Dublin Bay Sailing Club's (DBSC) 2018 Saturday programme will proceed as scheduled now that the Waterfront Club Regatta season has concluded on Dublin Bay.

DBSC will have the usual combination of Hut and committee boat starts for its Saturday racing. 

This Saturday, the 14th July, the Red Fleet will start at MacLir and the Blue Fleet at the Hut, according to DBSC Hon Secretary Donal O’Sullivan who has set out the programme in a circular to the club's 22 classes.

Meanwhile, click below for Afloat.ie's coverage of the Dublin regatta season: 

Wave Regatta at Howth Yacht Club 

DMYC 'King of the Bay' Regatta

National Yacht Club Regatta 

Royal Irish Yacht Club Regatta

Royal St. George Yacht Club Regatta

DMYC kicks off the 2018 Dun Laoghaire Regatta season this Saturday with their “King of the Bay” regatta. It looks as if the weather gods are still favouring this weekend's sailing activities, with a Northeasterly, 10–knots forecast and a likelihood of a sea breeze filling in, to make sailing more interesting.

Racing starts for the cruisers and yachts at 11.30 off the West Pier, and at12.00 for the dinghies in Seapoint Bay. While the Dublin Bay hut is still not in position, it is planned to be put in place on Saturday morning after alteration to the base structure. “We also have a Plan B”, says DMYC's Neil Colin.

In what the DMYC describes as 'an effort to shake up the traditional regatta format' and 'encourage entries from outside the traditional Dublin Bay Sailing Club classes', the cruiser/yacht racing is on a semi–coastal course, while the dinghies race initially in a pursuit race “hare & tortoise” style, where the leader at the time limit is the winner, followed by a traditional PY handicap race.

"Cruiser/yacht racing is on a 'semi–coastal' course"

Entries have been brisk over the recent days ranging from J109’s to Lasers, with the regular Dublin Bay One Design classes such as Ruffians, Flying Fifteens and Shipmans are well represented.

The entry is available on the club website here. As a special encouragement, the late entry fee has been waived.

When sailors arrived to rig for the DMYC Dinghy Frostbites on Sunday the wind was considerably less than the 6-12 knots promised by Windguru but by the time boats got afloat an encouraging 8 knots plus ENE had kicked in. The race committee broke with the winter long tradition of racing inside the harbour and headed out to sea to set a startline in the lee of the west pier. Sadly the wind decreased and flicked about making it difficult for the committee to settle the windward mark of the triangular course. By the time the fast PY/Fireball start was underway the fleet were faced with a slop but precious little air to get off the line. Lingering on their startline were some Lasers from the previous start who just couldn't get moving. The Fireballs, 470, Finn and K1 all managed to ghost off the line but some did better than others. Starting near the committee boat Noel Butler and guest crew got away most cleanly followed by Neil Colin/Margaret Casey, David & Michael Keegan and wallowing behind them Frank Miller/Ed Butler and Mick Creighton /Hermine O'Keeffe. The latter were particularly unfortunate to find the worst hole on the line.

On the beat Butler went middle-right while Miller and Keegan went close to the port layline. It was clear to everyone that the better wind was out to sea but getting out to it was downright painful. The top reach had a good angle and a fair breeze which saw Butler lead Colin, the Keegans, Miller and Creighton. On the very broad second reach the breeze faded again and the boats took very different angles towards the leeward. Butler went sharp left to keep his boat moving, Colin went somewhat right while Miller and the Keegans soaked down in a slow straight line. This paid off for Miller who arrived at the leeward behind Butler but ahead of the rest. By this stage the breeze, if you could call it a breeze, had shifted left and getting to the weather mark seemed a straight line fetch. This left Miller looking good as Butler had gone initially right but on that fetch the breeze died away for a time leaving him going backwards in a hole with the tide pushing him away from the mark.

