National Yacht Club sailing and performance programmes ran all winter alongside frostbite racing, keeping racing sailors training and progressing at Dun Laoghaire Harbour.

The club had coaching series in almost all the main classes sailed off the NYC platform with regular training in Flying 15, RS Aeros, ILCA, Topper, 29er and Optimist.

The adult dinghy section could validate various lessons by racing the DMYC Frosbites and the INSS RS Aero super series during the winter.... and club sailors excelled under the leadership of the "king of weekend warriors", Noel Butler, overall winner of the Frosbites.

The Aero superseries concluded with a club 1-2, with head coach Thomas Chaix edging out Butler, arguably thanks to the mainly lighter conditions the series faced. Butler also travelled to the US to compete at the Miami RS Fest, winning the RS Aero6 series.

Michael McCambridge progressing his skills in the NYC adult spring coaching series

The juniors first open events were sailed in March with the Optimist sprints organised by the club. The future is looking good, with the NYC best finisher being 10-year-old Aurele Dion in 8th overall. Four sailors then travelled to the UK Springs in Draycote, racing in a fleet of 100 boats. Basile Dion had a strong second day scoring two 5th places showing solid determination and moment of brilliance off the startline.

National Yacht Club Topper class numbers grew exceptionally at the end of 2023

The Topper class numbers grew exceptionally at the end of 2023, and winter training was great under the leadership of lead coach Ellie Cunnane. The team travelled to Larne for the Irish winter. The first day was extremely challenging, with a nasty squall wiping the fleet out. The resilience of our sailors was exceptional and 5 team members completed the event inside top top in the full rig, including Rory Brennan Hobbs in 2nd (a million light years from his struggle at the back of the fleet for his first event at the same time last year), Kate Kenny 3rd and top girl and James Gorman best U14. In the 4.2 rig, John Kenny secured 3rd overall.

The 29er sailors had a busy March, too, as whilst the Academy sailors were busy in Europe (with Clementine vanSteenberge and her crew Jessica Riordan from the George picking yet another Europa Cup win), the club sailors tested their progress at the UK winter.

29er training on the hard at the National Yacht Club

The ILCA sailors led by senior Irish Sailing development sailor Sam Ledoux competed at the Munsters over Easter weekend. Ledoux had a strong event finishing 2nd in the ILCA 6. Youth sailors Charlie Keating and Peter Kenny had a solid event too.

National Yacht Club 29er sailors training in the home waters of Dun Laoghaire Harbour

Easter clinics

Easter was early, and the weather kept coaches on their toes to deliver clinics in all the junior classes during the school break. Optimists, Toppers, ILCA4, 29er and Feva, enjoyed a few days afloat in the harbour, perfecting their racing skills or simply returning to sailing after a winter playing other sports.

The WOW J80 enjoyed a great clinic with the two club boats under the guidance of coaches Nicola Ferguson and Eoghan Duffy, an initiative the club will look into repeating.

The National Yacht Club's Women on the Water J80 'Sea Jade'

The Eliotts kept on their busy schedule with the Student match racing nationals completed with club skipper Oisin Cullen securing 3rd overall.

Youth nationals successes

The event itself at Royal Cork was hit by the weather and only four races (no discards) could be completed for four classes out of the six competing.

In the Optimist class, our best finisher was Alex Butcher, who secured 12th overall and a place in an Irish team. In the ILCA6 class, Charlie Keating will regret the incident in race 2, dropping him just outside the medals in 4th overall. The NYC confirmed its position as the leading club in the 29er class with World champion Clementine van Steenberge and her crew Jessica Riordan securing a comfortable win and their place in the Youth Worlds Irish team 2024 in Garda. Making the most of Academy sailor's mistakes, club sailors Hugh Meagher and Oisin Alexander took a well-deserved bronze medal, showing to all our new 29er sailors that commitment and hard work get rewarded. They were closely followed by Academy sailors William Walsh and Eoin Byrne, freshly returned from Europe, and female European champions Lucia Cullen and Alanna Twomey (from RCYC).

Unfortunately our eager and strong Topper team did not get the opportunity to shine, and neither could our two ILCA4 girls Kate Kenny and Hannah Walsh.

