A total of 52 boats from a dozen clubs around the island competed in the Topper Irish National Championships hosted by Waterford Harbour Sailing Club in Dunmore East from July 1 to 3.

The event offered sailors an opportunity to show what they are capable of in a range of weather conditions, from Friday’s strong gusts and heavy swells to Sunday’s much lighter
winds and calmer seas.

Friday’s conditions in particular offered some challenging and exhilarating moments for the junior fleet. A southwesterly wind ranging from 15kt to 18kt in the first race had begun gusting 25kt by the second race. On the downwind leg in race 2, one Topper was clocked at 11.5kt.

The gusts and the 2m-3m swell made for a tough day for all involved, and the safety team were kept busy under the careful oversight of Safety Leader Philip Scallan.

Race Officer Michael Conway and Philip Scallan assessed conditions after race 2 and decided to postpone the planned third race and let everybody come ashore.

On Saturday, there was still a good strong SW breeze of 15-18kt, and while the bright sunshine made for more pleasant conditions, the sailors still had a big swell to contend with during the day’s three races. The strong wind took its toll on the junior fleet with quite a few retiring after the 2nd race.

On Sunday, the fleet was greeted with a complete contrast of calm conditions and a wind that barely reached 8-10kts. The change in wind strength also brought a change in the results pattern over the three races, with some sailors taking the opportunity to show what they can do in lighter winds.

Bobby Driscoll of Ballyholme Yacht Club led the fleet throughout Friday and Saturday with an impressive 5 bullets by the end of Saturday, and a 10th and 2nd on Sunday, to claim the overall title. RCYC’s Liam Duggan maintained his second place spot through the first four races to eventually come second overall, while clubmate Riona McMorrow Moriarty remained a strong contender throughout, taking third place overall and first junior female.

In the 4.2 fleet, Calum Pollard of County Antrim Yacht Club had an unbroken run of seven first place positions, with lively competition for the second and third spots. WHSC’s Lúí Ivory took second place, and clubmate Niamh Lynch was third.
With as many as 40 sailors competing in the Topper Nationals also due to take part in the World Championships, many spent Sunday evening packing their boats into a container fotransport to Lake Garda. Competitors praised the well-organised event, which was sponsored by Toyta Waterford and Suirway, and warm WHSC welcome they got over the weekend, including a youth disco on Saturday.

Selected overall Topper Irish National Championships results

Main fleet
1 – Bobby Driscoll (RNIYC/BYC)
2 – Liam Duggan (RCYC)
3 - Riona McMorrow Moriarty (RCYC)
4.2 fleet
1 - Calum Pollard (County Antrim Yacht Club)
2 – Lúí Ivory (WHSC)
3 – Niamh Lynch (WHSC)
Youth female
1 - Autumn Halliday (Strangford Lough YC)
2 – Katie Brow (BYC)
3 – Isabelle Passberger (WHSC)
Youth male
1 - Bobby Driscoll (RNIYC/BYC)
2 – Liam Duggan (RCYC)
3 – Rian Collins (RCYC)
Junior female
1 - Riona McMorrow Moriarty (RCYC)
2 – Emily McAfee (BYC)
3 – Chloe Craig (Carrickfergus SC)
Junior male
1 – Cormac Byrne (Strangford SC / BYC)
2 – Joseph Robinson (BYC)
3 – Henry Nelson (BYC)

Full results here

A fleet of more than 50 Toppers from ten sailing clubs around the country will be arriving in Dunmore East on Friday to compete in the three-day Irish Topper National Championships, from July 1 to 3 at Waterford Harbour Sailing Club (WHSC).

Racing starts at midday on Friday, 11 am on Saturday and 11 am on Sunday, with three races planned per day. Eight sailors are expected to sail in the 4.2 class.  The remainder will be in full rig 5.3 boats.

Fourteen WHSC boats will be competing, but the biggest contingent is from Royal Cork Yacht Club. Nineteen are registered from the Cork club.

For some participants, the event is an opportunity to get in some final competitive sailing ahead of the Topper World Championships in Riva Del Garda in Italy. The event was due to be held in 2020, but was cancelled due to Covid 19.

