With recent additions to the entry list including such glitterati as Pete Smyth of the Royal Irish YC with his newly-acquired Ker 46 Searcher (she was formerly Tonnere de Breskens to give the late great Dutch skipper Piet Vroon his Round Ireland win in 2010), plus father-and-son team of Andrew and Sam Hall of Pwllheli SC in Wales with the much-travelled and successful Lombard 45 Pata Negra, the lineup for the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race from Wicklow in exactly four weeks time is strengthening nicely towards the 50-plus mark, and it’s an entry list of quality.

Interestingly, Pete Smyth has moved on from the previous Searcher, which was a keenly-campaigned Sunfast 3600, just as an international lineup of top-level Sunfast 3600 sister-ships is focusing on being in the thick of the Wicklow start, led by RORC Commodore Deb Fish with Bellino, keen to repeat her silver-laden performance in the 2023 Fastnet Race.

Deb Fish with her awards from the Commodore RORC after the Fastnet Race 2023. Now Commodore herself, she is racing the 2024 SSE Renewables Round Ireland in the Sunfast 3600 Bellino.

Former RORC Commodore James Neville is in the “Entry Pending” section with his Fast 40 Ino Noir, but taking such a thoroughbred Solent racing machine along Ireland’s Atlantic seaboard may well be something that is giving pause for thought.

BLASKET WATERS CAN BE ROUGH, ROUGH, ROUGH….

In the 2022 circuit, his previous boat, the HH42 INO XXX, sustained damage in that notoriously tough area seaward of the Blaskets of the Kerry coast, and had to retire. But that sometimes exceptionally rough bit of water is something that comes with the territory.

Is that design new or what? James Neville’s futuristic Ino Noir

Thus while Royal Cork Yacht Club Admiral Annamarie Fegan’s successful Grand Soleil 40 Niuelargo - which she co-campaigns with husband Denis Murphy – is going again on June 22nd, they’re in no doubt about what they might be taking on. For as Denis admits, back in 2022 the area west and particularly northwest of the Blaskets provided Nieulargo with the roughest sailing she has ever come through in thousands of miles of offshore racing.

The Murphy-Fegan family’s successful Grand Soleil 40 Nieulargo from Crosshaven found the roughest water yet experienced in thousand of miles of offshore racing out to the northwest of the Blaskets in the 2022 SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race, but nevertheless she returns for 2024’s race, Photo: Robert Bateman

That said, there are very few sections of the 700-mile clockwise circuit that don’t come up with their own particular brand of rugged racing at some stage. But equally, with a course this length around an island noted for the variety of its weather, you might be lucky enough to get mile after mile of smooth yet reasonably swift sailing when sheer racing talent takes centre stage.

PILLAR OF IRISH SAILING PROGRAMME

And with the race now so firmly established as a biennial pillar of the Irish sailing programme, the fleet is of sufficient numbers and variety to readily provide you with intense sporting competition in whatever league you may be, with 2024’s lineup including at least four previous winners, including defending title holder, Laurent Charmy’s J/111 Fastwave from France.

The J/122 Darkwood with owner-skipper Mike O’Donnell on the helm crosses close ahead of Andrew & Sam Hall’s Lombard 45 Pata Negra from Pwllheli – both are entered for next month’s SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race. Photo: Darkwoood Pix

Keeping this unique show on the road requires total dedication and many special abilities, such that over years the individual lead organisers have tended to stay in post for several stagings of the race, and this is the case with the current incumbent, former Wicklow Sailing Club Commodore Kyran O’Grady. He has taken on the responsibility for a sailing heritage which - ever since Denis Doyle gave it his blessing with regular participation from 1982 onwards with the Frers 51 Moonduster – has been integral to Irish sailing’s worldview.

Aboard Moonduster during the 1984 Round Ireland race, with the Fasthet Rock already astern and a long-standing record in prospect, Neil Hegarty on the helm, Brendan Fogarty in foreground

THE THATCHER TO THE STARS

Kyran O’Grady is the Wicklow-based sailor who cast aside family expectations of a brilliant accountancy career to become a world-standard thatcher, with top-level clients all over Ireland and abroad. Those who commission his work are of such calibre that if you’re driving the last few miles down the road to Roundstone in Connemara, the interesting-looking building by the road with the elegant O’Grady thatched roof is the recording studio of a musician and composer whose most famous work is more than somewhat adjacent to the globally-acclaimed Riverdance.

Thatcher to the Stars and Round Ireland Race organiser Kyran O’Grady of Wicklow (left) with Barry Kilcline of race sponsors SSE Renewables

Kyran’s longtime home and work-base is beside the reed-rich Broad Lough close north of Wicklow town, where his family is much involved with every aspect of the local sailing scene, and much else in the town besides. But today (Saturday, May 25th) he is back at his boyhood home of Howth, concentrating his attention on campaigning his classic dark blue 1971-vintage Swan 37 Bandersnatch of Howth in the Lambay Race module of this weekend’s ongoing Howth Wave Regatta.

