#hyc – Howth Yacht Club's traditional season opener is run over three Saturdays with six great Windward /Leeward races, starting on Saturday 4th April 2015 with cranes and storage all included. There are starts for Cruisers 1, 2 & 3, SB20's, J24's, Puppeteers and Squibs. 'It's a fantastic way to start the season and to get your crews back into full race mode', says HYC's Darragh Sheridan. Download the sailing instructions below as a wrod file.
There will be particularly strong competition in Class 2 with a number of new runners and riders joining existing owners and crews. The SB20s will also be looking to get in some time on the water with their Eastern Championships being held in Howth on the weekend after the Spring Series.
As with previous years Key Capital Private are back as sponsors and the Royal Alfred races will be incorporated into the racing on 18th April 2015. Competitors are very welcome to just sail the Alfred races on the final day of the series.
The notice of race, online entry and sailing instructions are available on the HYC website

#checkmateforhowth – The story is that there has been a bit of re-juggling in the Half Tonner lineup at Howth, where Dave Cullen has moved on from the historic King One which once upon a time took the Half–Ton World Cup for the legendary Paul Elvstrom of Denmark, whose Olympic gold medal scoreline is bested only by Ben Ainslie.

The good news is that King One is going to continue to sail the waters of fair Fingal. She now has a Rush-based owner, who plans to continue to keep her at Howth where they've a handy little group of classic Half Tonners sharpening up for 2015.

And a further welcome word is that Dave Cullen himself will be returning to the fray, having taken over Nigel Biggs' all-conquering Half Tonner Checkmate. This little honey has had so much TLC and classy mods made in recent years that 'tis said a statement had to be issued saying the boat is NOT called Cheque Mate...........

#laser – Seventeen Laser dinghies braved the cold blustery conditions for the final two races of Howth Yacht Club's Spring Series. It was an interesting preamble to the Round Island race on Saturday 14th March. The racing was incident packed. In the first incident of the day Dave Kirwan broke his mast on his way to the starting area, leaving him watching from the committee boat.

Race 1 started with an offshore breeze over twenty knots, kicking up a short chop. The steep waves made progress upwind difficult and on occasion helped the laser to become a submarine off the wind.

The race management team decided on a triangle sausage course and set a pin end starting line bias. This bias was just enough to allow Daragh Sheridan to pull off a dream port tack start, he even crossed the bow of Dave Cotter.

Ronan Cull led the fleet to the top mark closely followed by the pack headed by Daragh Sheridan, Ronan was to hold the lead to the finish, despite giving the fleet a chance to catch him with an upwind capsize on the second beat during one of his "roll tacks".

Dan O'Connell deviated from his usual silky style and dropped out of the racing with a capsize and a 360 degree rig rotation.

Michael Evans finished second taking advantage of a fearful capsize on the last gybe of the race by McMahon.

Race 1:

1st Ronan Cull

2nd Michael Evans

3rd Paul McMahon

4th Stephen Quinn

5th Daragh Sheridan

1st Radial Aoife Hopkins

1st 4.7 Sarah Gallagher

Race 2

1st Ronan Cull

2nd Paul McMahon

3rd Stephen Quinn

4th Michael Evans

5th Dan O'Connell

1st Radial Aoife Hopkins

1st 4.7 Sarah Gallagher

Race 2 very much a scaled down version of race 1, another pin end bias was set. This time no sailor was gutsy enough to chance a port tack start. Dan made running repairs to his boat and to his credit endured the cold to wait on the second race. and rejoin the fleet. Race two was a tighter affair with Cull piping McMahon to make it 2 wins from two races. These wins topped a great spring series by Ronan who topped the rankings by 19 points from Dan O'Connell, with Daragh Sheridan taking third place overall.

The form book will be thrown out the window for next Saturdays stand alone Round the Island Race, this classic Laser race never fails to throw out a few surprises.

#laser – The Howth Yacht Club Laser Frostbiters were treated to a fantastic two races this morning writes Daragh Sheridan.

The race committee set a Windward / Leeward course for the first race of the day. A shift shortly before the start made the first beat somewhat one sided with a premium on tacking to port as soon as possible. Ronan Cull led around the Windward mark followed by Dan O'Connell, Mike Evans, Conor Costello and Ian Mc Sweeney. Our fleet captain Ian unfortunately capsized on the downwind much to the delight of those close to him. The race stayed tight with Cull taking yet another bullet followed by O' Connell and Daragh Sheridan taking third after an uncharacteristic mistake by Evans at the final Leeward mark. Eddie Rice had a storming comeback to take fourth after having to do turns earlier in the race. Costello clearly enjoying the breeze took fifth slot.

