#HowthYC - Ocean adventurer Paddy Barry will give a talk at Howth Yacht Club this Friday (22 January) on the North Atlantic Crescent, a voyage he undertook with friends from Ireland to Greenland via the Faroe Islands and Iceland.

All are welcome to the clubhouse for the evening of adventurous cruising tales hosted by the HYC Cruising Group. For more information contact the club via the website HERE.

As climber Gerry Galligan explains in his blog, Paddy Barry and his regular crew were planning a sailing-climbing trip to Iceland, East Greenland, then back to Iceland again on his boat Ar Seachrán. 

Paddy’s trip was part of a wider journey of island-hopping from Ireland to Greenland and back by way of the Hebrides, Faroes and Iceland; re-tracing the likely voyages Irish monks such as St. Brendan made, centuries ago. This overall project was given a name, The North Atlantic Crescent Adventure 2015; our scope, one leg of it, was to sail to Greenland, attempt some climbs, ideally first ascents, of the coastal peaks of the Lemon mountain range, before sailing 240 miles down the coast to the village of Tasiilaq.

The seven were skipper Paddy, blacksmith and rifle-man Ronán Ó Caoimh, myself, and four old IMC hands: Frank Nugent, Harry Connolly, Peter Gargan and Paddy O’Brien. More from Galligan here.

Model Yacht Racers finally got a nice day yesterday, Sunday 10th January with a gentle breeze and a fresh but not too cold day in Howth YC for our first racing day of 2016 writes Gilbert Louis.
We had all the usual suspects of the Dublin fleet with Fergal, Des, Stephen, Jeff and I.
We completed 10 races after a bit of training and tuning together on the water.
Jeff came on top with his trusted reinforced Britpop design. Reliable, well-tuned and sailed well he was the man to beat!
Des was the most improved skipper with his homemade Alternative design. He was well up there winning one race but always on the money. Well done Des !
Fergal was back with his now older design Disco but with a new set of sails from New Zealand. And they look the bizneez too ;-) Great to see Fergal back on the water.
Gilbert was out trying a new deeper rudder and new set of sails on his trusted wooden Goth XP from Frank Russell and had a mix day with few handling mistakes. He had a certain liking for the weather mark he rounded a little too close a few times, so much so that he decided to ‘hug’ it for most of the last race while the others were battling for the last race of the day!
Stephen out with his V9, a Ian Vickers design who also had a mix day tasting line honours but missing the last 2 races due to some electrical glitches…
Despite each racing different designs, sails, and their own tuning the sailing was close with all 5 boats arriving close together. You make a mistake! Then you ‘pay cash’, the punishment is instant and with boats of similar performance it is hard to catch up so everyone has to be on top of their game.
We will be back in two weeks for the next round!

Circumnavigate round Ireland on a cruising yacht and you will experience an abundance of spectacular coastal scenery, uninhabited islands, ancient settlements, incredible sea birds and endless marine mammal wildlife. Cruising Ireland’s coastline will have you exploring sheltered harbours, sailing past exposed headlands and anchoring up in friendly ports. No wonder around 50% of Ireland’s sailors are cruising and leisure sailors and no wonder Ireland has so many incredibly adventurous cruising sailors.

To celebrate the cruising sailors of Ireland and our coastline the ISA are organising the 'inaugural ISA Cruising Conference' at Howth Yacht Club on February 20th 2016, with inspiring speakers and interactive talks that will benefit experienced sailors and new comers alike. Adventure sailors Eddie Nicholson and his crew will be the key note speakers, opening up the talks for the day with tales and a picture show of their adventures in Greenland and back to Kinsale on a Najad 440, Mollihawk’s Shadow.

There will be talks on weather charts and grib files with Met Eireann and experienced Yachtmaster Instructor and pilot John Leahy. Inspiration for “Women on the Helm” comes from adventure sailor and writer Daria Blackwell and an insight in to the activities of the Coastguard, Marine Institute and CAI and what they do for Irish cruising sailors. ICC Publications editor and experienced navigator Norman Kean will share is knowledge to help us see the potential pit falls of electronic navigation, while Zoologist and Yachtmaster Instructor Niall MacAllister give us some tips on whales and wildlife hotspots and protocols. Ever needed crew to help with long and short journeys, or just wanted to head out for a short spin? Round the world sailor Pat Murphy will give us a few tips on finding and looking after new crew.