TED TURNER INPUT

Bandersnatch is a story in herself. She is from the first production run in the Swan 37, the boats closely based on an early Ted Turner S&S 37 One Tonner Tenacious. The 37ft Tenacious was burning off the One Tonners in America until her charismatic owner turned his attention to offshore racing the legendary 12 Metre American Eagle. That said, he still raced the One Tonner to success, and when he first brought the 12 Metre to the European scene in 1969 (winning the Transatlantic Race to Cork for the Royal Cork’s Quarter Millennium while he was at it), he also took a few days out to campaign with his 5.5 Metre in the Worlds in Scandinavian, meanwhile all the time building the news cable service which became the behemoth that is CNN.

When the world was young….Dennis Conner and Ted Turner in their 12 Metre-racing days

There’s multi-taskers and then there’s Ted Turner, as his stellar international offshore racing career came after he’d successfully defended the America’s Cup with the inshore racing Courageous. Yet so multi-faceted and ultimately success-laden has his career been afloat and ashore that you’ll read profiles of him in the business pages that barely – if at all – mention his great sailing achievements.

So in contemplating Kyran O’Grady’s Bandersnatch racing round Lambay today, you’re looking at a boat which gives us sailors a direct and very private link to the successful sailing of Ted Turner away back in the late 1960s which the Otherworld doesn’t really understand at all, and we probably prefer it that way.

The standard Swan 37 was developed from a Ted Turner-campaigned One Tonner which made the grade in America in the late 1960s. Some owners made the mast even higher to improve light weather performance even if it made the downwind sailing under spinnaker even more challenging

Certainly the look of Bandersnatch is very much of that time, with the original’s extremely marked tumblehome (the bulge in the topsides) retained into the production boats, thereby creating a boat with rather less side-deck space than her powerful performance merited, but it streamlined her overall shape as she tore through head seas in a style which left much larger craft bobbing groggily in her wake.

The trade-off was that she was only so-so on a reach, while helming downwind in a breeze under her enormous masthead spinnaker required nerves of steel. But as co-owner Ross Courtney was of the generation that reckoned strong windward ability was the only real test of a boat, his son and co-owner Peter was able to transfer some of his own highly successful Fireball racing skills to make the best of the new boat’s wayward offwind capability.

FIRST ROUND IRELAND ALL-FEMALE CREW

Thus Bandersnatch was very much a force to be reckoned with, inshore and offshore, back in the days – mainly the 1970s and ’80s - when ISORA became so popular that its annual season-long points championship attracted over a hundred boats which had qualified through doing seven ISORA races – and real offshore races at that.

The much-sailed dark blue Swan 37 also made an input into the Round Ireland story in 1988 when the Round Ireland’s first all-female crew made a successful circuit with the boat, skippered by Romaine Cagney - she was sailing royalty as she was one of the Maguires, younger sister to the legendary Neville Maguire and aunt of now-Australian sailing superstar Gordon Maguire

GARDEN SHED RADIO STATION

Romaine’s team were sponsored by Robbie Robinson whose pirate station Sunshine Radio reputedly broadcast from a garden shed in Portmarnock, but Sunshine was ahead of the curve in backing women’s top-level sailing.

It is May 1971, and a very young Hilary Fannin (whose father Bob raced the Fastnet of that year in the boat) is giving as good as she gets from owner Ross Courtney at Bandersnatch’s boat-warming party in Howth. Photo: W M Nixon

It was in anticipation of this kind of performance that Bandersnatch’s welcome-home party in Howth Harbour in May 1971 was a heroically festive celebration of new skills usefully engaging with the more traditional outlook of Ross’s longtime shipmates such as sailing cartoonist Bob Fannin. It was such a blitz of a party that it’s said anyone who claims to have been there probably wasn’t there at all.

So today’s sailing of Bandersnatch across the Seas of Memory and round the Island of Dreams should be a welcome relaxation for her owner-skipper, as it removes him briefly from both the sometimes brutal work of thatching, and the mind-bending challenge of organising the Round Ireland. For it’s 44 years since Michael Jones sent off the inaugural biennial circuit, a race circuit which has since become part of the RORC international programme such that every other year expectations are high and rising.

Being at the coal-face in running this complex event is far from being a sinecure, rather it’s more like being the Warden of the Holy Grail. But things are looking good for 2024, and there’s even a whiff of 2016 when George David’s Rambler 88 and a trio of MoD 70s brought a mega-shower of stardust to Wicklow.

A touch of stardust – George David’s mighty Rambler 88 made the 2016 race something very special

Top of the good news list is that the entries in recent weeks have expanded spectacularly to include some genuine offshore racing glitterati. But perhaps more importantly, there are at least four former winners going, including George Radley’s ever-young Holland 39 Imp from Cobh, which also won the Fastnet in 1977 and 1979.

Those of us who have campaigned our own boats in this hyper-demanding 700-mile circuit know only too well the sheer grinding effort required to shift your already reasonably well-equipped cruiser-racer up into the stratospheric heights of sailing through the scrutiny requirements of an RORC race of this grade, but that’s only the start of it if you feel drawn to do it again – and again and again, as some have.

