At the same time, the club – under the able leadership of Commodore Gerry O’Neill, who retired from the top post in December to be succeeded by Peter McKenna – ran a host of major events, many of which belied the perception that 2008 was a year of poor weather.
A particular case in point was the staging of the Irish Cruiser Racer Nationals in May, with sunny conditions, good sailing breezes, and an efficiently run programme, with the host club’s Colwell/Murphy team on Kinetic emerging as overall winners of the largest class.
But there is of course much more than successful events required to balance the activity of a top club during a busy year, as the adjudicators have been learning since this informal contest was inaugurated back in 1979. The first priority is good racing for its own members, and here Howth – which was founded as Howth Sailing Club in 1895 – has had a non-stop sailing programme since April 1974. The new notion of winter sailing for the Laser class was introduced in the Autumn of 1974, and as the traditional programme had started back in April of that year, they’ve simply gone on sailing ever since. With its own marina Howth Yacht Club provides year-round sport for all boat types.
The club also fulfills a central role in its local community, and is at the heart of the local lifeboat operation, with the club’s highly respected Secretary/Manager Rupert Jeffares serving additionally as the lifeboat administrator – he received an award for his 40 years of voluntary service.
The busy sailing programme was augmented by an active and successful junior section, while the season-long list of sailing events included the staging in October of the All Ireland Helmsman’s Championship, successfully utilizing the Irish Sailing Association SailFleet class of J/80s.
At the same time, the club’s longest-established class, the Howth Seventeens - which date back to 1898 - continued to have great racing, and one of them, Ian Malcolm’s Aura, was taken to Lough Derg for the annual Waterways Ireland Classic Boat Regatta, and won her division.
On the global scene, the outstanding Howth achievement was the completion of a nine year cruise around the world by Pat and Olivia Murphy with their 41ft cutter Aldebaran – their welcome back to Howth in August at the club’s annual family day was a gala event.
With a membership of nearly two thousand, the Howth club is keenly aware of the need for good communication, and it has developed an excellent website, run by webmaster John Deane, which in 2008 was short-listed for one of the Golden Spider awards for internet achievement – for a neighbourhood club to be ranked with national organizations in this way was praise indeed.
As the year drew to a close, Howth’s awards were further augmented with Roy Dickson’s Corby 36 Rosie being celebrated as co-winner of the ICRA “Boat of the Year” award after a hugely successful season at home and abroad, while an important new cruising award, the Marie Trophy of the Irish Cruising Club for the best cruise by a boat under 30ft, went to Howth’s Sean McCormack for an exemplary voyage to the Mediterranean.
Throughout all this busy living afloat and ashore, Howth Yacht Club continues with its programme of development, and currently the forecourt is being enlarged in line with longtem plans to provide additional facilities by the main season of 2009, the first major event planned being the Etchells 22 Worlds in 2010.
Yet despite the scale of its activities and the impressive size of its hospitable clubhouse/marina complex, Howth Yacht Club today retains the down home spirit of the little club which was brought into being in 1895. Today, as it was 114 years ago, it is a strong tradition of voluntary effort from among the membership which is the backbone of a remarkable club which previously won the “Club of the Year” award in 1995.
