Royal St. George's Seán and Heather Craig – the winners of this month's Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta Water Wag Regatta – were in top form again on Wednesday evening when they sailed Puffin to victory in Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) Water Wag Series race.

Guy & Jackie Kilroy of the Royal Irish were second in Swift in the in-harbour Dun Laoghaire race.

Race Officer Tadgh Donnelly observes the Wednesday Water Wag racing st Dun Laoghaire Harbour from the deck of DBSC Committee Vessel, Freebird Photo: Ann Kirwan

DBSC Race Officer Tadgh Donnelly set a three-round windward leeward course for the single Wag race.

The wind was SE 10kts, and 20 boats competed.

Guy and Jackie Kilroy of the Royal Irish were second in the DBSC Water Wag Race in Number 38 Swift Photo: Brendan Briscoe

Results were:

1. No. 52 Puffin, Seán & Heather Craig
2. No. 38 Swift, Guy & Jackie Kilroy
3. No. 33 Eva, David Sommerville & crew

David Sommerville and his crew were third in the DBSC Water Wag Race in  No. 33 Eva,  Photo: Brendan Briscoe

Every effort was made to get a light-air Dublin Bay Sailing Club Water Wag race underway at Dun Laoghaire Harbour on Wednesday evening. 

Race Officer Tadgh Donnelly cancelled racing at 7.15 pm following a postponement (AP) to see if the wind would fill in, but unfortunately, it didn’t.

Many of the Wags rowed back to their respective yacht clubs such was the lack of wind.

Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) Race Officer Tadgh Donnelly set a two-round windward-leeward course for the first of two races for the DBSC Water Wags on Wednesday evening, July 12th.

The 23-boat fleet got off to a clear start in Dun Laoghaire Harbour in a brisk 13-19kt WNW breeze.

Results were:

1. No. 45 Mariposa, Cathy MacAleavey & Con Murphy
2. No. 41 Mollie, Claudine Murphy & Cian Bailey
3. No. 6 Mary Kate, Mike & Ian McGowan

One boat retired.

The leaders in the DBSC Water Wags second at Dun Laoghaire Harbour Photo: Ann Kirwan 

The Race Officer got the second two-round race underway with a reduced fleet of 21 boats.

Two boats were OCS in a hotly contested start, and both failed to return to restart correctly.

Results were:

1. No. 6 Mary Kate, Mike & Ian McGowan
2. No. 52 Puffin, Seán & Heather Craig
3. No. 41 Mollie, Claudine Murphy & Cian Bailey

Royal St. George's Sean Craig and Heather King sailing number 52 Puffin continued their winning form from Friday in the Water Wag class of the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta and completed the series with five wins from eight races to be easy winners with a cushion of some 12 points on Sunday afternoon.

Saturday afternoon was their only blip when they retired from race six in the 14-boat fleet.

A 14-boat clinker Water Wag fleet raced inside Dun Laoghaire Harbour for Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta honours Photo: Afloat

Racing inside Dun Laoghaire Harbour, the husband and wife duo were clear ahead of Tralee Bay Sailing Club's Mike and Ian McGowan sailing, number six, Mary Kate in second on 23 points, two points ahead of Cathy MacAleavey's number 45, Mariposa.

There was praise for the organisers of Ireland's largest sailing event, who managed racing for a fleet of 400 boats on three of the four days of the regatta despite being in the full grip of the northern jetstream. Winds from a southerly quadrant blew hard again on Sunday to bring a blustery ninth edition of the biennial event to a successful close at lunchtime. 

The next Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta will be sailed from July 10th–13th, 2025.

Royal St. George's Sean and Heather King sailing Puffin have three wins from three races in the Water Wag class of the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta.

Racing inside Dun Laoghaire Harbour, the husband and wife duo are six points clear of Guy and Jackie Gilroy in Swift in the 13-boat fleet.

13 Water Wags are competing at the 2023 Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta Photo: Bob Bateman

In an eventful week for Water Wag number 48, which capsized in Wednesday evening's DBSC race, as Afloat reported here, aptly named Dipper lost her crewman overboard in Friday afternoon's VDLR race. Happily, he was promptly retrieved over the transom by his helmsman, as Michael Chester's photos show (below)

After rounding the leeward mark, Water Wag Dipper crew is going well upwind, until......her crew goes overboard..... but is safely recovered over the stern Photos by Michael Chester

Olympian Annalise Murphy and her crew were the winners of a breezy Water Wag race at Dun Laoghaire Harbour this evening.