Forever Imp. The great Ron Holland designed classic is seen here under the late Roy Dickson’s ownership in the 1987 Fastnet Race, when she won the Philip Whitehead Cup. Also a former Round Ireland Race winner, Imp is returning this year for the circuit under the ownership of George Radley of Cove Sailing Club.

Getting the boat race ready is only part of it. Getting the right crew balance for a race that manages to be longer and more ocean-exposed than other comparable classics such as the Fastnet Race itself and the Middle Sea Race is something else on top of that. It would need a heavily-resourced HR department if you were trying to do it within a normal personnel selection environment, but over the years these are the boats that have won And these are the entries to date for this year’s race on Saturday June 22nd.

Noted Dublin Bay inshore and offshore sailor Pete Smyth of the Royal Irish Yacht Club has purchased the famous Ker 46 Tonnerre de Breskens 3 which will arrive in Dublin Bay three weeks before its first major event, the 2024 SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race.

One of the 'most successful IRC racers of all time', the carbon 2009-built racer will join the Dublin ISORA fleet and also compete in the IRC European Championships at Smyth's home club in September, Afloat has learned.

The boat will be significantly faster than any other current Dublin Bay campaign and, at 45-foot long, is rated as a Cruisers Zero and will be expected to be a leading home nation boat in June's  700-mile Irish classic. 

Tonnerre de Breskens 3 has spent the last number of years racing in the Meditteranean as 'Tonnerre de Glen' but will be remembered best in this country for her 2010 Round Ireland Race victory under the ownership of Dutchman Piet Vroon before going on to multiple RORC wins and to be described as 'one of the most successful IRC racers of all time', winning the RORC overall championship in 2013.

As regular Afloat readers know, former dinghy ace Smyth has campaigned the Sunfast 3600 Searcher for the past few summers, with notable results, including wins in the 2023 NYC Regatta, the 2023 DMYC Kish Race, numerous ISORA races, and strong finishes in the 280-mile Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race.

It is well known among the Searcher crew that sailing with family and friends has a big appeal for Smyth. He sails regularly with his brother Nick, and according to a source, the Searcher/Tonnerre crew is expected to be bolstered by some new additions for the circumnavigation. Among others, Afloat has learned that ex-pat brother Trevor Smyth, who has campaigned TP 52s in Australia, winning the Sydney to Auckland Race, is coming home for the Round Ireland.

Pete Smyth on his way to victory in the 2023 Kish race on Dublin Bay with a crew composed of family and friends on his Sunfast 3600, Searcher Photo: Afloat

Afloat magazine readers will recall that Pete is one of five Smyth boys who grew up sailing their father's UF0 27 “Fools Gold” out of Howth in the 1980s.

Core crew member, Evan O’Connor will continue in the key boat preparation role for the Smyth boat, the source says.

Fastwave, the French 2022 winner of the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race, is returning to defend its title. The addition of SL Energies Groupe Fastwave to the race has bolstered the already strong line-up.

Skipper Laurent Charmy will sail his J/111 in the 704 nautical mile offshore race on June 22nd and is looking to claim back-to-back wins. 

Charmy had recently been racing in the second edition of the Cap-Martinique on his all-new Sunfast 30 OD double. Unfortunately, the team had to retire after two days of sailing while heading for Fort-de-France in Martinique.

"The race organisers are thrilled to have the 2022 winners back again", Wicklow Sailing Club's Oonagh Healy told Afloat.

It's yet another accolade for the Irish offshore classic, which also features a strong UK presence in the current 41-boat fleet with the Sunfast 3600 winners of this season's RORC Cervantes and Myth of Malam Trophy races coming to Wicklow.

Charmy described the Round Ireland as being as tough as the Fastnet and the Middle Sea Race. The 2022 Round Ireland saw boats persevering through gale-force conditions on the west coast, only to be met with a prolonged period of calm on the north and east coasts. Given Charmy's credentials and race history to date, he will be a force to be reckoned with.

As Irish offshore campaign preparations continue apace for the Round Ireland in just over six weeks time, ISORA boats are racing this weekend in the first cross-channel race of the season from Dun Laoghaire to Pwhelli, North Wales.

The winner of last month's RORC Cervantes Trophy, Black Sheep, the UK-based Sun Fast 3600 skippered by Trevor Middleton, has become the latest entry into next month's SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race, adding further excitement to an already exotic fleet.

The boat's recent victory at the 40-boat Cervantes Trophy last month makes it one of the on-form boats for the biennial 700-mile circumnavigation, with its crew well-practised in mastering the vagaries of the Irish race.

The Round Ireland Race is almost seven times the distance of the RORC trophy fixture that races from the Royal Yacht Squadron Line in Cowes and finishes in Le Havre, Normandy, France. However, the early season win for Middleton and his crew means they are in top form to take on the challenge.

Jake Carter, a crew member on Black Sheep, spoke about the team's determination after securing their recent win. "At the end of the race, we got further east than the competition; the tide had changed, and we were not fighting it as much. We made a late gain there for sure," he said.

Black Sheep is just one of four Sun Fast 3600s set to participate in the race, with Ashley Field's Panache from Pwllheli Sailing Club, Steve Berry's Marco Polo from Cardiff Bay Yacht Club, and Rob Craigie and Deb Fish in Bellino of RORC also entered for the June 22nd Irish race.