A break out session of groups is scheduled to discuss personal cruising experiences, problems and discoveries and a summary of the sessions will be presented with an open discussion. Every delegate will be entered in to a draw for a full set of Offshore Gear courtesy of Union Chandlery, plus copies of ICC Publications thanks to the Irish Cruising Club and every delegate will head home with a goodie bag. The generous time given by these experienced speakers, sponsorship by Union Chandlery, support from Cruising Association of Ireland and the Irish Sailing Association have made all this possible.

ISA Members are €10 (Non Members €15) and a Club buffet lunch will be available for €15 (plus Eventbrite booking fee) you can book directly here 

Contact Gail MacAllister, ISA Cruising Development Officer directly with any queries 086 2214724 [email protected]

 

As a vehicle sport dominated by weather conditions, sailing can be difficult enough to explain to the outside world. But when you factor in the constantly changing situation which is youth sailing, where crew dynamics of size, weight and attitude can change with bewildering rapidity, it becomes very complex indeed.

Yet despite the inevitable fluidity, Ireland has long had a vibrant youth sailing scene. And it’s on a roll right now, with the Irish crew of Doug Elmes and Colin O’Sullivan returning this week from the Youth Worlds on the other side of the planet with a Bronze Medal in the 420, while the bonus is that all of the team of four came home from the championship with very solid performances recorded. Liam Glynn returned with 15th out of a fleet of 66 in the Laser Radial Boys, while Aisling Keller was tenth out of 55, also in Laser Radial. W M Nixon tries to capture the mood of the moment, and the machinations behind the 420 crew’s special success.

It could well be that there was only a window of opportunity of maybe six months or even less in which Doug Elmes of Kilkenny and Colin O’Sullivan of Malahide could have been realistically in the frame for a podium place racing the 420 in the Youth Sailing World at Langkawi in Malaysia in the final week of 2015.

The 420 is a gallant little boat, but young sailors outgrow them very quickly. And then before you know it, they’re too old anyway. Elmes, who is now 17, and O’Sullivan, who will become 17 in March, have known each other, and got on well together, since they first met while racing Optimists when aged eleven. But it wasn’t automatic that they should team up to sail 420s, instead of choosing the usual solo junior sailing career path of going on to maybe a year or two in Toppers, and then on into the Laser.

Sailing pundits bewail the fact that our junior sailing is dominated by single-handed boats. But the logistics of campaigning a two-person boat on the national and international circuit at junior level are extremely challenging. The most basic problem is that neither crewmember will have a driving licence. Thus they’re totally reliant on family or organisational support for boat movement, and in the end it almost invariably means that two families will be totally involved.

The level of mutual goodwill required across the generations and between at least two households is extremely high, so it’s not surprising that ISA Coach Ross Killian – he marks ten years as a fulltime sailing coach this year – reckons that a realistic figure for the Irish 420 fleet with genuine potential hovers around the 15 mark, and the going is good when the number of serious participants gets up to 20 boats.

A sailing paradise. The Portuguese and Turkish crews revelling in the perfect 420 sailing conditions at Langkawi.

The paradise island provided one problem - getting the boats delivered there had a significant “Just In Time” aspect.

In such a small fleet, inevitably the volunteer administrative work will fall to a few. You get a notion of the compact size of the national operation when you realize that the Irish President is John Elmes of Waterford Harbour SC in Dunmore East, who also happens to be Doug Elmes’ father, while the Class Secretary is Joan O’Sullivan of Malahide who – you’ve guessed it – is Colin O’Sullivan’s mum.

Yet as regular Afloat.ie watchers will be well aware, on Tuesday when the successful team returned to a rapturous welcome in Dublin Airport, the 420 crew found themselves immediately wrapped in the tricolour and the Howth YC burgee, and it’s in the Howth club tomorrow that they’ll be officially welcomed home.

This neatly illustrates the fact that the Irish 420 focal point is a moveable feast. For now at any rate, it’s Howth which happens to be providing the national centre. It is currently coming up with the numbers, and in club coach Graeme Grant it has one very talented individual who inspires the young people to reach the level at which they can be taken under Ross Killian’s wing for the international circuit.

Colin O’Sullivan holds the mast in place as the 420s are rigged and Doug Elmes turns his skills to sorting a technical problem on the boat, which was delivered to the venue at the last moment. Photo: Ross Killian

But it’s a matter of catching the talent when all the stars have the potential to be in alignment, and in the final analysis it’s the young crews themselves who have to show the spark that will be fanned into the flame of success.

Of the successful crew, it was Colin O’Sullivan who first felt the 420 urge. He remembers it very well. He was thirteen-and-a-half at the time, and though he could have had another couple of years with the Optimists, he was growing tall, and so he got involved with 420 sailing, crewing for Ewan McMahon of Howth.