As the breeze continued to build the race officer decided to hold an Olympic course for race 2. As a result the fleet enjoyed some high speed reaches on the perfectly laid triangle. Once again Cull lead for the majority of the race but a capsize at the final windward mark allowed both Rice and O'Connell to capitalise. O'Connell then took full advantage of a big puff down the second last reach to grab the lead and held off Rice to the finish. Cull took the final podium place with Sheridan 4th and Evans 5th.

Unfortunately there were no Radials out this morning. In the 4.7s Sarah Gallagher took two firsts from Rory McEvoy. Sarah is now tied for the overall lead with Alex Kavanagh.

Overall Positions
Full Rig
1. Ronan Cull
2. Dan O'Connell
3. Daragh Sheridan
4. Eddie Rice
5. Mike Evans

Radial
1. Ewan Mc Mahon
2. Conor Twohig
3. Aoife Hopkins.

4.7
1. Alex Kavanagh
2. Sarah Gallagher
3. Rory McEvoy

#hyc – Howth Yacht Club's (HYC) Shane Diviney, a former Dublin City University student now based in Australia, was on pit duty for Chris Steele's winning 36 below team in Perth for the Warren Jones Youth Regatta this week. 

Steele and his crew from the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron beat local skipper Sam Gilmour on a count back after racing in the final was curtailed by light winds.

Steele and his crew of Hamish Hardy, Shane Diviney, Josh Salthouse and Harry Hull were challenged all the way in the testing conditions, being taken to a third race in the quarter-finals by Japan's Kohei Ichikawa. Then in the semi-finals it was Australia's Lachy Gilmour who took them to three races, before he needed a count back to win the final.

The Warren Jones Regatta was hosted by the Royal Perth Yacht Club, and run by Swan River Sailing, and is for sailors under the age of twenty five. The trophy was given in memory of Warren Jones, who was the driving force behind Australia II's famous victory in the America's Cup in 1983.

Overall Results:

1 Chris Steele (Royal New Zealand Y.S.)
2 Sam Gilmour (Royal Freshwater Bay Y.C.)
3 Henry Kernot (Jay Griffin) (Cruising Y.C. of Australia)
4 Lachy Gilmour (Royal Freshwater Bay Y.C.)
5 Matt Jerwood (South of Perth Y.C.)
6 Joachim Aschenbrenner (Royal Dansh Y.C.)
7 Kohei Ichikawa (Japan Sailing Federation)
8 Peter Holz (Chicago Match Racing Centre)
9 Sam Ellis (Cruising Y.C. of Australia)
10 Mark Lees (Royal Southern Y.C.)
11 Will Boulden (Royal Freshwater Bay Y.C.)
12 Malcolm Parker (Royal Prince Alfred Y.C.)

#HYC - Howth Yacht Club's new year gets off to a brisk start with the New Year's Day Brass Monkey Race & Raffle.

HYC promises a fun day out for all the family on Thursday 1 January, with the race starting at 11.30am and food and festivities - plus the raffle in aid of Howth RNLI - in the clubhouse afterwards.

And as a reminder of the day's fundraising efforts, Howth's all-weather lifeboat Roy Barker III will be out on exercise around the harbour.

More details are available from the HYC website HERE.

#santa – Santa Claus arrived by boat yesterday into Dun Laoghaire harbour and headed straight to a packed National Yacht Club where sackfuls of presents were handed out to children of all ages.  

Everyone – big and small – was entertained all day long, with the very special guest of honour arriving at noon and accompanied by his Elves.

Next weekend (December 14) Santa is scheduled to make another waterfront appearance at the Royal St. George Yacht Club and on the other side of Dublin Bay at Howth Yacht Club too.

#matchracing – Ireland's hosting of International Match racing events is set to to continue in 2015 with Howth Yacht Club's annuoncement that it will host the 2015 Nations Cup European Final on 7-10th May 2015. It follows the acclaimed 2014 staging of the ISAF Women's Match Racing World Championship at Royal Cork Yacht Club. 