Over the weekend, Wicklow Sailing Club successfully completed their lift-in of sailing cruisers, paving the way for the much-anticipated SSE Renewables Round Ireland Yacht Race on June 22nd.

More than 40 boats have already signed up, and it is expected that this number will increase to approximately 60. Race Director Kyran O'Grady has revealed that there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes to make this the best race yet.

The thrilling and iconic Round Ireland race will return to Wicklow on June 22nd, and organisers are hopeful for good weather conditions for the crews. Wicklow's sailing village will open on Wednesday of race week, and registration for arriving boats will begin then.

Round Ireland entrant, Howth Yacht Club's Indian secured a second consecutive win in Dun Laoghaire on Sunday Photo: Afloat

As race day nears, teams are ramping up their intensity, with many Irish entries building on their performance and fine-tuning their skills. Some entries have been performing well recently, and they're making their mark in ISORA's Viking Marine Coastal series. Howth Yacht Club's Indian secured a second consecutive win in Dun Laoghaire on Sunday, while Alan Hannon's JPK 1030 Coquine from Belfast Lough took second place.

Alan Hannon's JPK 1030 Coquine from Belfast Lough is Round Ireland bound on June 22nd Photo: Afloat

Down south, Royal Cork's Nieulargo emerged as the victor in the Axiom Spring Series IRC One at Kinsale over the weekend.

Round Ireland 2024 entrant Royal Cork's Nieulargo emerged as the victor in the Axiom Spring Series IRC One at Kinsale Photo: Bob Bateman

Looking beyond Irish waters, Bellino will return to the race, this time with RORC Commodore Deb Fish on board. After winning the 2023 RORC Season's Points Championship last year, they will be hoping to perform well in the 22nd edition of the Round Ireland. Meanwhile, Black Sheep took the win in RORC's Cervantes Trophy Race, followed by Gameon in second place.

The 2024 Round Ireland Race starts on June 22, 2024 from Wicklow Sailing Club Photo: Afloat 

This weekend is expected to see the Entry List for the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race on June 22nd going through the 40 mark, with a good selection of boats already providing a healthy mix of internationally-renowned craft lining up against standard club entries, of which a notably high number are from Scotland and Wales.

Significantly, Entry 39 this week was Nicolas Guibal’s Class40 Unicorn from France, the first of the Class40s to spearhead a class which will have one of their main in-house events racing in offshore Irish waters later this year with the CIC Normandy Channel Race - from Caen in mid-September - taking in the Tuskar and Fastnet Rocks as turning marks.

NOT TAKING YOU HOME AGAIN, KATHLEEN

So what, you might well ask, has any or all of that to do with this weekend’s weather-battered programme of special early season events? After all, Storm Kathleen has been brought home whether we like it or not, making merry mayhem with the ongoing Youth Nationals at Crosshaven, causing the postponement of today’s inaugural ISORA Coastal Race from Dun Laoghaire, and leading to a sigh of relief that some of the traditional club annual “clear the deck” group launchings don’t occur for another week.

Normally the Jetstream weaves around in snake-like style, but today it has straightened itself out, all the better to target us.

Well, the fact that most enthusiasts will be cheered simply by looking beyond this weekend’s meteorological setbacks is symptomatic of the basic resilience of the Irish annual sailing programme and its participants, as it could reasonably be claimed that together they go back on an annual basis for 304 years.

Yet sometimes it can take a while to get your head around this, and accept the realities of living on a wet and windy island on the lee side of the Atlantic in a continually changing environment of thought and action, with this past week giving much to think about as we reach today, hiding as best we can under the current direct line of the Jetstream.

SELF-DELUDING APRIL FOOL?

This weird week began on Monday, April 1st, when we’d a complex morning story - for the special day that was in it - about Holyhead Sailing Club being allowed to revive the old Royal Holyhead Yacht Club title. Like all proper would-be April Fool features, there was enough in it to make it just possible that what was suggested in fantasy might truly be the case. Now, the Word From Wales is that we might well be hoisted by our own petard. The Royal Holyhead may yet be revived.

It surely deserves to fly again - the Royal Holyhead YC ensign has not been warranted for more than 150 years

It would be no more than we deserve. For instead of focusing the April First searchlight 54 miles eastward towards Anglesey, we would have been better sending a communications survey drone a thousand or so miles southeast to Mallorca and Palma Bay, where the weird old Gothic mega-shed that does duty as the Cathedral of Santa Maria was looming as usual over the bay. There, various hot classes of Olympic interest had fooled themselves into thinking that the first week of April might serve up some balmy breezes to provide ideally user-friendly conditions for the Princess Sofeo Regatta.

