A wide field of international entries from the United States, Finland, Norway, France as well as Irish and British crews are amongst the 54 entries to date for the Volvo Round Ireland Race 2018 that was launched this evening.

Additional enquiries are still being handled by the Wicklow Sailing Club organisers though the 2016 record entry of 64 boats is unlikely to be matched this year.

The race was previewed a fortnight ago by Afloat.ie here

Royal Irish JPK10.80 Rockabill VI (Paul O'Higgins) was the winner of last year's Dun Laoghaire to Dingle offshore race and is a pre–race Round Ireland favourite Photo: Afloat.ie

In spite of the rugged 704 nautical-mile course facing the crews on the 30th June at Wicklow, a touch of glamour will be featured as Stephen O’Flaherty’s Soufriere, the elegant yacht from the James Bond movie Casino Royale is also entered. And Richard Loftus’s classic Swan 65 Desperado of Cowes will be the largest boat racing this year 

Stephen O’Flaherty’s classic Soufriere from Howth Yacht Club is going Round Ireland Photo: Afloat.ie

Several entries feature crews from Sailing Schools around the coast, many of whom are new recruits to the sport or fulfilling ‘bucket-list’ ambitions. The launch gathering heard from Elizabeth Birdthistle who sailed around Ireland in 2016 as one of a crew of ten such newcomers and she likened the race to the Camino de Santiago or a Mount Everest ascent.

“It was a very personal journey and I learnt about life doing it – it’s almost like a rite of passage for people who love the sea,” she told the audience gathered at the Royal Irish Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire. “The Round Ireland Race IS the Wild Atlantic Way.”

Also, in the audience were a number of previous winners including former Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) Commodore Michael Boyd from Co. Meath, who won the race in 1996 and will be racing again this year.

Chris Power Smith's ISORA leader Aurelia, a J122, is a Round Ireland Race entry Photo: Afloat.ie

“This is a very attractive race for RORC sailors, not just because it’s an attractive course but also it earns bonus points in our annual series and we are delighted to see so many overseas entries for 2018,” Boyd said. “Every race is different and you never know until you’re back in the clubhouse just how you’ve done - there are very few double-winners.”

One such winner is Peter Wilson who won the 1994 race on Bridgestone and returned to win on Colm Barrington’s 1998 entry Jeep Cherokee. He shared memories of the highs and lows of the unique course with the audience. 

“The highs would be going up the West coast of Ireland in 40 knots of wind for 200 miles in 1994, a sleigh-ride that will stick in mind for the rest of my life,” he said. Wind or rather, the lack of it was a low point in 1996 on Bootlegger and losing the race after getting becalmed for five hours off Greystones and obliged to anchor to stem the flood tide within sight of the finish.

Niall Dowling's Baraka GP Ker 43 is a pre-race favourite

Another past race winner will also be making a return to the Volvo Round Ireland Race next month. Ian Moore from Carrickfergus was the navigator on Eamon Crosbie’s Calyx Voice & Data, the Ker 32-footer than won the race in 2004. He will be amongst a pro line-up for Niall Dowling on Baraka GP, one of the candidates for this year’s overall race win.

Click to see the full list of 2018 entries here

With just over 13 weeks to go to the start of the 2018 edition of the Volvo Round Ireland Yacht race, 37 boats have already taken advantage of the Early Bird entry rates writes W M Nixon. But the Early Bird offer closes this coming Friday, 30th March - if you’re interested in taking part in the history-making 20th Round Ireland, get your booking under way now here.

As it is, a quick scan of the current confirmed entries reveals a decidedly eclectic list of notable boats. Dun Laoghaire-Dingle 2017 runner-up, the ISORA all-conquering J/109 Mojito (Vicky Cox & Peter Dunlop, Pwllheli) is game for the complete circuit, while Chris Power Smith’s J/122 Aurelia, another ISORA stalwart, is also going again.

The keenly-campaigned veteran Swan 65 Desperado of Cowes (Richard Loftus) is adding the Round Ireland to her list of battle honours for the second time, and the first signs of the Open 40s making a race of it (they find the Round Ireland suits them particularly well) is there with Ari Kaensaekoski’s Fuji.

Another veteran Swan, this time Paul Kavanagh’s Swan 44 Pomeroy Swan, is doing the race for the first time, but she’s well known on the RORC circuit as sailing for Ireland, and was a notable performer at the front of the fleet in the Rolex Fastnet Race 2017.

Dun Laoghaire-Dingle Race 2017 winner Rockabill VI, Paul O’Higgins’ JPK 10.80, is going again, but this time with 2016 Class Winner Mark Mansfield of Cork in the crew, while the veteran French Volvo 65 Libertalia is game for another go. And as for boats which are currently top of the rankings in Irish sailing, the sister-ship of “Sailor of the Year” Conor Fogerty’s Sunfast 3600 Bam!, Brendan Coughlan’s recently-acquired YoYo, has also signed up.

