For sixty years and more, Carmel Winkelmann was a force of nature and a power for the good in sailing in Ireland, especially in Dublin Bay. While she gave generously of her time in all areas of interest, her speciality was the encouragement of young people into the sport, and the development of their talents. Her death in June of this year in her 93rd year marked the end of an era, and now it is time for the Final Watch, the scattering of her ashes on the waters of her beloved bay.

Tomorrow (Saturday 30th October) at 2.15 pm, a small flotilla led by the Winkelmann family will leave the Royal Irish YC heading for the Muglins, and accompanied by fellow sailors from Dublin Bay SC and the other Dun Laoghaire clubs with which Carmel was associated.

Communication will be on VHF 72 to co-ordinate a simple yet significant ceremony to mark the Final Watch for one of sailing’s truest and most enduring enthusiasts and pioneers.

Carmel Winkelmann of Dun Laoghaire, who has died in her 93rd year, was a universe, a force of nature, and an indefatigable and resilient optimist who carved her own unique course through Irish sailing at every level for sixty years and more. She was the very soul of encouragement in making good things happen at the ultimate heights of our sport’s functioning and administration, while at the same time never showing any reluctance to knuckle down at the most basic levels of volunteerism to ensure that the most humdrum and sometimes almost invisible tasks were properly completed.

In the bigger picture, Carmel was a star by any standards, and would have been conspicuous in any setting. But the unique Dun Laoghaire Harbour sailing scene provided the special firmament in which she could shine with the greatest brilliance.

Yet In the final analysis, she was the one who was always ready to fulfill that most basic requirement of any successful human endeavour – she always showed up. But anyone who imagines that all this was performed in a pious atmosphere of do-goodery would be wildly wide of the mark.

For she’d an almost irrepressible sense of humour which could be wickedly funny at times, yet underneath it all was a profound kindness – sustained by a deep faith - which would manifest itself as tough love for sometimes errant sailing kids whose potential she recognized and encouraged.

THE POWER COUPLE

She was a star married to a star, though Franz Winkelmann was the quiet one who shone in a very different manner. His boats were to include a classic Dublin Bay 24, and a partnership-owned Ruffian 23 that was raced and cruised extensively, and his roles included being Commodore of the National Yacht Club from 1974 to 1976. He filled this position with the calm efficiency and style of a highly-regarded Dublin figure who was to be celebrated in an appreciation at his death in 2010 as “Franz Winkelmann, the Treasurer of Trinity College Dublin - a sailor, music lover and investment genius”.

Thus they were a “power couple” long before the term entered popular usage. But with Franz’s talents so clearly defined in sailing and the world of administration, finance and business, Carmel – in addition to raising a family and running a wonderful household - initially devoted herself to the development of junior sailing in the National YC, then in the larger fleet of Dun Laoghaire harbour, and soon on an all-Ireland basis through the newly-formed Irish Yachting Association which had emerged from the Irish Dinghy Racing Association under the Presidency of Clayton Love Jnr of Cork.

When we remember that this was all taking place during the 1960s, it made for an especially memorable moment 55 years later in August 2020, when the pop-up Fastnet 450 offshore race from Dublin Bay to Cork via the Fastnet was quickly arranged in the window of opportunity provided by a temporary easing of lockdown restrictions. Only the smallest possible bubble groups were allowed to assemble ashore, but at the start, the National YC’s group included Clayton Love and Carmel Winkelmann, both of them in their 90s and both continuing to manifest that lively and productive interest in sailing which has done so much to make our sport what it is in Ireland today.

Clayton Love Jnr and Carmel Winkelmann at the National Yacht Club in August 2020 for the start of the Fastnet 450 Race from Dun Laoghaire to Cork Harbour via the Fastnet Rock. Photo courtesy NYC

It was when the 40th Anniversary of the 1967 establishment of the National YC’s Junior Programme was being celebrated in 2007 that the international boat-builder Johnny Smullen – originally of Dun Laoghaire but California-based these days with direct links to sailors of the calibre of Dennis Conner – wrote an evocative memoir which takes us back to a time when the concept of junior sailing as an identifiable discipline was still at an early stage of development in Dun Laoghaire, and it was clear – sometimes painfully clear - that the waterfront facilities of the established and historic yacht clubs did not see junior needs as a priority.