ILCAs racing in the 2024 Princess Sofeo Regatta at Palma in Mallorca below the Cathedral of Santa Maria. This photo can be seen in at least three ways. Dinghy sailors will marvel that they got racing at all in weather like this. Architectural anoraks will note the evidence of Gaudi’s late involvement in the cathedral’s design with the twin mini-spires at the far end. And your average Irish rural house owner will wonder how on earth they got planning permission for that mini-palace in splendid isolation hallway up the hillside, in a prime position alone among the trees

Now admittedly the drier less dense air of Palma as the Spring sunshine strengthens will exert significantly less pressure - windspeed-for-windspeed - than the current hyper-damp airstream in Ireland. Nevertheless on some days, the adjective “balmy” would not have sprung to mind. But in any case, though there have been some days that were marginal and it has ended with light airs, the Irish squad could tell themselves that it was all to the good to be pushing the envelope in experiencing a strong Mediterranean wind.

MISTRAL WINDS AT MARSEILLE FOR OLYMPICS?

For at the end of July this summer, they’ll be at Marseille for the opening of the ten-day 2024 Sailing Olympics, and by late July the chances of a Mistral-like wind are beginning to increase. Admittedly it was at the end of August 2018 that our 49er crew of Robert Dickson & Sean Waddilove first leapt to global fame by winning the class’s U23 Worlds at Marseille. But it should be noted that this video is just of the first day. By the weekend conclusion, it looked like much of their best work in that series was done in Mistral-like conditions, even if the locals assure everyone that the true Mistral only occurs around the beginning of Winter and the beginning of Spring.

(above vid) First day at the 2018 49er U23 Worlds at Marseilles

Be that as it may, it seems that the Irish weather here at home this weekend is out to show that supposedly fierce weather in Mallorca is only in the ha’penny place. For in what was planned as an unusually busy weekend post-Easter, but before the regular club-sailing programmes are fully under way, has become something of a survival stakes.

RACE OFFICERS ARE STRONG-MINDED FOLK

Yet Ireland’s Race Officers are a strong-minded bunch. They have to be, as many competitors – people who often have no personal race organisation experience themselves – will loudly announce that they could do a better job. Believe me, it’s not remotely as easy as it looks. But in any case, our Race Officers have to be thinking of the bigger picture, and in Cork with the Youth Nationals the underlying thinking will have been to slam through as many races as possible while it could still be done in order to have a viable result, even if the last two days are lost.

Thus the more serious junior classes (how else can we describe them?) of the 29ers, ILCA6s, and 420s which started their racing on Thursday not only got in a packed day of good if rainy sailing, but with a basic result obtained, any further sport is a bonus.

WHY NOT DOUBLE POINTS FOR FIRST RACE WHEN ISORA FINALLY GETS GOING?

Yet Peter Ryan of ISORA, in looking at the prospects for this morning’s seasonal opener - a coastal from Dun Laoghaire – didn’t have any options of flexibility of timing. This 6th April event is blown clean away, though currently described as “postponed”. But we hurlers on the ditches of sailing would suggest that, as a super-inducement, they give double points to the next planned ISORA Dun Laoghaire coastal on April 13th, and forget about any later re-staging of today’s blocked race.

Peter Ryan of ISORA – can he be persuaded to allocate double points when and if the Association’s programme finally gets going on April 13th?

We’re dimly aware that this may contravene rules about the format and content and timing of the Notice of Race. However, a bit of flexibility is now surely needed to deal with the changes in climate that are currently being experienced and challenge the old ways of doing things.

304 YEARS OF IRISH SAILING PROGRAMMES

And perhaps it’s in this readiness to move on to the next fixture in the programme that we find the true resilience of our sailing. The Water Club of the Harbour of Cork had an admittedly rather broadly outlined and flexible fixture list for its first season in 1720. And nowadays the national programme is undoubtedly much longer and more complex. But in Cork Harbour this weekend, they know that the sailing life goes on, and there - and everywhere else - sailing spirits are kept up by contemplating any good news that’s coming down the line.

The Water Club of the Harbour of Cork on fleet manoeuvres in 1738. Although the club did not officially organise races until 1765, it had an annual programme from its foundation in 1720. From the painting by Peter Monamy, courtesy Royal Cork YC.

These days, the traditional club home programme may be seen as a reliably strong continuing background to the big signature events. But it means we know that by the end of April, club group launchings will have been completed, and the time-honoured annual home series of evening and weekend racing will be well under way.

MOST SAILORS HAVE SIMPLE PROGRAMME REQUIREMENTS

For a significantly large number of sailors, this is all they want from their sport and their club. Many of us live so close to our sailing bases that it would be an absurd waste of a convenient setup to have it otherwise. In these circumstances, there is no need to publicise regular entry lists, but where a special event is planned, there is no better time than early April to examine the cornucopia that is 2024’s sailing season.

CORNUCOPIA CLASH ’TWIXT HOWTH AND CLYDE AND KINSALE

And as ever with such a complex dish, there are clashes. People want their special major sailing specials to take place sometime between late May and early September, with the really hot dates traditionally being between mid-June and mid-August. Thus you’ll be treading on toes in trying to get your developing new event onto the fixtures ladder.