The Committe boat now accepted the inevitable and steamed to the windward to shorten course. Butler managed to get to the right hand layline and finished quite smartly while the rest struggled on up the "beat" which at times was now a run according to spinning burgees. Colin sailed a higher angle than Miller and came very close to overtaking but Miller found a zepher and got moving again and finished some 20 seconds ahead. To both their surprise Creighton finished immediately behind having somehow snuck up from the right, with the Keegans finishing next. With PY adjustments Butler was the clear winner but on adjustment Des Fortune in his Finn and Tom Murphy in his K1 had squeezed in ahead of Miller, Colin and Keegan and Gerry Ryan with Jim McAree in their 470 had nipped in ahead of the Keegans.

In the overall series in Fast PY Butler/Marie Barry are the unassailable leaders on 11 points with Miller/Ed Butler on 31 points, Neil Colin/Mgt Casey on 49 points and Des Fortune on 58 points. There are two more sailing Sundays with the final race taking place on the 24th.

It was a well known Dublin Bay sailor who came to the rescue of a swimmer at the height of Storm Emma yesterday in the popular bathing spot of Sandycove in County Dublin.

As social media revealed, it was the quick thinking actions of Royal St. George Yacht Club member Philip Lee, a Dun Laoghaire resident, that led to the successful rescue at the storm lashed harbour, a location where the Coastguard had earlier urged people to stay out of the water.

Lee made a skilful and exceptionally long and accurate throw of the lifebuoy (see video below), enabling the woman swimmer to grab on to the line. Her location at the time of the incident was periously close to the harbour mouth where she risked being swept out to sea.

The footage posted on social media shows people rushing to help the woman.

The coastal road in Dun Laoghaire was closed due to high winds and flooding.

The gardaí confirmed the incident, stating that a few people took to the water during the code red weather alert.

The Coastguard have urged people to act responsibly and not to go swimming in any lakes, rivers or in the sea.

Taking flight from Dún Laoghaire Harbour on Sunday, 20th May, the Red Bull Flugtag will return to Irish shores this summer. It will see over 50 teams attempt to push the limits of human flight, as they launch their handcrafted flying machines in front of over 40,000 spectators. 

Red Bull Flugtag challenges the brave and brainy to design, build and pilot homemade flying machines off a 9-metre high flight deck, in the hope of soaring into the wild blue yonder…or more often, to plunge into the waters below. Flugtag, which means “flying day” in German, pushes the envelope of human-powered flight but competitors need more than airtime to reach the podium. Teams are judged on three criteria: flight distance, creativity of the craft, and showmanship. These criteria have inspired flying tacos, prehistoric pterodactyls, and even Snoopy and the gang to grace the Flugtag flight decks! 

In 2011, Dublin celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Red Bull Flugtag series and they are bringing back the madness to the capital on 20th May, 2018. 

If you are interested in participating, applications open 21st February. Five-member teams of aspiring aviators and courageous craftsmen and women can apply for a chance to compete at Red Bull Flugtag 2018 by submitting flying-machine plans. The deadline to submit craft designs is 31st March. 

Applying to participate in Red Bull Flugtag is free. Pilots and participants must be 18 or older.

Photographer John Coveney captures the second Full Moon of January 2018, a "blue" moon, breaks through the clouds over Dublin Bay at dusk on 31st January.

Sorrento Terrace in Dalkey is in the foreground. The Muglins Light (left) and the Kish Lighthouse (right) are behind.

It was most probably a combination of the weather forecast, the actual weather or the time of year (two Sundays before Christmas), but yesterday’s Frostbite fleet was considerably reduced and only two Fireballs answered the starter’s call writes Cormac Bradley. An indication of the weather was the fact that the keelboats were cancelled in the morning and later we also heard that the Howth Autumn Series was cancelled. On Facebook I read that the sailing at Datchet Water was cancelled and seeing the waves off Hayling Island (in a photograph on Facebook), I can’t imagine that anyone was sailing there either.

Even the recently acquired Dun Laoghaire based MOCRA 60 was out under reefed main and small headsail, though that may have more to do with the nature of her business for the day – looking after corporate interests! 