With 40 sailors competing in the Topper Nationals also due to take part in the World Championships, an all-Ireland container of Topper boats will be leaving from Dunmore East on Sunday. It will transport boats from Waterford, Cork, Galway, Tipperary, Dublin and Bangor and is expected to arrive in Lake Garda on July 20.

The event there runs from Monday, July 25 to Fri 29. Twelve WHSC sailors are among those travelling to Italy.

Commodore Roy Power said: “It’s great to see such enthusiasm from our younger members. Conditions currently look good for some really competitive sailing over the weekend and another chance to showcase the best of what sailing in the south east has to offer.

Eighty Laser/ILCA dinghies from twenty clubs around Ireland returned to the sunny South East venue of Dunmore East this past weekend for the 'Connaught' Championships at Waterford Harbour Sailing Club.

Although the wind God didn’t deliver the usual breezy/wavy conditions that is standard to this region, the sun shone on this glorious venue for the entire weekend providing for a beautiful setting. Waterford Harbour Sailing Club put on a first class performance of volunteer coordination and support ashore making it a truly magical weekend of sailing and socializing for all, topped off with a barbeque on the Clubhouse balcony on Saturday night as the sun set.

Race Officer, Con Murphy, and his very able team of hard-working support crew aboard the flagship and ribs had their work cut out for them in a strong ebb side and light unstable breeze for the duration of the weekend. Not ones to be put off by a challenge, however, they managed to get the full complement of six races in over the entire weekend.

ILCA 4

In the ILCA 4’s, Daniel O’Connor of the RStGYC continued his rich run of form and took home first prize with Daniel Palmer of BYC and Krzysztof Ciborowski of RStGYC in close second and third respectively with a point between them. True to recent form, Ava Ennis of RStGYC was the first girl, followed by Megan O’Sullivan of RCYC and Lucy Ives of CSC. Lucy just pipping Isabel McCarty of RCYC for third-placed girl on count-back. Four of the top ten places consisted of girls, a testament to the sailors, their club programmes and fun competitive draw of the ILCA class to all, no matter their gender.

ILCA 6

In the considerable and ever-competitive ILCA 6 fleet, the usual suspects of Rocco Wright and Luke Turvey of HYC took home first and second, while Sam Ledoux of NYC took third, with just four points separating the three of them showing just how tight the margins were. Becky Lowney of RSGYC/WHBTC was the first girl in tenth overall, with Sophie Kilmartin of RSGYC/MYC second and Anna O’Connor of RIYC/RSGYC third. Sean Craig, Marco Sorgassi and Hugh Delap, all of RStGYC, were first, second and third placed Masters.

ILCA 7

In the ILCA 7’s, Rory Lynch (BSC) and Chris Bateman (PWWC) battled it out for the entire weekend, ending with an equal share of points and Lynch winning it out on count-back. Nick Walsh (RCYC) was third and first placed Master with Darragh Kelleher (SSC) second placed Master and Dan O’Connell (ISA) third.

Results here

A fleet of more than 70 Lasers (ILCA class) from 20 clubs around the country will be arriving in Dunmore East this weekend to compete in the two-day Port of Waterford Laser Connaught Championships, which is taking place on May 7 and 8.

Expected to compete are a number of the Dun Laoghaire sailors that featured recently at the Masters' Championships in Spain. 

Racing starts at 12 midday on Saturday and 10 am on Sunday, with three races planned per day.

Waterford Harbour Sailing Club itself is home to a growing Laser fleet at all levels, and sailors at the club recently had a highly successful training weekend with Tokyo campaigner Aisling Keller.

Seven local sailors will be taking part this weekend.

There are historical links between the popular single-handed dinghy and Waterford, as the city was one of the global manufacturing bases for the boat. The Laser was manufactured at the Performance Sailcraft plant in the industrial estate for a period during the 1970s and early 1980s.

WHSC Commodore Roy Power said he was delighted to welcome the ILCA event back to Dunmore East. “We’re always thrilled to host visiting sailors at Dunmore East and show off the spectacular sailing this part of the country has to offer. We’d like to thank Port of Waterford for their generosity in sponsoring the Championships.”