Round Ireland 2018 Entries at March 27

303 Black Louis Mulloy
Andante Keith Miller
Arthur Logic John Tyrell Prue Walsh
Aurelia Chris Power Smith
Baraka Niall Dowling
Bellino Rob Craige
Desert Star Irish Offshore Sailing Ronan O Siochru
Desperado of Cowes Richard Loftus
Fireball Chris Clark
Forward Thinking Tony Martin
Fuji Ari Kaensaekoski
Fulmar Fever Robert Marchant
Hydra Henrik Bergesen
Jaasap Pasternak Nicholas
Jangada Richard Palmer
Laura Richard Stain
Libertalia Team Jolika, Jean Francois Levasseur
Lynx Clipper David O Connor
May Contain Nuts Kevin Rolfe
Maybird Darryl Hughes
Mojito Peter Dunlop & Vicky Cox
Olympia's Tigress Susan Glenny
Patriot John Lubimir
Pegasus Of Northumberland Ross Hobson
Petasus Al Smith
Phosphorous II Mark Emerson
Platinum Blonde Paul Egan
Playing Around Ken Docherty
Pomeroy Swan Paul Kavanagh
Port of Galway Yannick Lermonner
Pyxis Kirsteen Donaldson
Rockabill VI Paul O'Higgins
Sherkin 2 Ronan O'Siochru
Tribal Liam Burke
Trilogic Hugo Karlsson-Smyth
Wild Spirit Paul Jackson
Yoyo Brendan Couglan

Wicklow Sailing Club's Volvo Round Ireland Committee has announced the appointment of Hal Fitzgerald as Race Director following the decision of Theo Phelan to stand down from the role, as Afloat.ie reported yesterday. 

Fitzgerald is an ex-commodore of Wicklow Sailing Club and has been closely involved with running the race in previous years.

With 16 weeks until the 20th edition on 30th June 2018, entries continue to grow.  27 boats are currently entered for the race. Interest in the race once again extends far beyond Ireland and Great Britain, with entries from across Europe, including Team Jolokia from France aboard Libertalia. See the entry list here.

The largest boat confirmed to date is the Swan 65 Desperado of Cowes entered by Richard Loftus.

Dun Laoghaire's Ronan O’Siochru, will be competing in his fifth Volvo Round Ireland in a row.

Early bird entries closing date is 30th March.

If it’s an even-numbered year, it’s a Round Ireland Race Year! Things are warming up in Wicklow Sailing Club, the 2017 Mitsubishi Irish Sailing Club of the Year, where preparations for the 2018 Volvo Round Ireland Yacht Race are well under way.

Róisín Hennessy, Vice-Commodore of the club, has taken over as Chair of the race committee. A dinghy sailor, Róisín competed in the 2014 race on board Farmer Ryan’s Volvo 60 Monster Project where the team on board took Line Honours in that race.

She will be working closely with Race Organiser Theo Phelan – this is his fourth race as organiser – and with the race committee as they target the delivery of another successful and exciting race.

The 2016 race saw several records broken with George David in Rambler 88 taking both 1st place in IRC and monohull Line Honours. He also added a new record time of 2 days 2 hours 24 minutes and 9 seconds to the many achievements of this American Maxi. Now that’s a record to beat!

Are you up for the challenge? The VRI is one of the longest offshore races in the RORC championship series at 704 nm. It offers spectacular sailing, from the west coast Atlantic rollers to the tidal gates around the Irish Sea.

Save the Date: the 2018 edition of the race starts on 30th June in Wicklow and entries open in January 2018 at www.roundireland.ie. The race carries a 1.4 point weighting in the RORC Championship series.

As an additional carrot for competitors, Volvo have ‘upped the ante’ with their announcement that there is a fantastic prize of a Volvo V40 car, for the best registered entrant on corrected time over the three races from 2016 to 2020.

At least two different viewpoints may be taken on the remarkable and very long history of sailing in Ireland. Either you see it as a wonderful heritage, which should be celebrated with gala anniversaries, and whatever you’re having yourself, at every possible opportunity. Or else you might sadly admit that it’s a burden, a deadening load on all of us which stultifies development, restricts fresh thinking, and railroads the annual programme into a traditional pattern sailed in vintage boats which allows very little space for something with the instant appeal and intrinsic excitement of novelty.

But perhaps there’s a happy place somewhere in between, a thoughtful place among many events, where we can live comfortably with some astonishingly old throwbacks to the distant past, yet continue to modify the programme and our way of doing things in order to accommodate new ideas. And with any luck, we might somehow find space to come up with some bright ideas of our own to add to the rich and very varied tapestry of the world sailing scene. W M Nixon casts an eye over next season’s programme to see what it might bring to the party.

After the excitement of Annalise’s Silver Medal in Rio on August 2016, in 2017 there was a generally unstated but definite feeling that we were due a down-home year, a year when sailing in Ireland in all its quirkiness would be celebrated, and anything with a non-Olympic flavour would be given every encouragement to flourish.

Yet at the beginning of 2017, who could have predicted that as summer approached, it would be Annalise herself who would up-sticks from the pre-ordained Olympian way of doing things, and plunge into the maelstrom which is Volvo Ocean Racing?

Olympic Medallist Annalise Murphy with her parents Cathy MacAleavey and Con Murphy. As the establishers of a long-standing Round Ireland Record in 1993, Cathy and Con are well aware of what Annalise has faced in taking on a round-the-world crewing job in the Volvo 65 Turn the Tide on Plastic (below)

Successful predicting doesn’t get any easier, even with detailed programes taking shape. Annalise’s progress in the rugged ocean racing world this will be continuing until the finish in June 2018, but thanks to the Volvo Race’s flexible approach to crewing arrangements, she will be able to opt out for long enough to get herself back into the Olympic Women’s Radial Laser mode from time to time to keep in touch for the big Tokyo 2020 Olympics countdown event in early August 2018, the two-week Hempel World Sailing Championship at Aarhus in Denmark.

There, with 40% of places up for grabs, many other Irish Olympic wannabees will be progressing after long and often lonely months and even years of doing the circuit. By then, several of them such as Aoife Hopkins will have thoroughly tested the waters in the Olympic Classes, starting with the Championships in Florida in January.