JOHNNY SMULLEN REMEMBERS

Remembering it all forty years later, Johnny Smullen wrote:

San Diego, 17th May 2007

The way I saw it.
I am eight years old and my parents are wondering what to do with me for the summer, it went something like this: “Get him out from under our feet”. I was equally happy to stay at home and play in the back garden, invent stuff and dream up ways to frighten my sisters. Chasing them with worms was a good one.

I was enrolled in the adventure of my life.

At first I was lead to believe it was going to be a fun thing with the opportunity to meet new people and friends, maybe making me more sociable as I was quiet child in a world of my own. I bought into this and showed up for the first day. It was great, lots of people all different shapes and sizes, so there we were all sitting around playing with stuff and one-upping on how my father is better than yours, especially at snooker. The chatter fell silent when along came this very tall white-haired lady with an incredibly loud voice. It was at this point I became suspicious as I had just watched Paths of Glory and A Bridge Too Far, I had seen how the enemy rounded up people and put them in trucks and brought to places, unfriendly places.....

We arrived at Sandycove harbour where we were lined up on the pier. I thought this was it, we were then forced to line up at the steps and walk down into the freezing water fully clothed and flail around, there were guards (instructors we were led to believe) everywhere, and just to make sure the torture was effective they made us hold our heads under water for 30 minutes, well 30 seconds, but it felt like minutes. Then we were all forced to walk back to the NYC where our fate was to be determined. Freezing and scared, I was cursing my family and wondering what I had done to them.

We arrived back at Camp NYC and were lined up and made to wear large cumbersome protective coats, some were yellow, purple, some orange, I guessed they were labelling us, something to do with our religion. Some of these jackets had large protective collars probably to help protect us from the beatings to come, I thought. Our names were branded onto the “Life Jackets” as I started to call them, knowing they would play a key role in our protection.

We were divided into groups and led away by the guards into this large damp room with arches and a dank smell of cotton, hemp and mould. This was where we were to remain for all the rainy days to be brain-washed, they started by teaching us knots. I was convinced this was going to be how to tie the very knot that would be the doom of us, I compared it to carrying the cross of Calvary. I decided then to be really bad at it in the hopes that one of my knots would slip open and I could dash to my freedom. We also had to jump up, and hand-over-hand along the light blue steel beam that ran across the dark room, this was to make our arms really strong, they had a plan for strong arms – I will tell you about that a little later.

Food consisted of a march up to Wimpeys for a spice burger and chips all drowned in vinegar to disguise the taste, but if there was good behaviour we got to go to the Miami Café. The day was long (except Thursdays when we had to get out early) and after a week in Boot Camp we were all tired and weary. What had I done to my family to deserve this?

The second week came along and we were introduced to the ships, rather large wooden craft resembling a landing craft with the flat bow (I was always looking for the hinges). This is where the strong arms came into use. We were grouped into six per team, and the guards waited until low tide when we had to carry the ship down a rickety wooden slip (there’s a reason for calling it a slip). Upon its surface there were large wooden rollers but we were forbidden to use those rollers, and to make sure they filed a fat spot on the rollers, deeming them useless.

Primitive times….the first NYC Optimists on the crowded little slip in 1967  

We picked up the incredible heavy boat, all six of us, one on each corner holding a knee, and two in the middle by the oar locks. Later I was to learn the place to be was up at the bow (by the door), it was lightest. I was adapting to this cruel camp. As we descended down to the icy water again fully clothed, we came across a bright green pungent slime. I had what I thought were special sailing shoes, but as soon as I touched the slime I was down. Down hard.

The guards started yelling, I knew I had to get up quickly....remember Calvary!....We reached the bottom and stopped, the guards yelled again and made us wade right into the icy deep, still fully clothed. With the landing craft now floating, we had to master manoeuvring, the craft were lined up alongside the slippy slip, that’s the reason they call it a..................