The Sun Fast 3300 Cinnamon Girl, sailed two-handed by Cian McCarthy & Sam Hunt, is seen here winning the inaugural Kinsale YC Inishtearaght Race in 2023. They plan to race it again on May 24th 2024, and then go on to the Two Handed Class in the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race in June. Photo: Robert Bateman

Howth Yacht Club may have been prepared to move their Porsche-sponsored Wave Regatta from the June Bank Holiday in recognition of that weekend’s growing importance as highly-rated family vacation time. But in doing so they’ve moved back to the last weekend of May, when they clash precisely with the Clyde Cruising Club’s Scottish Series at Tarbert on Loch Fyne, and Kinsale YC’s Inishtearaght Race, for which there are already 12 entries

Yet while the “boat entry overlap” may be numerically small, it has to be faced that it provides a quandary for some top contenders, with Pat Kelly’s J/109 Storm from Rush SC and John Minnis’s A35 Final Call II from Royal Ulster YC, formerly top contenders at both the Clyde and Howth events, now having to make the choice.

The Howth YC club-owned flotilla of J/80s racing in the Universities Keelboat Championship last weekend. Photo: Emmet Dalton

That said, there are many other crews who will be better suited, and the recent Universities Keelboat Championship in Howth saw a building of the J/80 fleet at Wave, with Organising Chairman Brian Turvey signing on winners University College Cork, plus Technical University Dublin and Trinity College Dublin, to campaign three of the boats with their college teams throughout Wave.

Wave Regatta Chairman and former Howth YC Commodore Brian Turvey with college captains Mikey Carroll (UCC, left), Peter Boyle (TUD, centre) and Harry Twomey (TCD, right), whose clubs have signed on to race J/80s at the Porsche Howth Wave regatta in the final weekend of May.

NO SNAKES IN BANGOR

Looking on into June, the Bangor Regatta on Belfast Lough from June 27th to 30th may rule out boats still finishing the Round Ireland race, which might include RUYC’s own Alan Hannon with his new JPK 10.34 Coquine. But nevertheless each event has its own momentum and sphere of interest, and it’s entertaining to note that the acronym for the Bangor event has now become simply BR.

For, since the last regatta, Bangor has been elevated to city status. But many of the locals don’t take it seriously, and they’re certainly not going to make their steadily growing event - formerly known as the Bangor Town Regatta or BTR - into the menacing COBRA.

New magic-patterned North Sails testing aboard Alan Hannon’s Round Ireland-entered JPK 10.34 Coquine on Belfast Lough. Photo North Sails/ Maurice O’Connell

REMEMBERING THE “GREAT RACE” OF 1860

July then sees a celebration of the daddy of them all, the Ocean Race of July 14th 1860 from Dublin Bay to Cork Harbour. Back in 1860 the premier fleet had racing in Dublin Bay, and then the venerable Admiral of the Royal Cork, Thomas G French, persuaded them to race to Cork Harbour for a similar series of local regattas. It was a true “first” in many ways, and Harry Donegan (1870-1940), that deservedly major figure in Cork sailing, managed to unearth the entry list for his History of Yachting in the South of Ireland, published 1908.

The Entry List for the pioneering Dublin Bay to Cork Harbour Race of July 1860. The winner was the 39-ton cutter Sibyl, sailed for owner Sir John Arnott by renowned amateur helmsman Henry O’Bryen

FINAL DRAMA IN CORK HARBOUR

It finished in dramatically close style in light airs in Cork Harbour at the historic Royal Cork building at Cobh, and though there was a sort of re-sailing in the immediately post-pandemic year of 2022 as the Fastnet 450, to combine the unavoidably-missed 2020 Tricentenary of the Royal Cork and the 150th of the National YC, in 2024 it is planned to make it a more straightforward “Kingstown to Queenstown Race” on Saturday 13th July, which will make it a part of the ISORA programme, the SCORA programme, and a feeder for Volvo Cork Week from 15th to 19th July.

The 1854-built former clubhouse of the Royal Cork YC at Cobh will be used as the finish point of the “Kingstown-Queenstown” Race of 2024, as it was in 1860

BACK TO DUBLIN BAY

For some, that may be a peak of the season, but for others there’s still Calves Week in August at Schull in West Cork, and then the focus swings back to the East Coast with the last days of August and the first fortnight of September closing in on the Key Yachting J Cup, the ICRA Nats, and the IRC Euros in Dublin Bay.

When you remember that all that we’ve been focusing on here is mostly the cruiser-racer programme, then the full scale of our sport is seen in the one-designs and dinghies being in another world altogether. Either way, while having Storm Kathleen come to call is definitely not something we’d have wished for, the resilience and variety of our sailing are such that it will all emerge from her malevolent impact just as it has emerged from everything else.

The 1720 Euros will be a well-supported highlight of Volvo Cork Week. Photo: VCW

It’s one thing to declare an interest in contesting an up-coming iteration of the biennial 704-mile SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race from Wicklow. But it is quite something else to divvy up an entry fee, and sign on the dotted line. But when a gathering of the great and the good assembled in the Wicklow County Council Campus in Rathnew on Monday morning this week to announce that the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race from Wicklow on June 22nd was very much going to be a major part of the Irish sailing scene in 2024, there wasn’t one completed entry in existence. Yet Race Organiser and former Wicklow SC Commodore Kyran O’Grady was confident that the official opening of the entry list next day, Tuesday January 29th, would soon see tangible results.