Lift in and let's go racing

A short two weeks break is now in session to facilitate the lift-in and reorganising of the club platform before all sailors return to training and launch the summer season. It won't be long until the 29er/49er East Coast championships organised by the club will be in session, launching a series of nationwide open events. Don't miss out on a high-octane weekend of skiff sailing! whether giving a helping hand or testing your skills against the best skiff sailors in the country.

The 2024 29er/49er East Coast championships are to be hosted at the NYC

Friendship, family and sailing enjoyment expressed enthusiastically through quietly efficient organisations - that was the warm theme which dominated Thursday evening’s convivial gathering in the National Yacht Club on Dun Laoghaire waterfront.

The successful hosting club and the Golden Jubilee-celebrating Ruffian 23 Association were being jointly presented with the MG Motor “Sailing Club of the Year 2024 ” award. Yet despite being a shared award, that too was a matter of celebration rather than any hidden rivalry, as was the linking of sailing with a distinguished marque that is now a pace-setter in all-electric vehicles.

Frank Keane, founder of the Frank Keane Group which includes MG Motor Ireland, with National YC Commodore Peter Sherry and SB20 and J80 sailor Billy Riordan, Chairman of Frank Keane Holdings. Photo: Michael Chester

The special links between the two sailing organisations go all the way back to 1975, when NYC members Jim Poole and Eamonn Crosbie competed in the former’s new Ruffian 23 Ruffino in an early three stage two-handed Round Ireland race/rally from Ballyholme. Despite being the smallest boat in the fleet, they finished second overall at the beginning of what were very notable shared and then individual national and international offshore racing careers.

Ruffian 23 enhusiasts at the National YC include (left to right) Feena Lynch (Class Captain 2023), Eoin O’Eochaidh (Class Captain 2024), Ann Kirwan (Captain of Team for Hong Kong Inter-port), Heather Kennedy and Will Brown (daughter and son of designer Billy Brown, and senior owner Michael Cutliffe of DMYC. Photo: Michael Chester

TAKING SUCCESS IN THEIR STRIDE

That the National Yacht Club can take such special achievements effortlessly in its stride was demonstrated just a week ago, when Commodore Peter Sherry hosted the club’s Achievers of 2023 ceremony here, a boisterous event which highlighted the club’s extraordinary range of local, national and international achievements afloat during 2023, and leaves us in the happy position of now having the space to highlight those tireless voluntary workers – often behind the scenes – who keep Ireland’s hugely varied sailing show on the road.

The leaders. Peter Sherry was Commodore of the National YC during 2023, while Feena Lynch Captained the Ruffian 23 Class. Photo: Michael Chester

Because although the National YC and the Ruffian 23 Association have clearcut and different objectives, they both share the blessing of having a significant cohort of members who go beyond President John F Kennedy’s definition of a good citizen. At a time now when - in life generally - everybody seems to be complaining about more or less everything, we would do well to remember that more than sixty years ago, at his inauguration, Kennedy defined good citizenship as being expressed in the statement: “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country”.

ASPIRATIONS AND SPECIAL EFFORT

Well, in both the National YC and the Ruffian 23 Association, we find key people who quietly get on with living up to this aspiration as it affects their group and its sailing. And in the case of the National in particular, it goes well beyond the needs of their own sailing organisation with its bricks and mortar clubhouse, as they play a huge role in the bigger picture with key positions in Dublin Bay Sailing Club, as well as ISORA (where former NYC Commodore Peter Ryan is Chairman), and class groupings with a particular inspiration recently being Fionan de Barra and Hal Sisk’s new life for the ancient yet ever-young Dublin Bay 21 class.

The National Yacht Club today. It has been in existence as a club at this location under various names since 1870

The Ruffian 23s likewise make their broader input, with Ann Kirwan being the Team Captain with the 20-strong squad that made a successful Golden Jubilee journey to Hong Kong in October for the Triennial series against the Royal Hong YC Ruffians. It all went off as smoothly run as you’d expect from someone whose CV includes being Commodore of Dublin Bay SC when it in turn won the MG Motor Club of the Year Award.