Meanwhile Doug Elmes – who had been concentrating on sailing Optimists at Crosshaven with the RCYC - was soon feeling the same way, and he in turn teamed up to move on to 420 racing with Bill Staunton of Skerries, which tells us something of the truly national nature of Optimist racing.

But when we look at the 420 in detail, it’s to realise that while she’s a very serviceable little boat, the fact that she’s precisely and only 4.2 metres long makes it inevitable that with today’s bigger and faster-growing youngsters, their 420 compatibility period can be very brief indeed, and they have to keep an eye out for potential new crewmates.

Thus when MacMahon and Staunton outgrew the 420, Elmes and O’Sullivan decided to become a crew, and their debut together was at Wexford in September 2014. They’ve been fine-tuning their act ever since, with the busy little class at Howth providing the stage, and they make for a very balanced duo in a boat which is central to world youth sailing.

The virtue of the 420 is that she’s as small and economical as you can get while still having the crew on a trapeze. The boat has been around for more than half a century now, having been designed by Christian Maury to a specification devised by the chief instructors at a sailing school in southwest France. But as she’s one of those boats that looks much better when fully alive and sailing well than she does on the plans, it took a long time in the 1970s before anyone in Ireland would accept the contention, put forward by Sean Clune of the National YC, that the 420 was the only way to go for Irish junior sailing.

The International 420 is one of those boats which looks better when she’s sailing (below) than she does on the plans (above)

But for those young people who wanted a boat which was minimum hassle to maintain yet providing a proper grown-up sailing experience, the 420 was the future here and now, and it has the advantage of being family-friendly in that, though you’ll need the help of your folks to get the boat to a championship destination, they won’t have to shell out on a 4X4 for a towing vehicle, while it has long been a class tradition that at major international events, the host nation has to provide boats.

So all you have to do is provide the talent and the dedication……Well, there’s more to it than that, of course. But for now, let’s just celebrate the fact that a young sailor from Ireland’s only significant inland town which is not an official waterways port, teamed up moreover with another young sailor who learned his skills on the unique Broadmeadow Water at Malahide, has done the business on the sunny seas of southeast Asia with coolness and style.

The job done – with their Bronze Medal secured, Doug & Colin get together with coach Ross Killian.

It was classic stuff. As Graeme Grant says of their development: “They have been always improving results and skills through dedication and hard work”. And as Ross Killian attests: “They’re just so cool under pressure, and they balance each other”.

As Colin O’Sullivan loyally asserts, it’s Doug Elmes who is the techno-genius. They arrived in the island of Langkawi to find paradise and perfect sailing conditions – but no boats. There’d been a foul-up in the fleet delivery schedule. The boats arrived at the last minute, so the trial race was the very first sail. But Doug was in his element putting it all together, and their boat was as race prepared as any in the fleet.

As the series progressed, it came down to the wire for the Bronze Medal between Ireland and Australia. In the crucial race, it was the Australian coach who commented to Ross Killian on the stylish coolness of the Irish crew, and watched in open-mouthed admiration as Elmes carried off a mark-rounding with such skill that he picked up three places at a stroke.

They may have won Bronze, but copious use of sunblock meant the Irish crew were distinctly un-bronzed when they got home to Dublin Airport. Photo: W M Nixon

Thereafter, the commentators on the shared coach-boat were favourably impressed by the way the Irish kept the race and their place under quiet yet total control, avoiding the temptation to throw everything away by being unnecessarily greedy.

The day after their return to Ireland, we spoke with Colin O’Sullivan after he’d done some serious catching-up on sleep, yet with typical dedication had dragged himself out into the winter night for his routine session at the gym. The big question with a crew of two is how much they talk during a race. The answer in this case is that since teaming up less than 18 months ago, the Elmes-O’Sullivan crew have upped the talk level with every event, yet it has become more focused each time out. “At Langkawi, we were exchanging information all the time, the talk was constant” says O’Sullivan with a chuckle, “but you definitely wouldn’t call it chat”.

At the conclusion of a good Youth Worlds for Ireland are (left to right) Liam Glynn, Doug Elmes, Aisling Keller, Colin O’Sullivan and Ross Killian.

Bringing it all back home. In Dublin Airport are (left to right) Ross McDonald (Howth YC), Doug Elmes, Colin O’Sullivan and Berchmans Gannon (Commodore, Howth YC). Photo: W M Nixon

The traditional midwinter festive air of Dublin Airport returned briefly but vividly today when Ireland’s team in the Youth Sailing Worlds came home in triumph from Langkawi in Malaysia bearing the Bronze Medal won in the International 420 by Douglas Elmes (17) and Colin O’Sullivan (16).