I stepped on the gunwhale. Now at this point I did not understand the physics like I do today, and when you apply a load to any point of the gunwhale of a flat-bottomed craft two things will happen (once only). The opposing gunwhale will come up as you travel down, and because I am as tall as the craft is wide, somewhere in the middle the two surfaces will meet, your face and the opposing gunwhale. After the initial shock, the second shock comes from the icy cold water. Then I found out what the large collar was for as the guards hauled me out of the abyss semi-conscious. Once inside the craft, we were grouped into two and handed oars. Let the games begin.....

Making progress. The young Johnny Smullen at the National YC with his first boat, the Mirror Class Splinter  

After a week of rowing and shipping oars and coming alongside we were all adapting well to boating, there’s nothing to it. Just as we are enjoying ourselves, we are reminded that this is a work camp with launch and retrieval exercise twice a day. The launch and retrieval is carefully timed at 6 and 12 hours intervals to make sure it was low tide and we’d the longest slimiest walk up the rickety slips, observed closely by the guards from the window of the snooker room glaring down at us. Boating is turning out to be challenging but fun, and the new friends are all pitching together to eventually plan an assault on the guards to free ourselves.

The third week came along and there were large wooden poles with white canvas and a stick with notches cut out of it, why on earth did they have to make it harder? It was perfectly simple with the clean decks and oars and oar-locks, now the boats are so heavy with this rig up, my bow lifting position is not that smart as we carry down the slip with the sail pressed hard against my face.

After countless days of theory brainwashing in the damp room, we have to pass a few tests to prove worthy to sail, if called upon, out to the US Aircraft Carrier John F Kennedy anchored out in Dublin Bay. The first test was to take the stick with the notches and stretch out the canvas and hook onto a rope loop, without falling over this was harder than carrying the feckin’ boat, the second was to line up two pins while hanging over the transom full of chips and spice burgers. If it had hair....

Most of us mastered that task after a few tries, and it wasn’t long before we were sailing out to the sterns of the ferry Hibernia or Cambria, whichever was in port at the time. This went on for a few weeks and as we settled into the routine it got easier as we went on.

During the time in the damp boathouse, usually when it was blowing dogs off chains outside and while I was trying to get the batteries out of the loudhailer, I noticed a beautiful varnished clinker planked boat, it was almost new, and a very wise man was looking after it. This Man was tough as the rivets holding it together and knew everything about the seas. I knew if I paid attention he would help get me through the summer, he did and he is almost responsible for what I do today. Thank you Jack!

Johnny Smullen in California with Dennis Connner making a first inspection of the 1925-built Q Class Cotton Blossom II, which they transformed into an award-winning international quality classic restoration

The discipline of Boot Camp had turned us into great sailors, great card players, snooker players....it wasn’t until the third stage we found flagons. But not on the night of May 17th 1975, I was at home doing my homework that night....

Ah.....the memories, I hope I have stirred a few, it was the most wonderful time of my life and I wish I was there to get drunk with all of you and play cards till the wee hours, but meanwhile thanks

To Carmel, thank you very much; I always have my lifejacket.

To Jack Brennan, I am always thinking of you up there, and thanks for teaching me how to tie my shoelaces.

To all the instructors Paul, Ann, Jimmy, I never believed the story of the rabbit and the tree, but thanks anyway

And to all my dear family and friends

Lots of love, Johnny Smullen

PS It was me that stuck the coke bottle in the cannon at the front of the club....

When Carmel Winkelmann and her small team set out to provide the National Yacht Club juniors with a meaningful training programme 55 years ago, their activities were very much a minor add-on to established club life. Nowadays, the junior sailing is the core of the club’s daytime summer activity

THOSE EARLY DAYS – OTHER ANGLES

Last Sunday, Afloat.ie ran the preliminary notice of Carmel’s sad passing, and on our Facebook page the responses to it with fond memories and heartfelt appreciation are pushing towards the hundred mark, a particularly memorable one being from Bob Sheil:

I’ll be forever grateful to Carmel for accepting me onto the junior section in 1971 aged 6 and a half, when the limit was 7, and for her sustained interest in my family’s sailing exploits in and far beyond the harbour ever since, including my siblings, son, nephews snd nieces. I know my parents Skipper and Hazel were and are huge fans of Carmel. Our condolences to the Winkelmann family.

Olympic sailor Saskia Tidey is another Dun Laohaire sailor who has been expressing her gratitude for Carmel’s support and encouragement.  