10 boats entered in the first 24 hours of registration opening this week for the 1720 European Championships from September 23th to 25th 2021 at Waterford Harbour Sailing Club, one of the first major one-design championships of the sailing season.

The prediction follows a 20 boat fleet assembled in Cork Habour for the class national championships at Royal Cork Yacht Club a week ago.

"We expect to break the 25 boat mark, possibly exceed 30" upbeat organiser Julian Hughes told Afloat.

The Nationals was dominated by Robert O'Leary's Dutch Gold crew from Baltimore Sailing Club who are now pre-event favourites for the European crown at Dunmore East. 

As regular Afloat readers will know, the 1720 Euros were originally scheduled June 4th but moved to September due to COVID. 

The entry fee for the Audi Waterford sponsored event is €275. This fee includes boat lift fees (in & out).

Hughes says there will be a fleet crane in ahead of the championships and there will also be a crane out immediately post-racing with two cranes on the dock to speed up lift-out. 

More here

Local Rob McConnell's new 1720 sportsboat was the top performer, both as a one-design and on rating in last weekend's Waterford Harbour Sailing Club's annual Club Cruiser Championships and Open Keelboat Regatta.

A total of seventeen boats, including seven 1720s, took to the water for two days of racing in near-ideal conditions at Dunmore East including a coastal race.

McConnell's victory is a welcome warm-up win in his campaign for the 1720 European Championships when they set sail at the Waterford Port in September. 

As regular Afloat readers know, the club's Julian Hughes was forced to postpone the original date in June due to COVID.

WHSC Commodore Roy Power paid tribute to the visitors from other clubs who travelled to participate in the weekend event that is a shot in the arm for racing fans on the Copper Coast, where up to six 1720s are now regularly turning out for club racing. 

Dinghy captain Conor Cronin, ran a popular fun family event for the Dale Morris and Harris Trophies as part of the annual regatta. 

John & Suzie Murphy in the J109 Outrajeous was third on IRC Photo: Evelyn McNamara

IRC Overall Fleet:

1 – Rob McConnell (Fool’s Gold)

2 – Tom Murphy (Glance)

3 – John & Suzie Murphy (Outrajeous)

1720 Fleet Winners:

1 – Rob McConnell (Fool’s Gold)

2 – Julian Hughes (Root 1)

3 – Ciaran Finnegan (Green Diesel)

Class 1 Fleet Winners:

1 – Tom Murphy (Glance)

2 – John & Suzie Murphy (Outrajeous)

3 – Bob Tait (Nero)

Class 2 Fleet:

1 – Eoin Hegarty (Shockwave)

Full results here

Every so often a photo flashes across the screen, its origins unknown and its destination a mystery, yet its reality is abundantly clear. This header pic is one such. I've no idea how it came to pop up, or who sent it, or indeed who took it something like seventy years ago.

But everything points to it being an early IDRA Dinghy Week at Dunmore East, which would make it 1950 or 1955, and the guess is it was 1950 when Teddy Crosbie won the Helmsmans Championship, racing in the hot new boats of the IDRA 14 class which in 2021 will be celebrating their 75th Anniversary.

They spent that week in 1950 afloat on temporary moorings, something for which designer O'Brien Kennedy had been asked to make them well able, for when the design was commissioned in 1946, clubs such as Waterford Harbour SC at Dunmore East had little enough in the way of dinghy parks with their own launching slips.

That said, WHSC were well up to speed with IDRA 14s and their own class of National 18s built to the Yachting World-sponsored Uffa Ace design of 1938 – in the photo, there's a handful of them berthed at the quayside to the right.

Flica's barometer, set in a section of her broken mast salvaged after it came down on August 15th 1957 at the Cobh People's Regatta.

But of course the eye-catching focus of the entire picture is Aylmer Hall's 1929-vintage Charles E Nicholson-designed – and C & N built – 12 Metre Flica, the Queen of Cork Harbour, where they still talk in hushed tones of the time she was dismasted during the Cobh People's Regatta. It certainly was an awful lot of mast to come tumbling down, and equally it seemed un-climbable without assistance.