There to provide a rapturous welcome were family and friends, together with Howth YC Commodore Berchmans Gannon and HYC Honorary PR Officer Ross MacDonald. For although Elmes is from Kilkenny and started his sailing at Dunmore East, while O’Sullivan is from Malahide, it was through the intensely-focused 420 class in Howth, under the inspired tutelage of coach Graeme Grant, that the two have made their way towards a podium place in the Worlds.

The ISA Academy’s project to send a team to the Youth Worlds has paid off handsomely, for in addition to the Bronze Medal in the 420, Aisling Keller came home with tenth place overall in the fleet of 50 in the Laser Radial Girls, while Liam Glynn was 15th in the 66-strong Laser Radial Boys.

W M Nixon’s Sailing on Saturday blog this weekend will analyse the story behind the medal success, and there’ll be a special reception for the medallists and their families in Howth YC on Sunday.

“You’ve done us proud….” Welcoming home the Bronze Medallists at Dublin Airport are (left to right) Ross MacDonald (Howth YC), Douglas Elmes & Colin O’Sullivan, and Berchmans Gannon (Commodore, Howth YC). Photo: W M Nixon

#HYC - Howth Yacht Club's 2015 AGM concluded last Thursday night (10 December) with the appointment of Commodore Berchmans Gannon and the new general committee.

The commodore outlined his plans for the year ahead including the modernisation of the club's articles of association, as well as the importance of a membership drive, and making better use of the club's buildings as it introduces a large number of new members.

Commodore Gannon will be joined in office by Vice Commodore Emmet Dalton, who will chair the sailing committee and oversee many of the sailing sub-committees.

The HYC website has more on the latest changes to the club's board and general committee HERE.

Howth Yacht Club's Aoife Hopkins got in her final race practice at the local frostbite racing before heading off to Rio this week for the first Olympic Laser trial event to decide whether she or Annalise Murphy represents Ireland at the 2016 Olympics. 

Storm Desmond finally moved away and left behind a perfect Sunday morning for Laser racing in Howth YC. The 14 knot westerly made it the most benign sailing day of the entire series to date and, with only three of the scheduled ten races completed, three starts were planned to try and catch up.

Hopkins demonstrated her current good form with three emphatic wins, during which she kept pace with the Standard Rigs and challenged for the overall lead. 

21 Lasers were at the starting line well before the 10.45 first gun and race 1 got away on the first attempt, helped by the ebb tide in Howth Sound holding the fleet back from the line. Dan O’Connell (173184) found the front of the Full Rig fleet by the first mark and then held the lead until the end. The race was sailed over a course consisting of a single triangle and a WL lap, with the usual third lap dropped to ensure that the three race schedule would not delay the sailors from theirSunday dinners or domestic duties.

With an immediate turnaround after the last finisher of each race, the second and third races started cleanly with only a single individual recall to mar proceedings. After being runner-up in the opening two races, Stephen Quinn (90)started getting to grips with his new radial cut Standard Rigmainsail, the first in the Howth fleet, and lead for the first four and a half legs of the third race. However Dan was never far behind and manoeuvred into the lead on the last run to take the gun and achieve his hat trick for the day.

In the Radials, Aoife Hopkins (205770) got in her final race practice before heading off to Rio this week for the first trial event to decide whether she or Annalise Murphy representsIreland at the 2016 Olympics. Aoife demonstrated her current good form with three emphatic wins, during which she kept pace with the Standard Rigs and challenged for the overall lead. The fleet wishes her well in Rio.

The 4.7 fleet saw very close racing but Shane O’Brien(201566) showed his superiority in the conditions on the day to take all three wins. Shane completed the pattern of the same winner over the three races in the Standard Rig, Radial and 4.7 classes.

The fleet were back ashore at 12.30 with the three races bringing the number sailed to date in the Winter Series up to six. Three more are planned for next Sunday, Dec 13th, to bring the weather challenged 2015 season to a close.

The fleet will not be resting for long and racing will resumeafter the Christmas festivities on January 1st. The long running New Year’s Day race will get 2016 underway, firstgun at 12.00 noon, before the Spring Series kicks off on January 3rd.

Next month marks Howth Yacht Club's 120th anniversary and the north Dublin club are marking the important occasion with an inaugural 'Boyd Ball' on Saturday the 14th November.

The dinner will be a black tie affair and commences with a Commodore's drinks reception at 19:30, 'celebrity' pianist during dinner, after-dinner entertainment by local 'Apres Match' impressionist comedian Gary Cooke and the 'Savage Eye's' John Colleary. The night will conclude following live music and dancing.