VERY SPECIAL SEASON

But equally, keeping the show on the road at home throughout the season was a demanding task for the Class Captain, and in 2023 that was Feena Lynch, who presided over a very special season in which highlights included an East-West team series in Clew Bay which was won by the Mayo SC team, while the Ruffian 23 Golden Jubilee Nationals were staged by the National YC (who else?) at the end of July, when the winner was Stephen Penney of Carickfergus Sailing Club with his immaculately-prepared Hot Orange.

The Champions – Stephen Penney’s beautifully-prepared Ruffian 23 Hot Orange from Carrickfergus. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien

But before that, a very high bar had been set with an all-fleets Golden Jubilee Regatta in mid-June at Portaferry, hosted by Heather Brown - now Heather Kennedy - daughter of Ruffian 23 designer Billy Brown, whose presence with her brother Will at Thursday night’s reception really was the icing on the cake.

That said, there was icing already on the cake from Portaferry, as the overall winner of the rally/regatta was Michael Cutliffe of Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club, who is the class’s senior owner as he has been happily cruising and racing Ruffles since 1979. It was good to see him there in great form on Thursday evening, when his beloved class of boats received the MG Motor accolade.

COMMODORES AND PATRIARCHS

In fact, it was quite the evening for the gathering of patriarchs on all sides, as the MG Motor party included the legendary Frank Keane Snr himself, that longtime giant of the Irish motor industry, whose unstinting sponsorship support for the demanding but worthwhile concept of an Irish “Sailing Club of the Year” goes unbroken all the way back to 1986.

The attendance included sailors at all levels from beginners to Olympic participants. Photo: Michael Chester

As it happens, if there was an all-powerful underlying theme to Thursday night’s informal ceremony, it was the sense of quietly celebrating longtime commitment and dedication. The very presence of Heather Brown Kennedy and her brother Will Brown was a reminder of times long ago when their father Billy Brown first sketched out the lines of the Ruffian 23 over several nights around three o’clock in the morning, a special time when he reckoned “the air is uncluttered by other people’s thoughts”.

Then his can-do younger brother Dick brought the first production boat off the line in time for her to have her “straight out of the wrappings” test sail exactly 51 years ago this morning, on the first Saturday of March 1973.

Early days - building the Ruffian 23s in 1974 is featured in an early video

You can check out the four minute video here

But although Billy may have preferred to be alone with his thoughts when designing boats, he was very much of the local community in every other way, and he and Dick saw the creation of Weatherly Yachts, the Ruffian 23 builders, as part of a larger project to increase Portaferry’s prosperity. And they increased its maritime awareness too, through the creation of the Portaferry RNLI station, in which Billy was the first Launching Officer, a role now held by Heather.

President Hillery with designer Billy Brown aboard a Ruffian 23 at Dun Laoghaire Boat Show 1976

POPULAR COMMODORES

As for those who have served their time as Commodore of the National Yacht Club, it shows all the signs of being a role in which the agreed incumbent receives so much support from their fellow members that they enjoy reverting to being a fully involved ordinary member afterwards, which is not necessarily the case in every other sailing organisation.

Billy Riordan with former National YC Commodore Con Murphy, who held the Round Ireland Sailing Record from 1993 to 2016, and is active in the sport internationally at many levels. Photo: Michael Chester

Certainly on Thursday night the number of happy former NYC Commodores present was a great encouragement to the current administration, but equally the length and breadth of involvement by Commodores over the many years with the Ruffian 23s is remarkable.

CRUISING SIGNIFICANT PART OF ACHIEVEMENT

Cruising is very much in the agenda at the club these days, as current Irish Cruising Club awardee Frank Cassidy is quietly re-invigorating the NYC’s Cruising Group. But equally we can remember that back in the day, subsequent NYC Commodore Ronan Beirne was awarded the ICC’s Round Ireland Cup in 1981 for a cruising circuit with his Ruffian 23 Rila while at the same time being Hon Editor of the ICC Annual, and some years later former NYC Commodore Franz Winkelmann was up on the ICC prizeboard for a cruise to St Kilda with the Ruffian 23 Seamrog.

Equally, in straightforward Ruffian 23 sailing in Dublin Bay, former Commodore Martin McCarthy – who was in the NYC’s hot seat when guidance was needed through the pandemic – represented the many in the National, and many other clubs near and far, who find their sport and camaraderie in the Ruffian 23s.