Strangely, the forecast on XCWeather wasn’t extreme with a wind forecast of 10 knots gusting to 15 from an ENE direction and air temperatures of 3- 4 degrees. However, the conditions were a bit windier and a bit colder with snow lying on the hills behind Dun Laoghaire and a decision had been taken that only one race would be sailed. 

The committee boat, under the management of Race Officer Brian Mulkeen, was located just to the west of the HSS docking gantry and he set a 4-lap triangular course for the day’s proceedings. With a weather mark located to the east of the harbour mouth and a gybe mark located to the west of the harbour mouth, the top reach of the course was a spinnaker leg for the first two laps for the Fireballs but the second reach was tighter and discretion rather than valour applied to that leg.    

The majority of the starters headed off the start line on starboard tack – five boats in the Slow PY Fleet, eight Lasers in the second start and the two Fireballs, Finn, K1 and RS 400 in the Fast PY Fleet. Noel Butler & Marie Barry (15061) stayed to the outside of the committee boat so that they were able to start on the committee boat while Louise McKenna & Cormac Bradley (14691) having come into the start area a little early found themselves starting further down the line. The K1 was further to leeward of them but the other starters were between the two Fireballs. Butler tacked early onto port while McKenna stayed on a starboard tack for longer and that was race over. For Butler the chase became one of closing down on the starters ahead of him, while for McKenna the challenge was to stay ahead of the Finn.

The distance between the two Fireballs at the first weather mark was respectable and McKenna got there ahead of the Finn and the RS. Both Fireballs flew spinnaker down the first reach but confusingly, Butler held it through the gybe but dropped it immediately and it was only when they did it the second time that the penny dropped – the drop was on that side so that it was correct for the hoist at the next weather mark. It was the correct call as the leg was a lot tighter than it had been on the practice lap. Around the second lap there was little to report, Butler increased his lead and McKenna got away from the Finn. But on the third beat, McKenna went right early while the Finn worked the left-hand side. A header for McKenna saw her fall behind the Finn on the water but she recovered her position before the weather mark and sailed away from him again on the off-wind legs. The second half of the race was breezier with a dark cloud outside the harbour generating the stronger stuff. Bob Hobby, marshalling g the area around Mark 1 was also of the view that this had also brought in a flurry of snow, but we weren’t specifically aware of that. By the finish the lead on the water over the Finn was approximately 1:20 in favour of the Fireball but that subsequently proved to be insufficient. In terms of his “unofficial chase” of the boats starting ahead of him, it may well have been that the Solo was the only boat to save his time on Butler.

As has been the case for all of the Sundays to date, the action at the head of the Slow PY Fleet was between the Solo and the Wayfarer and today (again) the Solo had the upper-hand.  While the lead on the water stayed fairly constant, Shane McCarthy was a comfortable leader throughout the entire race. Behind them the IDRA14 of Frank Hamilton led the chase and ultimately he did enough time-wise to secure third place on handicap and taker the day’s Frostbite Mug. With Hugh Sheehy (Finn) and Butler already having Frostbite Mugs, the day’s Mug went to Louise McKenna and Cormac Bradley.

The new Executive Committee of the International Fireball Class includes Irish representation with Dublin Bay Sailor Cormac Bradley appointed as Rear Commodore, Europe West.

The Committee has been confirmed as follows;

Commodore: Christina Härdi-Landerer (Switzerland)

Rear Commodore Australasia: Ben Schulz (Australia)

Rear Commodore Asia: Hiroshi Kato (Japan)

Rear Commodore Africa: David Laing (South Africa)

Rear Commodore North America: Debbie Kirkby (USA)

Rear Commodore Europe East: Jakub Napravnik (Czech Republic)

Rear Commodore Europe West: Cormac Bradley (Ireland)

Afloat.ie understands Tom Egli (Canada) is staying on as Technical Officer, but other appointments, Secretary, Treasurer, Webmaster and Publicity Officer have yet to be discussed/confirmed.

