world of full-blown racing action.

Action stations - the fleet is growing for HYC’s junior Laser training. Photo: HYC

When Muriel Simpson married Alistair McMillan of Howth, she knew that boats and sailing would become a significant part of her life, as he had become a Junior Member of Howth Sailing Club in June 1941, while by 1967 he was so active in club affairs afloat and ashore that he was one of the energetic group in HSC – led by the legendary Howth 17 sailor Norman Wilkinson – who were working for the amalgamation of Howth SC with Howth Motor Yacht Cub to create Howth Yacht Club.

This was successfully achieved in 1968, and thus Muriel's widely mourned death has severed another direct link with a busy time in Howth's sailing and harbour development. But her passing has much greater significance than that, as she celebrated her Hundredth Birthday in May 2020, and so Howth Yacht Club is marking the loss of its oldest member.

She had lived a full life, alert to the end. Alistair was into all forms of sailing – racing and cruising, inshore and offshore, and in boats of all sizes from dinghies and Howth 17s up to Ian Morrison's Robert Clark-designed 47ft Querida (ex-Moonduster). But when the McMillan family acquired firstly a Folkboat and then a Shipman 28 for a busy racing and cruising programme, Muriel soon concluded that going racing was the most effective way to spoil a pleasant sail, and thus her involvement was exclusively for day sailing and cruising.

This was something which they expanded as a couple after Ian and Sheila Morrison bought the new Hallberg Rassy 42ft ketch Safari of Howth, and the McMillans were aboard for many Mediterranean ventures.

By this time they had raised their family of three sons John, Murray and Russell, and while the boys were of an age to be sailing the family's Heron dinghies, the horizons weren't so wide. But though the parents were later to enjoy foreign cruising, while life was at the stage of being largely centred around the Howth peninsula they were much involved in community affairs, with Muriel being a leading light in the Howth & Sutton horticultural society, while with Alistair she formed one of the most formidably successful "Collecting Couples" for the Howth RNLI, a role they filled with energy and devotion for 44 years, while Muriel was also a pillar of the HYC Bridge Group.

Although Alistair pre-deceased her by several years, Muriel had much to interest her, with five grand-children and four great-grandchildren, and hers was indeed a fulfilled life with a wider family circle, and many friends. Our thoughts are with them all.

WMN

The J80 National Championships returns this autumn to Howth Yacht Club.

A fleet of 14 boats contested the 2020 Championships at Dun Laoghaire with Howth's Pat O'Neill emerging as Irish Champion.

Previously the fledgeling championships sailed at Howth in 2019 and 2018 as part of the club's Wave Regatta.

This October 2/3, O'Neill can expect competition not only from his own HYC Club Mates Dan O'Grady and Robert Dix but also 2020 runner up Jonny O'Dowd of the Royal St. George Yacht Club.

There was a Wicklow tint to the O'Neill winning team with Shane Hughes, Aaron Jones and Conor Cleary all active Greystones SC members teaming up with former Class President O'Neill for the 2020 challenge.

 The Irish J/80 Class Association is a relatively new class and formed in 2017 to represent owners, sailors, associated clubs and to help develop J/80 racing here.