This entertainment-filled night will also contribute to the fundraising campaign of Howth's own Aoife Hopkins, as she strives to qualify for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janerio. 

With a disappointing showing by the Irish squad in the pre-Olympic Regatta in Rio in August, hopes are not high for our performance in the 2016 Sailing Olympics at this light wind city venue, which has already been the subject of heated debate about the specific racing locations, and the water quality. W M Nixon takes up the story, and looks at the possible new turn in the Irish lineup.

World sailing (which as it happens, is what ISAF is going to become in a couple of weeks time) needs the Olympic Games rather more than the Olympic Games need sailing. Such is the extraordinary international appeal of the five ring circus, as it rolls remorselessly along through its four year cycle, that other more spectator-friendly but currently non-Olympic sports are ready and waiting to take over sailing’s small space in this global sporting showcase, and they’ll do so if sailing is perceived as not delivering the Olympic goods in television audience response, in spectators trying to see the racing, and in its global spread of participants.

The smaller specialist sports still outside the huge Olympic tent know only too well that it’s their one opportunity for a place in the international limelight, and on a scale which they can never hope to attain if they try to continue as a minority interest simply getting on with doing its own thing.

Of course, for many sailing and boating folk, as for enthusiasts in other specialist sports, simply getting on with doing their own small thing is what it’s all about. The Olympics is something in which they might take a polite interest, but only when the Olympiad itself is taking place.

But for those involved with running national sporting authorities, the publicity and prestige which Olympic involvement brings, plus the capacity it confers on national sporting administrators to deal with government and national agencies on basis of equality, rather than as some lowly supplicants seeking meagre support, gives the Olympics huge importance.

The old ideal of Olympic Sailing was that it should be in open water clear of shoreside imbalances. This is Ireland’s Annalise Murphy at Day 3 of the 2012 Olympics off Weymouth, when the races were still being held in open water in good breezes, and the Irish sailor was in contention for the Gold medal.

At a world level, it means that when an Olympic venue city has been selected, international sailing is obliged to swallow its pride (and probably some decidedly polluted sailing water as well), and accept that wherever in its bailiwick the host city has decided that the sailing events should be staged for maximum spectator and civic impact, then that is definitely where the Olympic Sailing is going to be, regardless of how much huffing and puffing some sailing perfectionists might make beforehand.

For the fact is, most major and participant-popular sailing venues are not anywhere near the heart of some great but water-polluted city. But ever since their inception - or rather their re-invention - the Olympic Games in modern times have been allocated to a city. And though in times past the sailing may have been held at some remote location to provide decent sport – as it was at Weymouth when the Games were in London in 2012, and even then it was distorted with the Medal Races staged much too close to the shore – the Rio de Janeiro situation with the sailing more or less in the heart of town is definitely the way the city fathers are determined to go.

The final races at Weymouth in 2012 were held close inshore. This is the way hosting cites would like to see the Sailing Olympics develop, but it facilitates spectators rather than participants.

Yet despite these obviously painful compromises which have had to be made, such is the kudos which the Olympics bring to any sport that in any country, and most particularly in a small country, that the Olympics loom over everything else like some remote yet all-powerful and voracious monster which has to be fed and generally appeased

And of all sports in all countries, it is probably sailing in Ireland which is most affected by this situation. In the international community afloat, Ireland is recognised as punching way above its weight as a sailing nation. But we’re a small country in every other way, and within Ireland itself, sailing has to compete with a range of many and varied sports in a sports-mad place which, while it may be an island, is basically so utterly rural or completely urban in its attitudes that the only time sailing comes up on the public radar is when it’s on in the Olympics – and doing well – or when some great tragedy occurs, such as the Fastnet Race disaster of 1979.

As a result of this Olympo-reality, as we might call it, we have ended up with a national sailing authority which at first glance, seems more unbalanced the more we look at it. But should we describe the ISA’s situation as being unbalanced? Perhaps “realistic” is a better description. This is how it has to be. Whatever, when we analyse the money, we find a huge chunk of the ISA’s income is directed from the Government through the Sports Council more or less directly into the ISA’s High Performance squad, which has become a thriving mini-industry within a bureaucracy.

Follow the money, they say, and in this blog on August 8th on the topic of our team of hopefuls departing for the pre-Olympic regatta in Rio, while trying as gently as possible to warn that we expect far too much of our Olympic contenders, we also published figures which had been extracted for us by a forensic accountant from the ISA’s own published balance sheets. These showed just how much of the national sailing spend went directly into what is ultimately hoped to be Olympic standard sailing, and it was frankly scary.