The man in the hard hat and the hot seat – Commodore Martin McCarthy at work during a restrictions-compliant crane-in day as the pandemic lock-down was eased. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien

But so many in the National YC and the Ruffian 23s spread their energies and enthusiasm into other sailing organisations that there was as much a sense of the future as there was of the present and the past, and another topic high on the agenda was that this year marks the 140th Anniversary of Dublin Bay Sailing Club, a very special organisation that has sailing innovation in a determining position in its DNA.

DUBLIN BAY SC “MEGAFEST” IN 2034

Now of course there’ll be a sailing megafest when the 150th comes around in 2034. But in the meantime, the arrival of the 140th provides an opportunity for some groundwork on the early history, and NYC stalwarts Chris Moore and Rosemary Roy – the immediately past and current Honorary Secretaries of Dublin Bay SC – were working the room in seeking every source of information.

Chris Moore, former Commodore National YC, is also a former Dublin Bay SC Commodore, and he used the occasion to gather further information about DBSC for its 140th Anniversary this year. Photo: Michael Chester

And in Chris Moore you have the NYC ethos personified, as he has served that club in many roles right up to Commodore, and equally has been Commodore and Honorary Secretary of DBSC, while Rosemary and her much-missed late husband Jack were the top team in running Dublin Bay and other races, and now Rosemary has taken on the overall DBSC job in which she was preceded by NYC members Chris Moore and Donal O’Sullivan.

This is how it is with healthy sailing organisations. There’s a sense of past, present, and future moving along in a living continuum, and it was well celebrated on Thursday night in the spirit of the Ruffian 23 Association and the National Yacht Club with their sharing of the MG Motor Award for 2024.

Commodore Peter Sherry with MG Motor’s Frank Keane Jnr, Gerard Rice, and Andy Johnson. Photo: Michael Chester

Photographer Michael Chester's MG Club of the Year Photo Gallery at the National Yacht Club, February 29th 2024

National Yacht Club dinghy sailors are still high-fiving in Dun Laoghaire after clubmates achieved significant wins on the international stage this month. 

NYC Commodore Peter Sherry will lead homecoming celebrations this Saturday for ILCA 7 Laser ace Finn Lynch, who won a place for Ireland at the Paris 2024 Olympic Regatta. 

Sherry will also salute the outstanding achievements of its 29er sailors who won both the World and European Championships in Weymouth and Stockholm.

National Yacht Club ILCA 7 Laser ace Finn Lynch, who won a place for Ireland at the Paris 2024 Olympic Regatta Photo: Sailing Energy

World 29er Champions Clementine and Nathan Van Steenberge will be given a hero's welcome when they return to the East Pier Club this weekend.

Just a week after the Van Steenberge victory, Ben O’Shaughnessy and Ethan Spain of  Royal Cork and NYC were crowned European 29er Champions, and they, too, are assured of a massive welcome home.

Rounding out the incredible month for Irish youth sailing, Emily and Jessica Riordan from the Royal St George Yacht Club became Female 29er World Champions silver medalists, and Lucia Cullen and Alana Twomey of Royal Cork and Royal St George Yacht Clubs were Female European Champions.

Read all the news of the 29ers' achievements

Read about Finn Lynch's qualification and all the Irish sailing preparations for Paris 2024

The last few weeks have delivered winterish yet good conditions for the return of all our coaching programmes at the National Yacht Club at Dun Laoghaire Harbour.

The Optimist Performance group and the ILCA & Aero programmes were the first on deck on the last weekend of January. The remaining of the club's active dinghy classes launched by the first weekend of the February mid-term.

The Optimist Performance group

The National Yacht Club at Dun Laoghaire Harbour are focussing on boat handling skills

2023 was launched with a great weekend led by head coach Thomas Chaix. After clearing the cobwebs, the sailors focussed on boat handling skills as it was identified as a clear point of progress after our mid-winter event attendance in Malta. The programme is now falling into place with regular Saturday sessions with 15 sailors in training and a specific programme on Sunday morning with a small group of 6 sailors.