Another appreciative response - from the ultimate heights of Olympic stardom - is in from 49erfx sailor Saskia Tidey:

Always and forever will be a legend. Carmel was one of the most supportive figures through my youth sailing days. She gave me a lot of confidence to pursue my dreams. Rest In Peace Carmel x

DUBLIN BAY SAILING CLUB SERVICE

Naturally and inevitably, for longer than anyone can remember Carmel was one of the corps of a hundred or so highly competent volunteers who make possible the continuous smooth running of Dublin Bay Sailing Club, with her salty comments while recording finishers from the hut on the West Pier being something to cherish.

DBSC Commodore Ann Kirwan was one of the earliest participants in the Carmel Winklemann junor programme in the National YC, and in her current role she has been fulsome in her praise for Carmel’s contribution to the functioning of DBSC since the early 1970s.

DBSC Commodore Ann Kirwan has been fulsome in her praise this week for the Carmel contribution, and writes:

Dublin Bay Sailing Club has learnt with profound regret that Carmel Winkelmann, a DBSC stalwart, has sadly passed away. Carmel was a key organiser and volunteer in DBSC for nearly 50 years, as former DBSC Commodore Hal Bleakley had first asked her to come onboard in the early 1970s. Hal recognised Carmel’s extraordinary drive, enthusiasm and organisational skills from her involvement as a founding member of the National Yacht Club’s Junior Section in 1967.

When Carmel joined the DBSC volunteer team, she immediately took to running the hut race management team. As hut Race Timer, her distinctive voice could be heard on VHF channel 72 giving the course and counting down the time to race starts. Until the pandemic hit in 2020, Carmel would meet the race management teams on the balcony of the RIYC every Saturday armed with starters lists, the weather forecast, tidal data and many words of wisdom.

The Voice of DBSC. Carmel Winkelmann on station on one of hundreds of occasions in the DBSC Race Officers’ hut on Dun Laoghaire’s West Pier. The race team could quickly swing into a highly-trained mode of formidable efficiency when their services were required, but between times the mood in the hut could be decidedly convivial, and few items of juicy gossip escaped its close-knit scrutiny.

Carmel gave tirelessly of her time since she first became involved in sailing. Carmel’s ability and many achievements were recognised in 2008 when she was awarded Irish Sailing’s Volunteer of the Year award. Jack Roy presented Carmel with the Irish Sailing President’s Award for 2017 in recognition of her huge commitment to a sport she loved and was involved in for over 50 years.

Carmel, an honorary life member of DBSC, will be sadly missed by all her friends in DBSC as well as the wider sailing community in Dun Laoghaire and throughout Ireland. Our thoughts are with her family, especially Paul, Lucy and Adam at this sad time.

Dear Carmel, there’ll be many a glass of ‘brown milk’ raised in your honour. May you Rest in Peace.

Ann Kirwan

Adam Winkelmann joined 25 other Water Wags on Wednesday evening in observing one minute’s silence in honour of his mother before their weekly race

This past week, the many sailors of Dublin Bay going racing on Tuesday, the Water Wags on Wednesday (and it Bloomsday too), the cruiser-racers on Thursday, and all classes today, have been marking their respects with a minute’s silence at the Committee boats, while the funeral cortege yesterday morning (Friday) processed past the three waterfront yacht clubs, each of which had benefitted from Carmel’s invigorating attitude and life-enhancing presence.

Carmel Winkelmann’s funeral cortege passing the Royal Irish Yacht Club yesterday (Friday) morning. Photo: Paddy Boyd  

For there was much to remember. After many years of action in the front line of junior training, Carmel’s sailing interests continued to expand in a logical progression from simply encouraging youngsters to take up sailing, onto a higher level where she was prepared to move heaven and hell with special talents in order to fulfill their potential internationally. 

The Talent Scout – Olympic sailor Finn Lynch with Carmel  

Saskia Tidey has already mentioned how much Carmel’s encouragement helped her to make the transition to the top level. In fact, while casting her eagle eye over a widely varied new input, or in continuing to mintor risng performances at regional and national level, she was a shrewd talent scout, and another notable example was Finn Lynch, whose transformation from a shy country boy from the depths of County Carlow into a front-line international Laser sailor owed much to Carmel’s encouragement and practical support.