Dublin Bay Sailing Club race officer Tadhg Donnelly set a three-round windward/leeward course for the Water Wags in a westerly 14-22 knot breeze.

Due to the squally conditions, the Wags all carried one reef. 

The race officer abandoned the first race after the first lap when the majority of boats rounded the leeward to starboard instead of to port.

The race was restarted 20 minutes later, and all bar 2 of the 20 boats had a clear start.

There was an individual recall, but the two OCS boats failed to return.

Wag Class Captain David Williams, sailing Dipper no. 48, capsized at the windward mark on the final round. (See photo sequence of the righting of Dipper below by Brendan Briscoe)

Results: 
1. No. 41 Mollie, Annalise Murphy 
2. No. 38 Swift, Guy & Jackie Kilroy
3. No. 52 Puffin, Seán & Heather Craig

DBSC Water Wag Race Officer Harry Gallagher set a windward/leeward course of three rounds in a WNW wind, initially gusting 16 knots, then dropping to an average of eight knots.

Twenty-three boats started, and Seán Craig, the weekend winner of the GP Munster Championships on Tralee Bay, maintained his current form and led from the start, tacking on to port on the gun and clearing the fleet.

Results were:
1. No. 52 Puffin, Seán & Heather Craig
2. No. 38 Swift, Guy & Jackie Kilroy
3. No. 15 Moosmie, John O’Driscoll & Shirley Gilmore

Dublin Bay Sailing Club Race Officer Tadgh Donnelly set a three-round windward/leeward course for the first of two DBSC Water Wag races on Wednesday evening, June 14th.

The conditions in Dun Laoghaire Harbour were warm and sunny in a light ESE 3-5kt breeze.

The race officer shortened the race at the weather mark in the third round.

Water Wag spinnakers barely filling in the ESE 3-5kt breeze at Dun Laoghaire Harbour Photo: Ann Kirwan

Results: 
1. No. 52 Puffin, Seán & Heather Craig
2. No. 47 Peggy, David & Patricia Corcoran
3. No. 38 Swift, Guy Kilroy and crew

The recent spell of hyper-sunny weather was a reminder of the time we stumbled upon the “lost” Dublin Bay 24 Zephyra while searching for shade to walk our little dog around the back of a castle in Mayo. The elegant counter of a classic yacht was glimpsed above an overgrown wall around a small yard. And there - under an assortment of covers and in danger of becoming completely overgrown – was a classic beauty that could only be Zephyra.

For we knew that while almost all the Dublin Bays 24s - built to an Alfred Mylne design of 1938 and first raced as a class at Dun Laoghaire in 1947 - had been gathered for an ambitious restoration project, Zephyra had last been seen some years earlier headed west by road, her strong-minded owner having fallen out with Dublin Bay sailing in general, and the DB24 Class in particular.

The “lost” Zephyra as found in Mayo nearly twenty years ago. Photo: W M Nixon

So here she was, at last, hidden away on that day of unimaginably bright sunshine in Connacht. And here she stayed - but now closely if secretly monitored - until the Grim Reaper changed the dynamics of the situation, such that overnight - or so it seemed – Zephyra was back in Dublin with a minimum of fuss and fanfare.

But with the economic crash of 2009, ambitious plans for the re-birth of the DB24s as a smart restored class went by the board. However, in the long run, there’s very little about boats that doesn’t go completely to waste, and so long as you still have the original external ballast keel of lead or cast iron, what looks to a casual observer like the building of a new boat can be classified as a re-build or even – if some of the original timber remains – as a restoration.

Dublin Bay Water Wags in tight racing. With more than fifty boats registered as valid for racing, the use of the design as a boat-building training project is given extra purpose. Photo: W M Nixon

Either way, it’s grist to the mill of boat-building schools, and this is where the Dublin Bay One Designs hit the spot. As the birthplace of One Design Racing ever since the advent of the first Water Wags in 1887, it has brand recognition to die for. As a remarkably settled, long-established and cohesive sailing community, it has the continuity for the class rules, designs and specifications to be properly codified, and faithfully recorded and maintained such that – when a new build is being contemplated – the boat is validly re-created.