Aoife Hopkins of Howth and Trinity College will be starting her 2018 campaign towards the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in Florida in January

February sees action at home and abroad with the growing enthusiasm for Team Racing in action with the Trinity Varsities up on the lake at Blessington on Friday 9th/Saturday 10th February, which will fit them neatly around the Irish Sailing/Afloat.ie “Sailor of the Year 2017” awards ceremony back down in Dublin at the RDS on the evening of Friday February 9th, where an exceptionally eclectic group of maritime high-flyers will gather to receive well-deserved praise for many remarkable - indeed, in some cases astonishing - achievements.

But late February will also see serious international racing on the other side of the Atlantic with the increasingly popular annual RORC Caribbean 600 starting from Antigua on Monday 19th February. There’ll be a strong Irish contingent, and we have form here, as Adrian Lee’s Cookson 50 Lee Overlay Partners from Dun Laoghaire won the first Caribbean 600 in 2009, then Conor Fogerty’s Sunfast 3600 Bam! from Howth won her class in 2016, and in 2017 it was all back on top again, as the overall winner, Hap Fauth’s Maxi72 Belle Mente, was navigated by our own Ian Moore.

Bella Mente on her way to winning the RORC Caribbean 600 in February 2017, navigated by Ian Moore. There will be a strong Irish presence in 2018’s race, starting at Antigua on 19th February. Photo Tim Wright

However, February at home in Ireland for most sailors is conference time, and the ever-expanding annual Irish sailing Cruising Conference is scheduled for Saturday February 17th at the Clayton Hotel in Leopardstown in Dublin, the move to a Clayton Hotel’s conference facilities having started last year in Cork when bookings were so heavy they’d to change the venue from the original choice of the Port of Cork HQ Building.

Nevertheless those dedicated team racers in school and college are also maximising their use of February before exam countdowns take over everyone’s timetable, and there’s the Leinster Schools at RStGYC on February 17th, while the following weekend is the big one, the Irish Universities Championship. In 2017 they had Clifden as a very successful venue in an early weekend in March, in 2018 they’re pushing the early season envelope even further by using the weekend of 22nd-24th February, and the venue is again in the west, this time at Kilrush, County Clare.

Springtime sunshine at Clifden in Connemara, March 2017, for the Irish Universities Championship. In 2018, the event will be even earlier – on February 24-25th at Kilrush in County Clare

Thus we reach the end of February with the season already well under way for some specialists, but mainstream sailors will still be in a different time-scale, and in March the first one for the diary is Irish Sailing’s AGM on Saturday 10th March, venue still to be confirmed. However for those who insist that sailing shouldn’t miss any month of the Irish year, the Royal Cork’s famous come-all-ye dinghy festival, the PY1000, is slated in for Sunday March 11th, and it’s quite something, in fact it’s fantastic.

It would be impossible to imagine contemporary Irish sailing without the Laser, that ageless wonder which has contributed so much to our sport since it first appeared here around 1970. Yes, 1970. To be completely accurate, the Laser will be having its Golden Jubilee in 2019, as the prototpypes and first production boats sailed in 1969, so when our first major Laser event of 2018 gets going, the Munsters at Baltimore on March 31st/April 1st, it will be part of a growing celebration which in 2018 will culminate in Ireland in the mega-fleet World Lasers Masters (we’re talking maybe 400 boats) in Dun Laoghaire in a joint NYC/RStGYC venture from 7th to 17th September 2018. That will be a joyous affair to bring Dun Laoghaire Harbour to an upbeat mood as the traditional sailing season draws to its close after a fascinating main programme in the central part of the 2018 summer, with various pillar events the highlights in a continuous and colourful tapestry which takes in every part of the country.

Lasers – it’s part of what we are. This classic dinghy is still as new as tomorrow, yet it’s now on the count-down to the Golden Jubilee in 2019-2020, and a significant part of that will be the World Laser Masters in Dun Laoghaire from 7th to 17th September 2018, with a huge fleet expected.

That “traditional season” will have seen solid regulars such as the annual programme of the steadily-expanding Irish Sea Offshore Racing Association into action by late April (first races are on April 21st), by which time the Irish Sailing’s Youth Pathway Nationals – 2017 was the biggest yet seen when it was at Ballyholme – will have been staged from 5th to 8th April at a venue yet to be confirmed. And Ireland’s long history of team racing will have been acknowledged yet again, this time with the 70th Anniversary of the senior of them all, the Royal St George series in Dun Laoghaire on April 22nd/23rd. Believe me, over those seventy years, just about everybody in Irish sailing seems to have been a participant in some way or other in this grandaddy of team events.

Into May, and the 12th to 18th sees the Asgard II Tall Ship Reunion Voyage in the Irish Sea on the Tall Ship Pelican, followed by a Gala Ball which will show that although the Asgard II was sadly lost ten years earlier in September 2008 when she sank, her spirit and those who sailed on her lives on, and an Irish tall Ship will sail again.

The much-lamented Sail Training Brigantine Asgard II was lost in September 2008, but the tenth anniversary of this sad event will see a renewal of the determination to find an appropriate replacement

In May the core pace of mainstream sailing is hotting up, though while you might get sunshine, pure heat is still in short supply in Scotland in the Springtime with snow sometimes still on the mountain-tops for the Scottish Series at Tarbert in late May. But this has long been a happy hunting ground for Irish cruiser-racer crews, and we’ve no doubt the tradition will be maintained.

Meanwhile there’s more chance of a first hint of summer warmth away, far away to the southwest at Baltimore in County Cork where the steadily-growing Baltimore Wooden Boat Festival sees 2018’s staging from 25th to 27th May, and the whisper is there might be some unexpected and interesting visitors making their Baltimore debut.