The fifth round of the 2017/18 Frostbites, hosted by Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club, saw two races held inside the harbour, a four lap trapezoid course to start proceedings followed by a three lap windward-leeward course which I am reliably informed is a first for the Frostbites, so kudos to Race Officer Brian Mulkeen writes Cormac Bradley. It also saw the best turnout of Fireballs, six and a healthy fleet of Lasers, fourteen. In addition to the six Fireballs the Fast PY Class included the 470 and Tom Murphy’s K1. In the Slow PY the fleet was made up of a Wayfarer, a Solo, a solitary KONA (Windsurfer), a Feva, 2 IDRAs, 2 Enterprises, 4 Laser Vago XDs and a Hartley 12.2.

The weather station in the harbour was recording 15.9knots with a gust of 21.8knots from 284˚ with an air temperature of 9˚. This meant that the “on-the-water” situation was pretty consistent with the XCWeather prediction for the afternoon. The afternoon started under partial blue skies but the skyline greyed as the afternoon progressed and there was a lit bit of drizzle later one. For the trapezoid course the weather mark had been set under the West Pier of the harbour at the location of the first “elbow” in the wall – where it changes direction. No.2 seemed to be a long way downwind of the first mark, almost disproportionately so, but during the race mark 1 – 2 was invariably tight. Mark 2 – 3 was an easier sail with some boats electing to gybe before reaching No.3 so as to set themselves up for a very tight 3 – 4 leg. Mark 3 was located off the HSS gantry and Mark 4 was of the order of 120m east of the mouth of the harbour.

In all three starts the fleet went left initially. In the slow PY, the Wayfarer was the weather-most boat and that set Monica Schaeffer and Miriam McCarthy up for the lead and the privilege of leading the Slow PY fleet around the first weather mark. However, they were kept in close company for the first lap by the Solo of Shane McCarthy before he was able to pull away from them. Both would fall victim on the water to the Kona Windsurfer of Robbie Walker who led for the majority of the race.

The Fireballs were stacked windward to leeward on a port tack coming out of the start towards the middle of the harbour. Using headgear and clothing combinations to identify boats it looked as though Louise McKenna & Hermine O’Keeffe (14691) were the furthest boat to windward with Neil Colin & Margaret Casey (14775) furthest to leeward. In between were Noel Butler & Marie Barry (15061), Alistair Court & Gordon Syme (14706), Frank Miller & Grattan Donnelly (14713) and David and Michael Keegan (14676).

While the boats which came furthest left seemed to have got in to better wind, Butler & Barry, having tacked earlier were able to get around the weather mark first but it was close with Miller & Donnelly and Court & Syme. Colin & Casey were a short distance behind them while McKenna & O’Keeffe and Keegan & Keegan were a little off the pace.

Court & Syme powered over Miller & Donnelly on the tight reach between 1 and 2 and spent the rest of the race chasing Butler & Barry. On the subsequent beats, the addiction to going left was diluted somewhat with a preference to staying on the right-hand side as far as the harbour mouth, before tacking across to the middle of the harbour. The exception to that rule was Colin & Casey who tacked early every time to work the middle and left of the beat. On the third lap, Butler pulled away from Court and both boats put distance between themselves and the remainder of the fleet. By Mark 3 of the penultimate lap, Butler & Barry were the third boat on the water behind the Kona and the Solo and by the penultimate rounding of Mark 4 Court & Syme were ahead of everyone bar the Kona and the Solo. The tightness of the leg from 3 to 4 meant that in Round 3 Butler & Barry went for an Aussie drop two-thirds of the way down the leg while the all male combinations behind them, Court and Miller were able to hold the spinnaker all the way into the mark.

While Butler was comfortably ahead at the last windward mark, he nearly got caught by Court who was able to close in better wind with Syme on full trapeze between 1 and 2 while Barry was sitting inboard with a limp spinnaker. However, a late change in leader did not materialise and Butler & Barry won by 50 seconds with only he Kona ahead of them on the water. Court finished third on the water, getting ahead of the Solo just before the last weather mark. Colin & Casey put together a fast last lap, closing dramatically on Miller & Donnelly in the approach to Mark 4 for the last time, but Miller held on to finish third. In the slow PY fleet, the order on the water was Kona, Solo, Wayfarer, Feva, and Enterprise.