At the launch of the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race 2024 at the Wicklow County Council Campus in Rathnew were (left to right) Michael Nicholson (Director of Service at WCC), Senator Pat Casey, Aoife Flynn Kennedy (Cathaoirleach of Wicklow County Council), Karen Kissane (Commodore of Wicklow Sailing Club), Barry Kilcline (head of Offshore Ireland at SSE Renewables), Lorraine Gallagher (Director of Services at WCC), Kyran O’Grady (Round Ireland Committee, Wicklow Sailing Club) and Brian Gleeson (Head of Finance, WCC). Photo; Mkchael Kelly

How right he was. And it was the Mother-Club it came from, in the form of the first entry being Royal Cork YC’s hype-keen Noel Coleman with his family’s Oyster 37 Blue Oyster. So if the senior club in Ireland – indeed, the senior club in the world - could come up with the first formal entry, how would others among the bigger clubs shape up in supporting this major assertion of Irish sailing identity.

First out of the box – Noel Coleman’s Oyster 37 Blue Oyster (Royal Cork YC) heads the entry list for the 2024 Round Ireland Race. Photo: Robert Bateman

Well, as it happens, Entry 2 covered many bases, as it is the successful First 50 Checkmate XXV, which is raced by Nigel Biggs in partnership with Dave Cullen, who also happens to be Commodore of the Irish Cruiser Racing Association, while both add Howth YC to their club affiliations.

The First 50 Checkmate XX sweeps towards the finish line and victory in the coastal race in the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien

Thus with just two entries, Wicklow Sailing Cub’s big race had already comfortably included Ireland’s senior yacht club in the RCYC, it had also brought in the premier club with the RIYC, and with that there was also the numerically largest club in HYC, while in addition they’d the active support of the national cruiser-racer organisation through the personal participation of its top honcho.

But fortunately this immediate and enthusiastic involvement of the talent from the heavy metal in the big club lineup does nothing to frighten off entries from smaller clubs. On the contrary, with Wicklow SC itself being smaller than many, sailors from the small clubs feel a special supportive affinity with it, and thereby with the Round Ireland. Thus a notable early entry is from Kilmore Quay Boat Club on the south coast of Wexford in the form of the Mills 36 Prime Suspect, in which the lead partner is the indefatiguable Keith Milller, supported by shipmates Tom O’Connor and Donal McLoughlin.

Prime Suspect from Kilmore Quay is a Mills 36 campaigned by Keith Miller with Tom O’Connor and Donal McLoughlin

The first Scottish entry is interesting on many counts, as Alan Crichton counts the Solway Yacht Club at Kippford on the north shore of the broad and often shallow Solway Firth as the home club for his Sun Fast 3300 Aqua Marine. With Cian McCarthy and Sam Hunt of Kinsale doing remarkable things with their home-based Sun Fast 3300 Cinnamon Girl in home waters and a similarly-named sister-ship in Australia, the advent of another 3300 is always of interest, especially when it’s with a boat whose home club has to live with such a large tidal range that he also gives affiliation to the Royal Naval Sailing Association.

Solway YC at Kippford has lovely sailing water on one of Scotland’s few south-facing coasts of any significant length, but the tide does go out a very long way

Further up the size scale, another entry of special note is Simon Harris’s J/112E J’Ouvert, but as he limits his club affiliation to the RORC, we’ll need further info and time to find his real base. As it is, two of the bigger entries in this first tranche - Michael O’Donnell’s J/121 Darkwood, and Hiroshi Nakajima’s Sparkman & Stephen 49 Hiro Maru – bringing enough club affiliations with them to cover half the globe.

Senior sailors will remember the younger Michael O’Donnell as a junior who had learnt his sailing in Kinsale before going on to crew with his father on the Oyster 37 Sundowner (a survivor of the 1979 Fastnet Race storm) out of the Royal Irish Yacht Club.

But these days he’s largely-based in the south of England, and is an active participant in the RORC programme with his successful J/121 Darkwood, while his club needs are met by the Royal Yacht Squadron (where he’s on the committee) in Cowes, the Royal Thames YC in London, and the RORC in both locations.

Michael O’Donnell’s J/121 tuning up to speed. You start with the outermost sail, and then work your way back through the other headsails to the main, when it’s time to start all over again.

However, that impressive quiver-full of club links is well-matched by the American entry, Hiroshi Nakajima’s S&S49 Hiro Maru, which first arrived in Europe with the New York YC’s Transatlantic Race to Cowes in 2019. Covid interrupted bits of the planned programme, but the vintage Hiro Maru managed some sailing in Europe and a lot of racing, notably in the Fastnet and the Round Ireland, which she sailed in 2022.

Hiro Maru reaches the finish at the RYS in Cowes in July 2019 after racing Transatlantic

In it, they won the Maybird Mast trophy for the oldest boat to complete the course. But there was more to it than that, as they place a good 16th overall, well ahead of the next boats in line for the oldest boat award. And then there was a special completeness to it all, with Hiro Maru over-wintering in Crosshaven, for as Darryl Hughes had not commissioned Maybird that year owing to a major house renovation, the classic S&S sloop was able to enhance the Drake’s Pool anchorage by lying to the Tyrrell ketch’s all-seasons mooring.