Single-handers (ILCA and Aero) groups growing numbers

Very light winds have poised the adult single-handers on two occasions, yet each weekend the group has been growing with keen sailors wanting to improve their skills whilst having a good Saturday morning at the club. No rest for the coaches as the Saturday afternoons are then dedicated to the ILCA4&6 juniors.

The 9ers have been enjoying great sailing conditions

The National Yacht Club skiffs are aiming for an event in Weymouth (venue of 2023 worlds) in March

The last three days have put a focus back on what to work on under the guidance of Tadgh Donnelly and Thomas Chaix. They followed days of "free sailing" and self-training by the sailors and constituted the first step of preparation towards an event in Weymouth (venue of 2023 worlds) in March.
Ben O'Shaugnessy and crew Ethan Spain have also started their transition in the 49er FX receiving support and coaching from coaches. Dual sailing the FX and the 29er is clearly helping their skills development. A second FX is almost ready to take on the water, thus showing how the NYC skiff pathway looks.

Toppers and Fevas in action

National Yacht Club RS Feva sailing on Dublin Bay

Both the NYC transition classes (Junior to Youth) have returned to training over the last weekends. If numbers need to grow a little, it certainly allowed our keener sailors some good attention from coaches to kick start their training programme.

Events preparation and early prizes

The 29ers are not the only sailors looking towards a bit of racing! The Optimists Performance group will travel to Valencia in early March to compete at the OptiOrange, a 450 boats international regatta to validate the early 2023 training lessons.

Flying 15s prepare for Worlds

Two of our keener Flying15 partnerships will be reunited with their boat in Fremantle (Australia) for the Australian nationals, followed by the worlds. They are putting hours of training with the addition of two sparring partners in the bay every weekend to be ready for the event.

RS Aero

Aero ace Noel Butler is enjoying somewhat milder conditions in Florida, having just completed the Aero US midwinters in 2nd position.

National Yacht Club Aero sailor Noel Butler  (left) took second in the US midwinters championships

Talks in the NYC

Winter is a great time to do a bit of shore-based learning. The talk on rules in late January was a great success, with the JB Room filled and the realisation the initial quiz was not so easy!

Further talks not to be missed are scheduled over the course of February and March.

• Feb 23rd: "Safe navigation in Dublin Bay" presented by Dublin Port Co
• Mar 9th: "Follow up on rules talk" with focus on tactics and decisions and a full mock protest analysed presented by Thomas Chaix
• Mar 23rd: "Crew to win" talk presented by Thomas Chaix with guests Noel Butler and Nathan Van Steenberge, two very successful NYC sailors.

It was another great Autumn weekend for National Yacht Club sailors at Dun Laoghaire Harbour and further afield.

Travelling Fireball aces Noel Butler and Stephen Oram added another line to their already long list of wins in Killaloe, winning the Munsters after six races in various conditions from five to 25 knots from the west.

Closer to home, Dublin Bay Sailing Club racing offered the usual good racing with a windy westerly. Many NYC sailors enjoyed the fast and furious sailing for the last Saturday race of the season, as Afloat reported previously here.

Flying Fifteens and SB20s launch for the last race of the DBSC Saturday summer season of 2022

The Optimist training programme is now maturing, with young coaches Conor Gorman, Natasha Hemerick and Nicola Ferguson delivering solid sessions with post-sailing video analysis.

The NYC Optimist training programme

Sailors are already showing progress, and the NYC sailors and parents are looking forward to a great winter programme.

NYC Optimists prepare to launch at Dun Laoghaire

It may be a recent resurgence of the RS Feva class, but the sailors are showing no signs of putting their boats back in storage.

Four partnerships enjoyed yet another training session on Sunday morning and are looking forward to further their learning in the class during the course of winter.

Time to get ready for the annual lift out. All programmes are looking into events away or a short break for the next two weeks.

NYC Toppers launch

The second of the Dun Laoghaire waterfront yacht club regattas was hosted last Saturday, 18th June, by the National Yacht Club and thirteen Flying Fifteens took to the water to contest the Davy-sponsored NYC regatta. The forecast was a more benign 10-15knots NNW going NW in contrast to the previous Saturday when the actual winds were in the high teens with gusts in the low to mid-twenties. The fleet size was also influenced by contestants sailing away events and, one imagines, the holiday season – some NYC stalwarts were conspicuous by their absence – all perfectly understandable. Despite the great heat of the Friday conditions overhead were grey and there was a coolness to the breeze.