The ice was broken (figuratively) when a second race was set for the afternoon. Marks 2 and 3 were lifted and a windward-leeward was set with Marks 1 and 4 staying “as is”. Again, the majority view in all starts was to go left – there were no dissenters in the Slow PY start, 4 Lasers went right and while all the Fireballs started on port tack, two went right quite early on – McKenna and Keegan. Colin was furthest away from the committee boat at the start. At the top mark, Miller led the fleet around followed by Butler, Court and Colin. While the first three stayed on starboard tack, Colin gybed and sailed towards the harbour mouth. Behind these four, McKenna and Keegan had their own race. Miller held the lead down to 4 and stayed ahead up the next beat. In this regard he was helped by being on starboard with a Laser also being on starboard to force Butler to take evading action relative to both boats two-thirds of the way up the second beat. At the windward mark for the second time, Colin was still in fourth, but took a line that brought him down the right hand side of the run relative to the others who were all to his port-hand side. In this position he managed to sail through Court and close the gap on the first two, but Court nipped in again at the leeward mark to relegate him back to fourth again. McKenna and Keegan were also having a “ding-dong” battle on the downwind leg.

Up the final beat and Court stays right whereas the others come left. Butler gets through Miller and Colin is promoted to third as he, Miller and Butler come in on the starboard lay-line. Court’s race come to an early end when he gets caught up in a melee at the weather mark and decides that discretion is the better part of valour and retires home early. Butler and Miller dice again on the last downwind leg but Butler secures the inside berth on the approach to the leeward mark and has enough room to squeeze Miller out and to enough of a degree to make the short hitch to the finish a “safe bet”.

In the Fast PY fleets, the Fireballs all saved their time on the water in both races which means that the Frostbite Mugs for the day go to Alistair Court and Gordon Syme for the first race of the day and to Neil Colin and Margaret Casey for the second race.

#DublinBay - Litter in the water is a longstanding issue in Dun Laoghaire and Sandycove — but one local schoolgirl has taken it upon herself to do something about it.

Ten-year-old Flossie Donnelly started this past summer calling for volunteers to help clean up the sea shore at Sandycove every Friday evening, even designing her own poster to spread the word on social media and around the neighbourhood.

On her blog, Flossie writes that she was “really sad” that no one came to her first clean-up.

But a meeting at the Forty Foot the next day with county councillor Cormac Devlin led to the word spreading further in the local press.

“It’s very unusual that a child of her age approached an adult and a politician at that. That she is so environmentally aware is wonderful,” Cllr Devlin told the Dublin People in August.

By the end of the summer, Flossie was in charge of her own crew of volunteers helping to remove plastic debris that is dangerous to Dublin Bay’s marine life and local boaters alike.

Despite the shorter days and colder weather of late autumn and winter, Flossie is still leading regular coastal clean-ups and making friends along the way — including an Australian girl whose message she found in a bottle.

Marine debris in Dun Laoghaire

More recently, Flossie was out on a RIB in Dun Laoghaire Harbour to clean up the breakwaters — filling three boats with rubbish and doing “a week’s work in a day”, according to Dun Laoghaire Coast Guard, who praised the “inspirational” girl for her efforts.

But the ambitious youngster isn’t stopping there, with plans to raise money for the installation of a Seabin automated cleaning system for the harbour, in what would be a first for Ireland.

Previously highlighted during Afloat.ie’s Rio Olympics coverage last year, the Seabin device has the potential to collect as many as 83,000 plastic bags or 20,000 plastic bottles each year.

That amounts to half a tonne of plastic annually, from visible debris to micro-plastics that threaten our protected species.

Britain’s first Seabin was recently installed at the pontoon of America’s Cup team Land Rover BAR in Portsmouth as part of a project to restore populations of oysters in the Solent.

Flossie and her beach cleaning squad will be hosting a table quiz at Fitzgerald’s Pub in Sandycove next Thursday 30 November to raise funds towards Dublin Bay’s first Seabin. For details see Flossie’s website HERE.