Owner-skipper Hiroshi Nakajima in the midst of Hiro Maru’s crew in Wicklow after wining the Maybird Mast Trophy in 2022

The llst of affiliated clubs that Hiro Maru brings to the Round Ireland is mind-boggling, as they include Stamford YC, Cruising Club of America, Storm Trysail Club, New York YC, Royal Thames YC, and the Royal Ocean Racing Club. But though she intends to sail back to America after the 2024 Round Ireland is completed, the time enjoying the US facilities could be brief enough, as June 2025 will see a West-East Transatlantic Race to Cowes to bring the cream of the American fleet to Europe for the Centenary of both the Fastnet Race and the RORC.

Former contender Eric de Turckheim has indicated that he will be returning to the Round Ireland with his NMD 54 Teasing Machine

But meanwhile the movers and shakers in the RORC are putting their full support behind 2024’s Round Ireland Race, as a visit by Kyran O’Grady to the annual RORC awards dinner in December resulted in current Commodore Deborah Fish committing to take part with the Sun Fast 3600 Bellino, outgoing Commodore and Round Ireland veteran James Neville also committed with his Carkeek 45 Ino Noir, and the irrepressible Eric de Turckheim – no stranger to the Wicklow starting line – is on course to be with us with his NMD 54 Teasing Machine.

Summertime in Wicklow, and in a couple of hours the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race will be under way. Photo: W M Nixon

Only minutes after registration opened at 9 am this morning for the 2024 SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race were the first entries received.

Despite the hype over some potent international campaigns, the first boats to register were returning Irish Round Ireland contestants. 

Nigel Biggs and Dave Cullen in the First 50 Checkmate XX from the Royal Irish YC and Howth YC confirmed they will be doing the circuit this time after the disappointment of withdrawing on the eve of the 2022 race due to COVID.

Despite that early Round Ireland setback, there has been no stopping the Biggs/Cullen partnership since, with a number of victories in 2023 at June's Sovereign's Cup and in the offshore class in Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta last July. In explaining the formula for the 2023 successes, Biggs told Afloat that the boat was a 'platform for us to enjoy our sailing’.

A second 2024 Round entry this morning is Royal Cork Yacht Club campaigner Noel Coleman in his Oyster 37, Blue Oyster, which was second in IRC Class 4 in the 2022 race.

Simon Harris' J/112E J'Ouvert was the third entry received.

Noel Coleman in his Oyster 37, Blue Oyster Photo: Bob Bateman

As Afloat reported earlier, with just under five months to the June race start, entries opened for the 2024 SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race at 9 am, tying in with this morning's official launch of Ireland's premier offshore race.

Organiser Wicklow Sailing Club (WSC) has set a high target for entries, but as Afloat reported previously, the club has also been quick off the mark to attract some early international entries.

The 2024 edition of the race marks the 22nd running of the biennial offshore sailing event that will start on Saturday, 22nd June 2024, with a hoped-for fleet of some 70 boats.

The race was launched this morning by WSC and sponsors SSE Renewables at County Wicklow's Local Enterprise Office in Rathnew.

Round Ireland entry is open here

Irish sailing has lost one of its best international friends and loyal supporters with the death at the age of 93 of Piet Vroon, who was the very epitome of the reality that in The Netherlands, we find Europe's leading maritime nation. He pursued his enthusiasm for offshore racing in a succession of state-of-the-art offshore racers - nearly all called Tonnere de Breskens - with the same devoted energy and success that he brought to running a major international shipping business.

A longtime particpant on the RORC circuit and other events of similar calibre, his successes included the overall win in the 2001 Fastnet Race, line honours and the overall win in the 2010 Round Ireland Race, and the RORC overall championship in 2015.

Piet Vroon and his crew after winning the 2015 RORC Championship

A best friend of the similarly multi-maritime-minded late Denis Doyle of Cork, despite Piet's distinction on the international scene, he remained fiercely loyal to his home port of Breskens. It was very seldom that he
missed participation in the annual regatta there, while Breskens responded by giving him a proper welcome home every time he returned from campaigning, with the pace stepped up when he brought back even more trophies than usual.

To describe Piet Vroon as "life-enhancing" understates the situation. He was keen to the end, and our heartfelt sympathies are with his family, his close friends, and his many shipmates, consoled by the fact that he leaves so many wonderful memories.

WMN

Back in his happy place....Piet Vroon is welcomed back to Breskens after winning the 2001 Fastnet Race overall

Eve of race-positive COVID test results has ruled out the much-fancied First 50 Checkmate XX co-skippered by Nigel Biggs and Dave Cullen from tomorrow's 700-mile SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race from Wicklow. 

The Howth yacht was the winner of last weekend's 120-mile ISORA off the Dublin coast and on the first weekend of June, the 50-footer chalked up a fifth from eight in IRC Zero at her Irish debut at Wave Regatta in Howth. 

This morning, in her pre-Round Ireland Race predictions Afloat's Mystic Meg had put the – new to Ireland – Checkmate XX at 13/1 to win overall.