The Baltimore Woodenboat Festival in May definitely has something for everyone…

Back in the Irish Sea, the ingenious Peter Ryan of ISORA managed to devise a race in 2017 which somehow took in Howth YC’s time-honoured Lambay Race as the first part of the course. This will be repeated in 2018, helping to swell numbers in an event which, in the Bank Holiday Weekend of June 1st to 3rd 2018, will be part of Howth’s Regatta, the shoreside high point of which is a family day for the peninsula people which in 2017 was adjudged an outstanding success.

Summer comes to the East Coast - the Lambay Race at Howth, first sailed in 1904. 2018’s will be part of a family-friendly regatta at June’s Bank Holiday weekend, with the Lambay Race itself once again including the successful combination of the first part of an ISORA Race

Because June’s Volvo Round Ireland Race from Wicklow has been moved from the traditional mid-summer weekend start to the last weekend of the month (presumably to avoid clashing with the finish of the Volvo Ocean Race itself at The Hague in The Netherlands where the stage is set from June 24th onwards), June is quite like old times with each Dun Laoghaire club staging its own Saturday regatta, while at national championship level the J/24s are descending on Foynes from June 8th to 10th, and the Sigma 33s are at the Royal St. George Yacht Club from June 22nd to 24th, while the National 18s in all their fascinating variations get in ahead of everyone with their Nationals at Baltimore on June 2nd/3rd.

Come the end of the month, and all eyes will be focused on Wicklow and the back-up port of Dun Laoghaire for the Volvo Round Ireland Race, counting 1.4 for the RORC points championship, and starting Saturday June 30th. It will be the 20th staging of this very special 704-mile Irish classic (it’s longer than either the Fastnet, the Middle Sea, the Bermuda, the Sydney-Hobart or the RORC Caribbean 600), but the 19th staging in 2016 was such a sensational event, with three MOD 70s and George David’s mighty Rambler 88 stealing the show, that 2018 is going to have to think of something different to make the proper impact.

In the end, its the steady, regular and frequent contenders who are the backbone of this race, and to emphasise this, the organisers are going to find which skipper has had the best accumulated result from the races of 2016, 2018, and 2020. Then at the prize giving after 2020’s race, that top scorer will be awarded a brand-new road-ready Volvo V40.

As to who will be doing the 2018 circuit, we do know already that the winner of the Volvo Dun Laoghaire-Dingle Race 2017, Paul O’Higgins (RIYC) with the JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI, has already signed up the formidable talents of Mark Mansfield of Cork who was on Dave Cullen’s chartered J/109 Euro Car Parks (aka Storm), which was the only Irish boat to win a class in the 2016 circuit.

Here she comes….! How on earth George David’s Rambler 88 managed to come cleanly through the crowded start of the Volvo Round Ireland Race 2016 is a matter of wonder, but she did it like a hot and very swift knife through butter. Photo David O’Brien/Afloat.ie

In July the emphasis moves emphatically to the south coast, and you can drive your new Volvo V40 there in expectation of a warm welcome, as the next big one up is Volvo Cork Week from July 16th to 21st. There’ll be an added sense of anticipation to this marvellous biennial sailfest, for it will be the last Cork Week before the big one in 2020, when the Royal Cork Yacht Club Tricentenary Cork Week will be just one of many major events celebrating 300 years of the world’s oldest yacht club.

Who knows, but maybe by 2020 they’ll be staging the Beaufort Cup as a major standalone event. What started as the germ of an idea in February 2016 for a sailing series among crews from the Defence Forces in the Volvo Cork Week of that July took off like a rocket, and 33 public agency crews in 12 mostly borrowed boats, representing just about every organisation and agency which is involved in serving the public, stretching its remit way beyond the defence forces.

Nevertheless it was a Defence Forces crew, skippered by Commandant Barry Byrne racing John Maybury’s J/109 Joker 2, which topped the leaderboard in a series which brilliantly captured genuine public interest. It was an astonishing success, and already entries are registered for 2018 with so much interest that you’d begin to worry whether there’ll be enough suitable boats available for loan to accommodate everyone.

The Defence Forces’ crew, skippered by Commandant Barry Byrne and racing the J/109 Joker 2, were first winners of the Beaufort Cup which will continue as a feature of Volvo Cork Week in 2018. Photo Robert Bateman

As it is, taking 12 highly competitive boats out of general competition impinged significantly on the mainstream Volvo Cork Week fleet in 2016, yet having the Beaufort Cup as part of Cork Week is something which adds to the allure of both events, so we sympathise with anyone who, in time, is going to have to square this particular circle. As it is, in 2018 the Beaufort Cup teams are going to be a fully-integrated part of Cork Week, racing the entire five days and savouring the unique Crosshaven Cork Week flavour, but nevertheless there are bound to be those who’ll wonder if extra mileage couldn’t be squeezed from having the Beaufort Cup as a standalone event.

As July veers into August, national sailing interest will swing two ways. Our potential Olympians will be shaping up for the intense contest at Aarhus in Dernmark, and at home in Ireland down in West Cork they’ll be shaping up for the allegedly non-intense Calves Week from Schull. In previewing the 2017 season, we described it as “a fun event with quite serious competitive undertones”, and this was then quoted with approval (and acknowledgement) by the Calves Week Chairman at a subsequent press launch, so if it ain’t broke, why try and fix it, Calves Week 2018 from 7th to 10th August (yes, four days, you’ll do more living in four days in West Cork than you will in a week elsewhere) definitely is a real fun event with quite serious competitive undertones.