That made it a useful challenge. In Dunmore East in those days, the three McBride brothers from Waterford – Oweny, Davy and Denny – were inescapable features of the summer sailing scene, and Davy got himself aboard Flica, where he was soon delivering contentious opinions in the classic Davy style. So to get themselves some peace, Flica's ship's company challenged him to climb the mast.

He did better than that. Instead of shimmying up the spar itself, he went up the forestay hand-over-hand, and scrambled up the last bit of the mast to the masthead itself. Then he came down the backstay hand-over-hand, and barely paused for breath before he resumed telling the Corkmen why Dunmore East and its sailors were infinitely superior to anything that Cork Harbour could hope to offer.

The downward spiral. A stalled restoration project on Flica, seen at Birdham in Sussex in 2013. Photo: W M Nixon

Alas, Davy McBride is no longer with us, and Flica is barely hanging in by a thread. It was around 2013 that we found her in the shed at Birdham Pool on Chichester Harbour, paralysed in a very stalled restoration project. Since then, she has been more or less evicted from Sussex, and was last heard about a year ago looking very sorry indeed in a field in Essex.

Barely alive: The International 12 Metre Flica of 1929 vintage and several times the Solent championship, as seen in Essex in 2020

The stern is the part of Flica most other 12 Metre sailors saw in the Solent in the 1930s, but mercifully few have seen it like this.F

It would be a miracle if some philanthropist with bottomless pockets could take her on for one of those zillion euro 12 Metre restorations in which classic boatbuilders Robbe & Berking on the Danish-German border specialize. For our header photo reminds us of a simpler time when Irish sailing was more cohesive, all the boats were beautiful, Dinghy Week would see the cruiser fleets going along to provide accommodation for the small boat racers, and everyone knew everyone else.

The second Wexford Harbour Boat Club Christmas regatta took place on Sunday, 29th December 2019 with plenty of wind for the first race.

There was another great turn out with sailors travelling from along the east coast with representatives from the Royal St George Yacht Club, Waterford Harbour sailing Club and Wicklow Sailing club competing.

Three races in total were held in tricky conditions to test the sailors.

Five fleets competed for the silverware; the PY fleet was won by Aoife Murphy. The Topper 5.3 (Snr) was won by Becky Lowney. Adam Rossiter won the Topper 4.2 (Jnr). The Laser Radial division was won by Cian Lynch with the Laser Full rig class won by Ronan Wallace for the second year running.

Howth Yacht Club’s Rocco Wright scored a tremendous result for Ireland as he placed 10th in the Optimist Worlds in Antigua earlier this week.

He was followed closely in the final standings by 13th-placed James Dwyer Matthews of the Royal Cork/Kinsale in the event won by the new three-time champion Marco Gradoni of Italy.

The rest of the Irish team are also to be commended for their finishes in a field comprising 255 young sailors: Sam Ledoux (National YC) was 70th overall, Luke Turkey (HYC) 100th and Ben O’Shaughnessy (RCYC) 159th.

In the glow of that achievement for the nation, the International Optimist Dinghy Association of Ireland (IODAI) has decamped to Waterford Harbour for the Optimist Munster Championships from today, Saturday 29 July.

The event is open to all boats of the IODAI across Regatta, Junior and Senior fleets, with the Notice of Race, Sailing Instructions and Supplementary Instructions available on the Waterford Harbour Sailing Club website.

#Optimist - Waterford Harbour Sailing Club will host the IODAI Optimist Munster Championships 2019 in Dunmore East on the weekend of 20-21 July.

Regatta, Junior and Senior fleets will race in the event which is open to all boats of the International Optimist Dinghy Association of Ireland.

The Notice of Race and Sailing Instructions, when made available from the IODAI, will be posted on the WHSC website.

Club co-ordinator for this event will be Rene Wubben and enquiries may be sent to [email protected] in the meantime.

The event comes a month before the Optimist National and Open Championships at Howth Yacht Club, as announced last October.