Race Officer Barry O’Neil took the fleet out towards the Seapoint side of the Bay and set a weather mark in the lee of the Poolbeg chimneys. With a flooding tide running for the race period, there were early warnings from the RO not to be over the line and for the first racer of the day all the classes had clean starts.

In R1 for the Fifteens, the place to be was towards the pin end of the line, heading in towards the shore and a few took this approach. Among these were Tom Galvin & Keith Poole (4093), Niall and Laura Coleman (4008), sailing with crispy fresh sails, saved for high days and holidays, Tom Murphy & Carel (4057) and Ben Mulligan & Cormac Bradley (4081). The latter were enjoying good boat speed and got to the front of this group at an early stage. However, by playing the shifts they soon found themselves towards the middle and right-hand side of the beat and seemingly in a strong position. Galvin/Poole, Coleman² and the Leinster/Blue Bulls combination of Tom & Carel were now working the upper left-hand side of the beat. Mulligan rounded ahead of them all with Galvin, Coleman and Murphy rowing in behind. Dave Gorman & Michael Huang (4099) were next up.

Down the run, Mulligan had to keep a watching brief on Galvin as the distance between these two boats ebbed and flowed but by the end of the leg, Mulligan had managed to eke out a few more boat-lengths of a lead. All of these boats took the right-hand mark of the leeward gate and worked the left-hand side of the beat to varying degrees. And it is the varying degrees that determined the rounding order at the next weather mark as Galvin & Poole fell away and were replaced as the chasing boat by Tom & Carel. Mulligan had marginally increased his lead by working the shifts successfully and the Colemans were also in close proximity to Tom & Carel. At this stage the distance to the rest of the fleet was quite healthy with Galvin still ahead of Gorman, I think.
The third beat saw Mulligan increase his lead over Murphy and Coleman, with Murphy comfortable relative to Coleman. Approaching the leeward gate for the third time it was clear that the boats that had started before the Fifteens were in the process of finishing – causing some confusion. Four laps had been signalled, yet here we were seeing boats finishing after three laps. Only a solitary Dragon could be seen going upwind for the fourth time……….but everyone else was gybing to sail to a finish. As the leading Fifteen, Mulligan and Bradley debated the situation and complied with the herd instinct and got a winning sound signal at the finish, followed by Tom and Carel and the Colemans, with Gorman & Huang taking fourth with Galvin/Poole 5th.

With the wind moving in accordance with the forecast, the weather mark went leftwards towards the Aviva Stadium and out pre-race deliberations decided that the pin was the place to be. A General Recall for the Dragons and the Fifteens may have introduced some “brain-freeze” for instead of starting at the pin we found ourselves starting at the committee boat squeezing between “Freebird” and Dave & Valerie Mulvin (3864) and then being forced to make a tack to clear our air. As we later tried to get across to the left-hand side of the course the error of our ways was magnified – Gorman and Galvin, in particular, were gone, having started at the opposite end of the line. Murphy was well placed too and at the weather mark, the first race winners found themselves “off the pace” with Gorman and Galvin already too far ahead. At this early stage, the running order was Gorman, Galvin, Murphy (T) with a group closely bunched together of Neil Colin & Margaret Casey (4028), Ken Dumpleton & Joe O’Reilly (3955), the Colemans (4008), Peter Murphy & Ciara Mulvey (3774) and Mulligan & Bradley.

Down the first run, this group stayed pretty much together. After going through the leeward gate Mulligan broke away to try and salvage something by going right. Having sailed a reasonable distance, on a long windward leg, he got a header and on taking found a 15° lift that carried him away from the company at the leeward gate who had continued to sail to shore and gave him what looked like a platform to maybe claw Tom Murphy back.

The Colemans threatened for a short period but also fell away and Mulligan found himself in fourth pace at the next weather mark. Up the third beat and the right and middle was worked again and with Murphy (T) apparently stranded on the left-hand side the prospect of clawing back third developed. However, Murphy escaped and while he and Mulligan seemed to close on both Galvin and Gorman, the dye was cast for a tiebreak. This time the four laps indicated by the committee boat and emphasised by the RO at each start were sailed!