Thus, in historic international One-Design terms, appending that “Dublin Bay” tag is gold standard. You become acutely aware of this when some purchaser overseas of what is reputedly “a Dublin Bay OD” has to be told - as gently as possible - that she isn’t.

THE DUBLIN BAY PREMIUM

All this means that in today’s boat-building schools, where many courses are based on the process of un-building an old boat and then re-creating her anew on the original ballast keel, Dublin Bay ODs are at a premium, as they provide a comprehensive range of boat within a manageable size range.

Gold Standard. Steve Morris of Kilrush with the “impossibly beautiful” hull of the restored Dublin Bay 21 Geraldine. Photo: Mark Sweetnam

Another aspect is that in the smaller sizes, such as the Water Wags, the boats can be usefully built completely from new in order to join the Bay’s most active class, and they’ve been built in Europe by schools as far away as Bilbao. And from across the bay and beyond the Howth peninsula, the Howth 17s have provided the demand both for re-builds and new builds in schools in France as the class in its 125th Anniversary year is racing more keenly than ever.

But move up the size scale a little more, and thanks to Hal Sisk and Fionan de Barrra, the re-birth of the Dublin Bay 21 class has provided education in a different direction, with Steve Morris of Kilrush using these beautiful craft to teach a new generation of boat-builders how multi-skin epoxy construction looks even better in a classic hull.

As a very actively-raced class celebrating its 125th Anniversary in 2023, the Howth 17s have added attraction as a boat-build learning project. Photo: W M Nixon

Beyond that, however, the Dublin Bay 24 is getting into a size scale where manageability is more problematic, and so far, only David Espey’s Periwinkle has returned from France in fully restored form.

Yet there’s no getting away from the fact that a re-born Dublin Bay 24 provides perfect subject matter for a boat-building school. This is classic construction with the Alfred Mylne imprimatur. The hull is sufficiently large for several people to work at it at the same time without getting in each other’s way, yet it necessarily involves much useful and highly-educational team effort.

Zephyra in The Apprenticeshop. With suitable premises like this, the Dublin Bay 24 is of manageable size while being large enough to facilitate real teamwork

Zephyra’s planking progresses in Maine. It’s remarkable to think that this elegant and fine-lined hull design, just 24ft on the waterline, was overall winner of a RORC Race in 1963

Kevin Carney’s Apprenticeshop boat-building school at Rockland in Maine is where Zephyra has been in the key role. Although the pupils of all ages sign on for a two year course, they reckon that the fully-utilised re-building of a Dublin Bay 24 takes a little longer than that.

Either way, it means that people in distant places have now joined the many in Ireland who reckon that the Dublin Bay 24 was one of Alfred Mylne’s most beautiful creations. Yet in studying this elegant and fine-lined thoroughbred, it takes an effort to remember that it was a sister ship, the DB24 Fenestra, which in 1963 provided Alfred Mylne with his only overall win in a RORC event, the storm-tossed Irish Sea Race. The Dublin Bay 24 is a classic in every way.

Getting near the end of the line. Dublin Bay 24s in their Golden Jubilee Race in 1997. Within five years, they were thought of as sufficiently “worn out” for regular racing to cease. Photo: W M Nixon

Dublin Bay Sailing Club Race Officer Tadgh Donnelly set a three-round windward/leeward course for the first of two DBSC Water Wag races on Wednesday evening, June 7th.

After two general recalls, he got the 24-boat fleet away under a black flag.

The wind in Dun Laoghaire harbour was ENE 10-12kts.

Results race 1:
1. No. 52 Puffin, Seán & Heather Craig
2. No. 41 Mollie, Claudine & Annalise Murphy
3. No. 15 Moosmie, John O’Driscoll & Sarah Dwyer

The Race Officer set a second race of two rounds.

Results of race 2:
1. No. 41 Mollie, Claudine & Annalise Murphy
2. No. 45 Mariposa, Cathy MacAleavey & Con Murphy
3. No. 42 Tortoise, William & Laura Prentice