The Howth result follows a recent decent decision by ISAF to award the worldwide regional finals to Buenos Aires (South America), Brisbane (Oceania), San Diego (North America), Tunis (Africa), Bahrain (Asia) and Howth (Europe). The Grand Final will be held in Vladivostok on 14-19th July.

As per the Notice of Race, the ISAF host member national authority may nominate an entry in each of the Open and Women's Division.

The event will be run in the ISA Sailfleet J80s and the full schedule will be announced in due course.

The ISAF Nations Cup was first introduced to the world in 1991. Open and Women's contests are run and it is based on a series of Regional Finals with the top crews meeting at the Grand Final.

Racing at the Regional Finals is preceded by an ISAF Match Racing Clinic, aimed to help develop match racing skills and officiating in that region. The winners of each Regional Final progress to the Grand Final, where they are joined by the defending nation and the host nation.

All relevant information will be published and available on the ISAF website - sailing.org

The aim of the event is to broaden the availability of match racing and provide international match racing competition for national authorities and sailors at a reasonable cost, whilst acting as an incentive for national match racing programmes.

#hyc – Ronan Cull continues to dominate the 40th Laser Frostbites at Howth Yacht Club. Cull showed no let up in demonstrating a master class in Laser sailing to the rest of the fleet. Concerns that the forecast of a dropping wind would impact the second race never materialised as the light westerly wind actually increased slightly through the morning.

The strong flood tide meant the race committee were forced in to having black flag starts in order to keep the fleet from being pushed over early after general recalls in both races.

In race 1 the fleet arrived in a tight bunch at the windward mark. The run against the tide proved to be tricky for the entire fleet and resulted in a group of five boats getting a small jump on the rest of the boats ,which they held to the finish line. While Cull had a built a good lead to take the gun, the race for the other podium places saw the next five boats having a great race with Daragh Sheridan taking 2nd, from Dave Quinn, Darrell Reamsbottom and Ian Mc Sweeney.

Race 2 followed the familiar pattern of Cull storming away from everybody once again to take the win. Ronan appeared to really sail the runs well each time to pull away from the chasing bunch. Dan O'Connell showed good pace throughout to take a well deserved 2nd place. He was followed by Daragh Kelleher in third and a very tight finish between Dave Quinn 4th, Daragh Sheridan 5th and Darrell Reamsbottom in 6th.

Unfortunately the Radial fleet was missing the presence of the front runners this Sunday who were away training elsewhere. Carla Fagan and Ben Jennings took full advantage of this to record a race win each.

Daniel Hopkins continues to lead the 4.7 rigs from Alex Kavanagh and S Gallagher.

Hopefully the relatively mild temperatures continue for the two remaining Sundays.

Overall Positions

Full Rig

1. Ronan Cull

2. Dave Quinn

3. Daragh Sheridan

4. Daragh Kelleher

5. Darrell Reamsbottom

Radial

1. Aoife Hopkins

2. C. Twohig

3. Ewan McMahon.

4.7

1. Daniel Hopkins

2. Alex Kavanagh

3. S Gallagher

#matchracing – In little over a fortnight Howth Yacht Club will host the Irish Match Racing Open bringing to a close a year that has seen reinvigorated participation in the discipline by Irish sailors.

Many of the female sailors who took part in June's Women's World Match Racing Championships in Cork have been active through the rest of the year at WIMRA events while in the men's division Philip Bendon and his Glenmar Match Racing Team made their debut on the Alpari World Match Racing Tour at the Dutch round in September and have reached an Irish high of 29th in the world rankings.

Several young Howth sailors have also spent time at the world renowned Chicago Match Racing Centre and their names have started to appear on crew lists at match racing events at the highest level. The recent establishment of match racing divisions in the top Irish sailing universities is yet another sign match racing is growing in popularity and participation.

The Irish Match Racing Open will take place on the 13th and 14th December and will bring together women's and men's teams from the World and European Tours in what is hoped will be the first of a series of domestic events in 2015 leading to the qualification of an Irish team for the Nations Cup and European Match Racing Finals. Entry is open until the 28th of November via the Howth Yacht Club events page. 

An open forum will be held on the evening of the 13th with the objective of identifying what the sailors want to get out of Irish match racing and how that may be helped to flourish. If you want to take part in match racing this is the place to make yourself known and heard.