West Cork sailing at its glorious best – Calves Week action in August will be top of the bill in Schull. Photo: Robert Bateman

Back on the East Coast, meanwhile, the 1898-vintage Howth 17s are putting out the welcome mat on the weekend of August 10th to 12th for a Classics One-Design Regatta. It has been successfully done before with the Mermaids contributing much to the festivities, but this time the Young Gaffers of Howth hope that others – the Glens and Water Wags of Dun Laoghaire spring to mind – might also be interested. Certainly one of the unexpected successes of 2017 was the inclusion of a Classics Division in the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta as part of the Bicentenary Celebrations for Dun Laoghaire Harbour, an idea which proved so popular there’s talk of doing it again in 2019, but it’s quite a challenge – getting venerable wooden boats and their characterful crews together is about as easy as herding cats.

The 1898-vintage Howth 17s will be welcoming other classic One Designs to their home port on August 10th to 12th.

Normally August in a non-Fastnet year is a laid-back time for cruiser-racers when it’s possible to slip in one or two well-supported distance races in the Irish Sea, but August 2018 is going to be unprecedented, as both the WIORA Championship and the ICRA Nationals are going to be staged at Galway City from the 15th to the 18th of August.

Traditionalists will be ruffled by it being in August rather than June, and in the heart of the West Coast rather than at either end the old time-honoured basically Cork-Dublin axis. But ICRA Commodore Simon McGibney of Foynes and his team know that there is a strong core ownership of cruiser-racers along the length of the western seaboard (think of the 44 boats which turned out for the WIORA Championship in the Aran Islands at exactly the same time as the massive Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta 2017 was under way) and this fresh-look cruiser-racer gathering in Galway deserves every chance of success.

Regatta base in the hart of a hospitable city – Galway will be the hosting port for the WIORA Championship/ICRA Nationals 2018 from August 15th to 18th

This preview of the cornucopia of events which 2018 has to offer is no more than a skimming of the peaks, with occasional in-depth glances at some curious corners of special interest. The sheer diversity of events, boats, locations and people involved is outlined in the detailed Irish Sailing schedule, and every sailor will find his or her favourite event there. But inevitably that detailed schedule is still far from complete. After all, in previewing 2016, even in January of that year we would not have been able to anticipate the huge success of the Beaufort Cup in July, for the then Minister for Defence Simon Coveney TD and his team didn’t have the inspired idea of the Beaufort Cup until late February.

The SB20 Europeans promises some lively action on Dublin from August 28th – September 1st, at the Royal Irish Yacht Club hosted event Photo: David O'Brien/Afloat.ie

Nevertheless some things have been part of our sailing lives for decades, and every year September brings an entirely new mood, with established summer programmes drawing to a close, Autumn Leagues getting themselves into gear, and All-Ireland Championships to be raced.

The Juniors will be in the last weekend of September, venue and boat type still to be confirmed, but the Seniors are firmly in place at Lough Ree Yacht Club on the weekend of 13th to 14th October, to be raced in SB 20s.

There’s something very pleasing about the fact that the core stream of Irish sailing at home should reach its time-honoured concluding Championship of Champions in the heart of the country at a hospitable club which can trace its history back to 1770, with the event itself being raced in boats of a modern international class which has special Irish links. 2018 Irish sailing at home does indeed give every sign of being another memorable year, with a stylish and upbeat concluding championship.

Fionn Lyden of Baltimore Sailing Club (left), with Irish Sailing President Jack Roy and crewman Liam Manning of Schull, and the historic All-Ireland silver salver he won on Lough Owel at Mullingar in October 2017. He will be defending at the All Irelands at Lough Ree on October 13th-14th 2018. Photo Irish Sailing

2018 SAILING HIGHLIGHTS

January Florida USA (Ft Lauderdale & Miami) – Olympic Classes Regattas

February 19th Antigua – RORC 600

March 12th Royal Cork YC - PY 1000

April 5th – 8th Irish Youth Pathway Nationals

April 21st ISORA season starts

May 25th – 29th Scottish Series, Tarbert

June 1-3rd Howth Regatta & Lambay Races

June 30th Volvo Round Ireland Race

July 16th-21st Volvo Cork Week with Beaufort Cup 

July 30th – August 12th Hempel World Sailing Championship Aarhus, Denmark

August 7th-10th Calves Week, Schull

August 15th – 18th WIORA Championship & ICRA Nationals, Galway

August 28th – September 1st, SB20 Europeans, Royal Irish Yacht Club

September 7th – 15th September Laser Masters World Championships,  RStGYC &  NYC

September 29th-30th All Ireland Junior Championship (venue to be confirmed)

October 13th – 14th All Ireland Senior Championship, Lough Ree YC, sailed in SB20s

The giant trimaran Spindrift 2 that was en route to Dun Laoghaire to start a Round Ireland Record attempt has had to scrub the bid due to strong winds off Lands End.

Afloat.ie reported earlier the trimaran was due to start her challenge from Dublin Bay early tomorrow.

Ireland's World Sailing speed commissioner Chris Moore, who is also Dublin Bay Sailing Commodore, confirmed the withdrawal of the French weekend challenge late tonight. 'Unfortunately the record attempt has been called off due to bad weather off Lands End, he told Afloat.ie

It is expected the 40–metre craft will head for the Solent where she will prepare for the Fastnet Race next month.

#Kayaking - West Belfast woman Caoimhe Connor is currently five days into her round-Ireland kayaking challenge.

As The Irish News reports, Caoimhe will be supported by friends and coastal communities around the island of Ireland as she raises funds for mental health charity Inspire.