What makes it even more scary is that it isn’t nearly enough, and with budgets being pared back left right and centre, while the staff on the High Performance squad may seem to enjoy remarkably high salaries and many attractive perks, by world standards they’re only just getting by. And as Irish amateur boxing has painfully shown this past week, if you don’t look after your Olympic coaches properly, some other nation will be only too pleased to do so instead.

But even with the supply of Sports Council money, the resources are largely limited to keeping the permanent staff in being and up to the job. The actual potential sailing athletes need much parental and other support, including direct sponsorship, if they’re going to be able to make best use of the expertise which is available from the training professionals. For the reality is that while you may be delighted that your son or daughter has risen through the sailing ranks to qualify for an ISA High Performance course, as the course progresses you can expect regular invoices, while going to events is something else which will also make a significant dent in the assets of the Bank of Mum & Dad.

But pure sailing talent is such a beautiful thing that we should give it all the support we can, and out to the northeast of Dublin there’s an impressive “Howth Can Do It” movement getting under way on the Peninsula to ensure that one of our own, 17-year-old Aoife Hopkins, gets all the support we can find in order to fulfill a remarkable talent which has developed prodigiously in recent months.

Aoife Hopkins of Howth with her father Troy at the time she was starting to make a national impression on Irish Optimist Racing. Photo: Niamh Hopkins

Aoife’s enjoyed success in Optimist racing became an integral part of Hopkins family life

From being a child sailing star in the Spring of this year, Aoife in the Autumn finds herself with near-adult status despite having only recently turned seventeen. And it’s an adult status which has brought with it a rising world ranking in the Laser Women’s Radial class which entitles her to compete for the Irish place – already secured for us by 2012’s fourth-placed Olympian Annalise Murphy – in the Laser Women’s Radial class in the Rio Olympics next August.

Upping the ante – Aoife Hopkins gets to grips with Laser radial racing – and already has boats astern of her

Making the grade at the international level – a very determined looking Aoife Hopkins slices her way towards the front in the Lasers Women’s Radial class.

Her rapidly rising international status made Aoife (left) enough of a sailing celebrity to be recruited for the photo-op to promote the Try Sailing initiative with Minister for the Marine Simon Coveney (right) and John Twomey, World President of Disabled Sailing.

It’s an uncomfortably challenging scenario for Irish sailing. Annalise Murphy has served this country so very well, and so nobly, and will long continue to do so. But her exceptional heavy weather sailing abilities – which at one stage had her in the Gold Medal position in Weymouth in 2012 – have not provided a happy interaction with the light and flukey conditions which prevail in Rio in August.

Until a few weeks ago, the scenario was that the already identified talents of Aoife Hopkins were only under guidance towards the Tokyo Olympics of 2020. But after the setback of August, a different outlook began to take shape. Now that Hopkins was eligible to compete, if she could somehow continue her onward and upward rise through the remaining Olympic selector events towards Rio August 2016 - a three part international series which will conclude next March – and if she has actually got ahead of Murphy, why shouldn’t she go to Rio?

She’d still be only seventeen, but she’s so sensibly grounded with full family and community support that competing in the Olympics as a total newbie needn’t be an upsetting experience, whatever the result. And who knows, but it could even be surprisingly good. And anyway, so long as the longterm view is kept properly focused towards Tokyo where she will be an even more mature 21, then why not take in Rio on the way?

You can cast the runes any way you like, but meeting Aoife and her very supportive mother Niamh this week through the good offices of Howth Yacht Club Commodore Brian Turvey – a longtime supporter of the Hopkins cavalcade – gave me a remarkable insight into what could well be sailing history in the making.

Cometh the hour, cometh the woman…..Like all Ireland’s yacht and sailing clubs, after battling through a rather torrid economic time in recent years with 2012 being the absolute nadir, Howth is fairly leaping back to life. Our boats have gone back to winning here, there and everywhere, and if our popular Commodore says that there’s this girl who is emerging out of Howth sailing who really shows the extra special sort of talent which deserves full support in a very tangible way, then the membership – and indeed the entire Howth peninsula – is more than ready to give it all a favourable hearing.

Aoife’s track into sailing is interesting. Her father Troy is one of those hardy perennials who get afloat with the long-established Howth Laser winter series, but Aoife herself isn’t a cradle sailor. On the contrary, she was around nine when she started with an introductory course at Howth YC, but soon was hooked, and by age eleven she was gunning with her already proven determination for a place in the National Optimist Squad, which soon came her way, and life became one of Optimist fun and high-level competitive sport, morphing on into a year or so with Toppers, and then the Laser Radial where she soon felt at home.