Matters on the water were thus tied up between three boats on five points – Gorman & Huang (4,1), Murphy & Carel (2,3) and Mulligan & Bradley (1,4) and Galvin & Poole on seven (5,2). At the prize-giving the final result was announced, in reverse order as Murphy, Mulligan and Gorman.

This gives Tom and Carel a 1,3 across the two Dun Laoghaire regattas sailed. Mulligan and Bradley were involved in the running of the DMYC regatta and Gorman and Huang didn’t sail the DMYC event.

A J80 keelboat stolen from the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire Harbour was the centre of a Dublin Bay rescue story last week that made headlines in The Irish Daily Star! 

A thief took the yacht and outboard engine from the East Pier club out to sea in the middle of the night but ran out of fuel.

Dun Laoghaire RNLI Lifeboat station received a request to launch from the Coast Guard at 7:40 am last Wednesday to reports of a vessel with one person on board which had run out of fuel in the middle of the Bay.

The stolen J80 yacht is brought safely back to harbour by Dun Laoghaire RNLI Lifeboat

The all-weather lifeboat arrived on scene and towed the vessel back to Dun Laoghaire Harbour with Gardaí waiting on shore for the occupant of the vessel.

NYC Commodore Martin McCarthy told the newspaper that it was 'an extremely dangerous thing to do because he could have been drowned'.

According to The Star, the thief is to appear in Dun Laoghaire District Court on charges on September 2nd.

Fortunately, the club boat was able to be repaired and was back in use 24 hours later.

Following Friday's announcement of further Covid-19 restrictions, the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire immediately closed its boathouse and platform.

As a consequence, the annual lift-In of yachts scheduled for April 11th will not now take place. Working on boats is not permitted, nor any sailing from the East Pier club.

The NYC says it is in close consultation with boat owners and a new lift-in date will be announced in due course.

In a note to members, Club Commodore Martin McCarthy said: "We, as a Club, will willingly do all that is required and everything we can, to support the national effort. The NYC has always prided itself on being a “members together” club and being part of the community. Sailing promotes the values of friendship, loyalty and mutual support and now we need to take these values from sailing on the water to supporting our members and community".

The National Yacht Club’s new fleet of Elliot 6 high-performance keelboats were in action last weekend in Dun Laoghaire for a 2K team racing invitational writes Roisin O'Brien

30 sailors took to the water in Dun Laoghaire Harbour for the day, including teams from The National Yacht Club (U30 and U25 teams), The Royal St George Yacht Club, Royal Cork Yacht Club, and the Sorento Sailing Club from Australia who travelled for the event.

The light, shifty conditions made for challenging racing, and an ever-changing race course where sharp tactics made all the difference. Luckily the wind picked up as the day went on and the teams successfully completed two round robins overall. 

The first of many mini events to come making use of the new fleet on the block, the Elliot 6’s, known for their match racing, adapted well to the 2K racing format which was fast paced and kept competitors on their toes.

2k team racing in the new Elliots at Dun Laoghaire Harbour

Race organiser Will Byrne (left) with the Sorento Team Racing sailors from Australia

The Optimist Ulster Championships, hosted by Malahide Yacht Club, saw 120 young sailors compete on the Broadmeadow Water in mixed conditions over two days, with the honours in the Gold Fleets at both Senior and Junior levels going to Royal Cork YC entries.

The event, sponsored by the Grand Hotel, saw Harry Pritchard of RCYC sail consistently throughout to beat clubmate Harry Twomey by just 3 points in the Senior Gold fleet while two other Cork sailors, Michael Crosbie and Justin Lucas, headed up the Junior Gold fleet.

National Yacht’s Club’s Nathan van Steenberge and Jacque Murphy (RStGYC) won the Senior and Junior Silver fleets respectively.

The first day’s racing was notable for fresh westerly and south-westerly winds, with several heavy gusts which severely tested the sailors’ abilities. Conditions improved on the second day and PRO Neil Murphy was able to complete a full 6-race schedule.