“Over the past 10 years, I have worked with young people facing massive challenges in their lives and striving to make positive changes to their situation and build their confidence,” she writes on her blog — adding that kayaking is one of the strategies that helps her to look after her own mental health.

Caoimhe set out from Newcastle in Co Down on Tuesday 2 May, paddling clockwise around the coast — and aside from some lively water across Dundalk Bay, it’s been smooth paddling to Skerries, from where she will continue her journey south today (Sunday 7 May).

Keep up with Caoimhe’s adventure on her Facebook page, and you can contribute to her fundraising efforts HERE.

The world of sailing has so many sectors of interest that it’s challenging keeping track of the general picture. But even when you’ve achieved that basic level of comprehension, you then discover that each sector has so many sub-sectors that it all slips back into confusion. Once upon a time, W M Nixon though he’d a handle on the world of offshore racing. Now, he’s not so sure.

It’s all Tom Dolan’s fault. Most of you will know Tom as the farmboy from Meath who is cutting a remarkable swathe through the world of French Minitransat racing. Last week his name was back up in lights yet again after taking third in a fleet of 52 Minitransat boats in the 300-mile Pornichet Selector, which had these mighty atoms pinging up and down along France’s Biscay coast, with our man being overall leader at two stages.

He’s our Meath man now rather than a Meath farmboy, as he turned 30 on April 27th just after the race had finished. But he still has total boyish enthusiasm for the whole business, allied to a dogged yet adult dedication which is at such a level that it puts him on a different planet from most of the rest of us.

The plan for today was a quick look at Tom and what he’s doing as part of a general overview of the gradual regeneration of offshore racing and its various new areas of rapid development. But the problem is that, once you’ve sensed Tom’s enthusiasm and grasped just how utterly off the wall is his way of life, it takes over the whole show. So we’ll allow it to do so after a quick overview of the general scene.

And where better than to start with a quote from another man from Meath? We’ll always cherish the headline from The Meath Chronicle, when news of a certain sailing event in 1996 percolated through to the editorial headquarters of that esteemed journal in Navan:

LOBINSTOWN MAN WINS ROUND IRELAND YACHT RACE. That’s what it said. Real fame at last. Those of us who have a vague idea of Lobinstown’s location up near Nobber would have guessed it to be in Louth or even Monaghan. But not so, it’s clear over the border, into the Royal County and Meath Chronicle territory, and the Lobinstown man was Michael Boyd, who’d just knocked off the overall win in the big one with his J/35 Big Ears.

It’s 1996, and Michael Boyd’s J/35 Big Ears has just won Wicklow’s Round Ireland Race while her skipper (right) has become one of the earliest Afloat “Sailors of the Month”

For that, he was our “Sailor of the Month” in the inaugural year of the contest, when we began to learn that monthly achievements, clearly highlighted at the time, amount to a very useful quick-reference history of Irish sailing years later. For the record, back in 1996 Big Ears was skippered by Michael Boyd with Jamie Boag (then 25) on navigation, tactics and alternate watch leader, Patsy Burke was relief helm and bowman, Brian Mehigan was bowman, ship’s doctor and cook, trimming team were P J Kennedy, David McHugh, Tim Greenwood and Michael Moloney, and Niall Dowling of the RIYC prepared the boat for the race.

Michael Boyd’s “Sailor of the Month” write-up also told us he’d done the Sydney-Hobart in 1993, the Newport-Bermuda in 1994, and the Fastnet in 1995, so with the Round Ireland won in 1996, you’d think that might be mission accomplished. But things were only getting going, and twenty years later he was back again – after much offshore racing since including being a winning co-skipper in the Irish Commodore’s Cup Team of 2014 – to race as Commodore Royal Ocean Racing Club in the 2016 Volvo Round Ireland Race, skippering the First 44.7 Lisa in which he was to finish third overall, and best Irish boat.

The First 44.7 Lisa at the start of the Volvo Round Ireland Race 2016

Race organiser Theo Phelan around midnight in Wicklow with Michael Boyd when the latter had just finished the Volvo Round Ireland Race 2016 to place third overall.

Since then he has linked up with the JPK 10.80 Audrey for racing in Ireland, but he continues to make the scene with the core RORC programme in the English Channel with the First 44.7 Lisa, and last weekend he was one of a goodly fleet in the seasonal opener, the Cervantes Trophy from Cowes to Le Havre, with a very strong French contingent taking part.

0ne of them, the J/133 Pintia skippered by top French sailor Bruno Trouble, won overall from a fleet which reflected the fact that IRC continues to give very good racing for boats of all sizes, types and – in some cases – quite significant ages, as the J/133 dates from 2006, second by just 6 minutes was the Swan 44 Pomeroy Swan (Paul Kavanagh), third was Noel Racine’s regularly campaigned JPK 10.10 Foggy Dew, and fourth was the veteran Swan 55 yawl Lulotte (Ben Morris).

As for Lisa with Michael Boyd, she’d a good race, coming second to Pintia in Class 2, and ninth overall in a fleet of 84 starters. That looked like a pretty good turnout for the time of year, so Afloat.ie tracked down the Commodore of the RORC during the week to see did he share our feeling that there really is a new buzz to the offshore scene, and he responded with enthusiasm:

“Our sport seems to be in rude health these days, with much positive news to report. A Rolex Fastnet Race year always brings out many boats for the summer season. In last weekend’s Cervantes Race, RORC welcomed 84 starters, twice the 2016 figure, and 78 of them made it to Le Havre, more than four times last year’s number when a shocking squall had quite an impact.