The results have been impressive, but then we’ve had many young people who show great sailing promise, but somehow in their mid teens the interest wanes, and it’s unfair to everyone to try to keep them at it.

Aoife Hopkins continues to enjoy the more traditional aspects of Howth sailing – she is seen here helming the Howth 17 Isobelle to victory in this 118-year-old class’s annual Junior Race. In the Howth 17s, a “junior helm” is under the age of 30……..

But Aoife Hopkins and boats become something very special. She just lives for sailing, so much so that during 2015 she put in some weeks as an Instructor in the Junior Sailing Programme at HYC between campaigns which had already seen her making the cut in the Laser Radial Rankings, at the same time she found the space to race one of the J/80s which are now club-based in Howth, and when Brian Turvey asked her if she’d like to helm his classic Howth 17 in the Juniors Race, she leapt at the chance and won, even if somewhat bemused to find that in the 118-year-old Seventeens, a “Junior” is a helm under the age of thirty…..

Yet thanks to Howth being such a settled community with large networks of friends, she was by no means unhealthily boat-obsessed, and she still had the energy to do very well indeed in school (it’s Santa Sabina, alma mater to the girls of Howth) while her family were now getting steadily more involved with sailing.

In fact they must be unique in that in the Howth Laser Winter series, Aoife has been competing both with her father Troy and younger brother Daniel, and although mother Niamh is not a Laser sailor herself, she found herself doing so much of the class’s administration that she was elected the non-sailing Class Captain.

Keeping up with the knitting – Aoife Hopkins last December racing in the Howth Laser Frostbite Series, which dates back to 1974. Aoife, her brother Daniel, and father Troy are all regulars in this series, and mum Niamh is non-sailing Class Captain

Beyond all that, there has been the growing international commitment, with some member of the family always available to travel in support of Aoife when she headed off for some distant major event. She and Niamh are more like a pair of sisters rather than mother and daughter as they recall various adventures in pursuit of international sailing competition, a special highlight being a drive by the pair of them right across Europe to Poland with the Laser on top of the family car, and success at the end of it.

At the moment, this extraordinary story of personal sailing development is at an exciting and entertaining early stage, and it’s still fun – it can cheerfully be admitted there was a healthy amount of laughter at this week’s meeting in the board-room atop Howth Yacht Club. But there’s no doubting the underlying seriousness of the challenge, and ideas for moving it forward were flying around in best kaleidoscope style.

At its most basic, the Aoife Hopkins campaign through the remaining three Olympic selector events will cost a minimum of €20,000, and it all has to be raised by Aoife and her family and supporters. But she has already made a very good start with her Crowd Funding project which was launched on Facebook with support from Afloat.ie and others, and within a week she’d raised €2000, which is ten per cent clear and counting.

Yet obviously there’s still much heavy lifting to be done, but in a club where the annual Christmas Charity Lunch managed to raise €20,000 for the late great sailor Joe English when his diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimers was revealed, €20,000 is very manageable, and Brian Turvey and his team would hope to have a comfortable margin beyond that.

Howth Can Do It - Planning the way ahead for Aoife and Niamh Hopkins with Howth YC Commodore Brian Turvey at a meeting this week in the club to consider the options for fund-raising in order to provide the €20,000 necessary for the three series final selection process for the Olympics 2016. Aoife has already raised more than €2000 through her own crowd-funding project, launched less than ten days ago. Photo: W M Nixon

But as well, there can be supportive help in kind. Howth is a peculiar place in that people who live there but work in Dublin tend to discard their professional status when they head home eastward through Sutton Cross. They may be highly qualified specialists in the day job in nearby Ireland, but beyond Sutton Cross out in Howth, they prefer to be just another peninsula person, as anonymous as possible.

However, if the need arises, there’s this extraordinary range of special skills within easy reach of the club, and when Aoife mentioned that one of the things she missed after the cutbacks at the ISA was the availability of a Sports Psychologist as a matter of normal training procedure, within a few seconds Brian Turvey had thought of someone living locally who could put the team in contact with the ideal person for the job on a voluntary basis.

And this emergence of a special sailing talent has couldn’t have come at a better time, for as Howth emerges bruised and battered - but feeling better by the minute - after the Great Recession, it has suddenly been remembered that November 18th 2015 precisely marks the 120th Anniversary of the foundation of the club, and events built around that – including a back-tie fund-raiser on Saturday, November 14th for Aoife Hopkins – will go a long way to keeping this very special show on the road.