Particularly gratifying are marked increases in women and young people taking part. And at home, the numbers are up for the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle race, and ISORA’s revival is a source of continuing joy. Long may it continue!”
-Michael Boyd, May 4th 2017

Last weekend’s RORC Cervantes Trophy Race from Cowes to le Havre attracted 84 starters – double the 2016 entry – and Lisa placed second in Class 2 and 9th overall. Photo RORC/Rick Tomlinson

In such a mood of goodwill, Afloat.ie didn’t delve too deeply into other interesting developments within the energetic RORC machine, where Dr Jason Smithwick – who has an impressive background in academia, the research industry, and international sailing administration - will be taking over the key role in administering the IRC. Nor indeed did we enquire further into last week’s rumour that our own Marcus Hutchinson is quietly working behind the scenes to bring about a rapprochement between the IRC and the ORC. Because the fact is, the season is upon us, and for the next three months, the business of racing is top of the agenda.

In the Irish Sea it has been at the top since April 22nd, when ISORA’s opening day saw season-starting coastal races on both sides of the Channel, with the Irish side doing best in turnout, 22 boats starting at Dun Laoghaire and finishing at Wicklow, with Andrew Algeo’s J/109 Juggerknot taking the honours.

It’s thanks to the dogged enthusiasm of people like Stephen Tudor in Pwllheli and Peter Ryan in Dun Laoghaire that ISORA has been kept going to be ready and waiting for the renewed interest in offshore racing. This new enthusiasm stems in part from a reaction against the pattern developing the major cruiser-racer regattas, where some race officers pride themselves on fitting in two or even three races in a day.

For those of the offshore racing frame of mind, one or two starts in a week is quite enough, thank you, and they like their races to take long enough to settle down and develop a character of their own. The feeling among such folk is that modern life ashore is often a case of trying to cram as many starts as possible into each day, and they only find genuine relaxation in an alternative challenge which is taken in a very different kind of time frame.

That – more or less – is the explanation given recently by someone who has succumbed to the charm of the modern ISORA programme, which has become so user-friendly that it even includes Howth’s Lambay Race on June 3rd. Admittedly it has a slightly lower points rating of 0.9, but with 35 miles to be sailed by the big boat classes, it is indeed a miniature offshore race, and one which at times give the taste of the sport at its best in terms of amateur enjoyment and a change from the hassles of shore life.

Thus although they’re both under the broad umbrella of offshore racing, there really could be no greater contrast than that between the sailing of your average ISORA enthusiast, and the sailing of Tom Dolan on the Minitransat circuit.

Growing up on a little farm beyond Kells in County Meath, one day Tom and his father got the notion of going sailing on the picturesque Lough Ramor just up the road, so they bought themselves a sailing boat of sorts in County Roscommon and – self-taught – they did indeed find that sailing had something for them.

A long way from Concarneau.....Tom Dolan first discovered sailing on Lough Ramor.

Even though the urge lay dormant in young Tom for his school years in Mullingar when Gaelic football and soccer took over his life, it was when he was 19 and at the outdoor activities education establishment Colaiste Dhulaigh, which is spread over four locations in Dublin and Malahide, that the sailing bug emerged again with an introduction to Glenans in Baltimore, and this time he was hooked for real.

Not only was he a natural sailor who was avid to learn more, but he proved to be a brilliant coach. There were others who realized that Tom Dolan was putting even more into sailing than he was taking out of it, and firm friendships were made, none firmer than that with Gerry Jones, who continues to live in Ireland where he has a busy working life. But he also acts as a voluntary agent for Tom, who in 2009 began to get involved in the sailing scene in France, and has steadily increased that involvement until he is now a leading figure in the Ministransat 650 programme.

It is by no means a gilded path he has chosen. Thirty million people in France may be closely interested in sailing, and they’ll take you to their Gallic hearts as you become part of their sailing scene. But the only sailing the Irish general public take much real interest in is the Olympics, and that’s when a medal may be in prospect. So an Irish rookie with very limited resources trying to get on the ladder in France – which is the only real ladder for high level offshore racing – has several mountains to climb.

But he knew what had to be done, and he knew how he could do it, for by this time he was being drawn into the 10-boat Minitransat community in Concarneau, which is well established as the CEMC (Centre d’Entrainement Mini de Concarneau). It sounds rather grand, but every cent has to be counted, and all involved are constantly looking for ways to increase income, maximise the boat’s performance, train and train again, and race.

Members of the CEMC group at Concarneau, Tom Dolan on left

The Minitransat 650s of CEMC at Concarneau – Tom Dolan’s Pogo 650 Mark 3 (new in 2016) is number 910

It’s worth it, as they have the great Gildas Mahe as coach, and last year every major race was won by one of the Concarneau group, including a victory for Tom himself. But getting to this level involved making a living doing deliveries and anything else involving high seas expertise, and using a borrowed Pogo 2 for his inaugural full season in 2015.

The Pogo 650 started life in 1995, and she’s now into Mark 3, one of the mainstays of the entire Minitransat scene. By 2015, the Mark 2 was off the pace, but Tom Dolan stuck at it to gain experience, and it was his father, with whom he’d shared those first sailing moments on Lough Ramor so many years ago, who made it possible to move on. For on his death in 2011, while the family farm was kept, he left Tom a modest legacy, and young Tom decided to blow the lot on getting involved with his own boat, and placed an order for the most basic available version of the Pogo 650 Mark 3.

Tom getting the keel bulb perfectly faired. Members of CEMC expect to do most of their boat work themselves

Commissioning the new 2016 boat – IRL 910 – basically involved Tom in fully equipping a bare shell.

He had much to do with installing electrics and equipment and just abut everything else from scratch before his new boat was ready to go racing in 2016, but it was well worth it, and by season’s end he was feted in the local press and internationally as “The Flying Irishman”. To keep the show on the road, he and his friend and fellow-skipper Francoise Jambou run their own 650 Training Centre which, with Tom’s brilliant coaching talents, provides a useful stream of income.

But as the sailing level escalates, so do the costs, and he’s very appreciative of sponsorship from home in the shape of Dubarry Ireland and Ding, while the strength of French interest in sailing generally is shown by support from Cellastab, Techniques Voiles, Renostye, Studio des Schizographes and of course his local pub, the Petite Bistro, where he’ll be celebrating the third place in the Pornichet Select 300 tonight, and maybe a toast to success in next Tuesday’s 500 miles race.

Tom Dolan (right) with sailing partner Francois Jambou celebrating victory with the new boat in a two-handed race.

Tom from Meath and Karen from Lyons in Montserrat, where he’d sailed on a delivery voyage

As for what it’s like being Concarneau-based on a year-round basis, even with the camaraderie and constant work and training of the CEMC, the winters can be long enough if you don’t line up a sunny delivery trip now and again. It was after one of these to the Caribbean and Montserrat that Tom met the significant other, Karen from Lyons, so now life back in Concarneau has a certain domesticity to it that was formerly lacking.

That said, domesticity is of a very rationed variety when you’re into sailing at this level, and Tom Dolan’s proposed programme for 2017 shows his level of commitment, and the continuing requirement for a solid sponsorship package, as the countdown to the Minitransat on October 1st at La Rochelle continues.

22nd April: Pornichet 350 Select (placed 3rd out of 52 boats)

May 9th Mini en Mai 500 miles
June 8th Trophee Marie-Agnes Peron
June 18th Mini Fastnet 600 miles (two-handed with Francois Jambou)
July 30th Transgascogne
October 1st Mini Transat (from La Rochelle)

Even as the programme is being implemented. Tom Dolan’s supporters behind the scenes are beavering away to put together a support package which will make the Mini-Transat a properly resourced challenge.

The contemporary French fleet of 52 actively-campaigned Mini 650s is an impressive sight on the starting line.

Getting clear and getting ahead – IRL 910 departs Pornichet

After being in the lead within five miles of the finish of the 300-mile Pornichet Select on April 26th, Tom Dolan in IRL 910 had to be content with third in the fleet of 52 at the finish.

And beyond that? Team Tom Dolan are very interested in the confirmation of a decision which is expected to come from the Mid-Year Meeting of the World Sailing Council which is currently under way in Singapore (from May 5th to May 9th). Before it is the final acceptance of an invitation from the International Olympic Council to World Sailing to propose Showcase Events to be held alongside the Sailing Olympiad 2020 in Tokyo to demonstrate the potential of both kiteboarding and offshore racing to be Olympic events.

For offshore racing, the proposal is already taking shape for a 9-12m totally One-Design boat, to be raced two-handed, the fleet for the Showcase Event at Tokyo being envisaged at 18 to 20 boats. It’s emphasized that this is only a showcase, it’s not real Olympics. But it could be a guide for the future, and we’ve no doubt that if such an event were to be held in 2020 beside the Olympics, the participants would regard it as very much for real.

It’s certainly of considerable interest to Tom Dolan and his team, for they’re very aware that you’re in a different league in Ireland when you’re trying to raise support for an Olympic campaign rather than something which is seen as more of a niche interest.

But quite what your traditional offshore racer, setting off in their favourite ISORA or RORC event, will think of the prospect of their beloved sport being sucked down into the Olympic maelstrom is something else altogether - a topic for another day

Go north for decent sailing breezes.....that’s the message being brought home by the Galway crew of the Irish National Sailing School’s J/109 Jedi as they continue to benefit from much firmer mainly westerly winds over the north of the country writes W M Nixon.

They are now speeding down the Irish Sea within 50 miles of their start/finish point in Dun Laoghaire, on track and sailing at 6.8 knots in best J/109 style. This should keep them a whole day within their self-imposed target of getting round Ireland in a clockwise direction within a week.

But while they may look like staying within one limit, they’ve already exceeded another in style, as their declared target of raising at least €3,000 towards helping the 85 patients receiving Cystic Fibrosis treatment in Galway University Hospital has been swept aside.

They went through the €3,500 mark while breezing along the north coast last night. And as the fund-raising stays open until mid-August, who knows what stratospheric total might be possible for this effort led by Mossy Reilly & Paddy Shryane, with full support from their crew of Dave O’Connor, Louis Cronan, Sophie Skinner, and Jonathan Curran.

Not only has it all been in a very good cause, but they return to Dublin Bay inspired by the magnificence of our coastline and the hugely varied life of sea creatures of all types and sizes to be seen and admired when making the incomparable circuit of Ireland.

The round Ireland voyage by a Galway crew with the Irish National Sailing School’s J/109 Jedi has seen some good sailing, despite unseasonably light winds or even total calm over much of Ireland.

However, on a venture sailing clockwise from Dun Laoghaire to raise funds for Cystic Fibrosis services at Galway University Hospital, the crew of Mossie Reilly, Paddy Shryane, Dave O’Connor, Louis Cronan, Sophie Skinner and Jonathan Curran had agreed that if speeds fell below two knots they would use the engine, as there’s the matter of being back at work by next Monday.

They’d spectacular scenic sailing around the Kerry coast, but since the Blaskets the wind has been less helpful, and it has been full of holes off their own home county of Galway. So they used the motor to get them into Inishbofin at lunchtime today to top up the tank courtesy of Sweeney Oil for free, and have now headed on towards the Mayo coast and the hope of better breezes up towards Donegal.