Keeping fit. Aoife Hopkins current routine includes gym at least four times a week, cycling on at least three days, and sailing whenever possible – and she still is a full time student at school. Photo: Niamh Hopkins

On Saturday Howth Yacht Club celebrated the completion of one of its most successful Autumn Leagues, managing to complete the full series of six consecutive races for the second year in a row. One hundred keelboats entered this year's MSL Park Motors Mercedes Benz sponsored event, with nine classes racing and boats competing for 17 trophies across the scratch, IRC, ECHO and handicap divisions. The major overall prizes were won by Checkmate XV (Heineken Trophy for top boat) and the team Splashdance-Starlet-Trick or Treat (Olympus Team Trophy)

The final day's racing conditions belied the calendar date and seemed more like late-spring sailing with a 10-12 knot northeasterly wind and sunny skies. The 060 degrees wind direction meant that many of the race leaders in the Offshore (Cruisers) and Inshore (One-design) fleets had to strain their eyes to find the windward racing marks such as 'Talbot' and 'Osprey' in a lumpy sea state. But they did, and this final race turned out to be the deciding one in many of the fleets. Pat Kelly's J109 Storm continues to be the boat to beat in Class 1 IRC at this event, although the Gregory/ Breen/ Hogg owned Beneteau First 34.7 Flashback finished just 2 points behind, having had a recent flurry of good form and also winning the final race as well as the overall ECHO prize.

With their worst score being a discarded 2nd place, Dave Cullen and his team on their half-tonner Checkmate XV capped an excellent season by winning Class 2 IRC and by 3.5 points from Stephen Quinn's J97 Lambay Rules. Jonny Swan's half-tonner Harmony won the ECHO prize.

Their fourth win from the six races put Howth's young K25 Team firmly at the top of Class 3 IRC in their J24 Kilcullen and a full 6 points clear of Vince Gaffney's Alliance II. On the ECHO leaderboard in the same class, a premature start and resulting OCS score that had to be discarded did not stop Joss Walsh and team on White Hunter celebrating their first event victory in the ECHO division from the Ray/ Costello Jeanneau Sunlight 30 Tobago.

Bringing the sponsor on board for their Class 4 race was to add extra pressure for Howard McMullen and Mossy Shanahan's on Splashdance, but MSL Park Motors Mercedes Benz Brand Manager Dean Fullston helped them to win the IRC prize by the closest of margins from Paul Tully's White Lotus. The ECHO prize was one by Kieran Jameson's Changeling.

One might have expected the light winds during this year's event to hold back the performance of some of the heavier boats, but not so for Harry Byrne's Sunrise 34 Alphida, taking first place in Class 5 IRC from Windsor Lauden and Steffi Ennis's Club Shamrock Demelza. Richard McAllister's Force Five won the ECHO prize by a huge 14 margin over Rum Doodle.

With the ISA Sailfleet J80s being used in Dun Laoghaire for the All Ireland Senior Sailing Championships, only one race was completed in the series, won by Howth's Alistair Kissane. The Puppeteer class had no such distractions and their scratch division was a hard-fought event for the top half of the fleet and eventually won by Alan Pearson and his team on Trick or Treat from Scorie Walls and Declan Browne's Gold Dust. A finish-line 'altercation' in the 5th week and the resulting protest would appear to have been the decisive moment in this fiercely fought series and occupied lots of time in the bar conversations afterwards! Gerry Kennedy and his team on Schiggy won the handicap prize.

Jeff Kay and Emer Harte shared the respective scratch and handicap spoils in the Squib class on Jeff's Chatterbox and Emer's Puffin and another very close finish saw the top boats separated by just a few points in the Howth 17 class - with Peter Courtney's Oona winning from the 117 year-old Hera (Michael and Jane Duffy). Roddy Cooper's Leila won the handicap prize.

This year's Autumn League finished with the usual lively dinner - with over 250 people dining and staying late to enjoy the live entertainment afterwards. MSL Park Motors' Dean Fullston was full of praise for the sailors and Howth Yacht Club in his address at the prizegiving, saying that 'it was a great pleasure for the Mercedes Benz team to come to Howth each week during the event' and that the Autumn League continues to be 'a great event for MSL Park Motors to be associated with, affording a unique opportunity to be part of the event, club and sport'. In reply, HYC Commodore Brian Turvey added that 'MSL Park Motors and their Mercedes Benz brand add huge value and support to the event and the club members, sailors and visitors are delighted with this association.' He also thanked event chairman Feargal Kinsella and his race management teams, shore and organisational teams, as well as the club staff for helping to continue to ensure that the Autumn League remains a premier keelboat event in the annual racing calendar.

Results here