DUN LAOGHAIRE TO DINGLE RACE SUPPORTER

Carmel was always alert to the possibility of new events which would encourage welcome development in sailing, and particularly sailing in and from her always-beloved National Yacht Club. Thus she was an ardent supporter of Martin Crotty and Peter Cullen’s Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race from its earliest days in 1993, her speciality being the encouragement of a something of a carnival atmosphere at both start and finish.

Thus there are those of us who can remember nervously finalising our D2D start details on the day of the race at the National Yacht Cup at a desk operated by an incredibly spectacular and majestically made-up woman with a huge head of ultra-shiny black hair, but few words. And then, after the usual rather tough race, signing off with some relief at a desk in Dingle administered by an incredibly spectacular and majestically made-up woman with a huge head of glossy hyper-blonde hair, only to realise - when the job was done and the clerical pressures eased - that in both cases this mystery woman was Carmel herself, just having a bit of fun…..

Life goes on. The start of the National Y’s Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race 2021 on Wednesday June 9th was an appropriate pillar event to signal the ending of the strictest stages of Lockdown. Photo: Michael Chester

So when Martin Crotty died on it was logical that Carmel’s son Adam should take over the Chairmanship of the Organising Committee, and in 2021’s especially difficult circumstances, he was keeping the show on the road when Carmel was stricken – in her 93rd year – with her final bout of illness. Yet ever the trouper, she insisted that Adam continue to concentrate on the D2D, including the prizegiving in Dingle on the weekend she passed away.

A remarkable end to an extraordinary life. It was a life which touched other lives throughout Ireland with benefit. When the news of Carmel’s death was announced, Pierce Purcell of Galway – a former Commodore and founder member, 51 years ago, of Galway Bay SC – was moved to write to Martin McCarthy, Commodore of the Natonal Yacht Club, and in his eloquent words,the man from Galway speaks for us all:

FROM PIERCE PURCELL, Galway Bay SC

So sad to hear of Carmel’s passing. She was a wonderful warm-hearted member of the National Y.C. who played a nationwide role in the extended family of sailing in Ireland. She always showed a genuine and detailed interest and encouragement for younger administrators hoping to replicate what she had done, and was always supportive when her opinion was sought by anyone trying to implement some change in order to meet the needs of a new situation, bluntly commenting: “Well, if you don’t try something in your club, it just won’t happen at all, so let me know how it goes”.

For years I travelled up to Dublin and Dun Laoghaire from Galway for ISA Junior and Training Committee meetings, when Carmel was the boss with people like Paddy Kirwan and Paddy Blaney in her high-powered team. Galway Bay S.C. was very young then, and we were only feeling our way, thus her support and interest played a huge role in GBSC’s development at a vital stage in its growth .

In recent years if arriving into the National, it was such a pleasure to be recognised by the great lady and called over to join her group to discuss old times, and be introduced to familiar sailing names at the top level of sailing. I will miss this wonderful connection with the National Y.C. and Dun Laoghaire sailing, Carmel had the gift of apparently effortlessly bringing all Irish sailors together in friendship and shared enthusiasm.

Irish sailing has lost a truly wonderful person. Our thoughts and heartfelt condolences are with her family of Paul, Lucy and Adam and with her several extra-close friends in addition to her many friends and colleagues throughout Ireland and Irish sailing.

Pierce Purcell of Galway: “Carmel had the wonderful gift of effortlessly bringing together sailors from all over Ireland in friendship and shared enthusiasm”

Tuesday night marks the start of a week-long tribute to long-standing Dublin Bay Sailing Club member Carmel Winkelmann who passed away on Saturday, 12th June. 

DBSC Flag Officers are preparing for a minute's silence on all boats in the fleet before racing commences on each race day this week.

There will be an additional sound signal made five minutes before the first warning signal for the first class each day. The DBSC burgee will be dipped and a minute's silence will be observed in Carmel's honour. 

DBSC Committee Boat MacLir (above) and Freebird (below) displaying an RIP tribute to the late Carmel Winkelmann prior to Tuesday, June 15th's racing

As Afloat repeated earlier, Carmel was an active member of DBSC and also gave a huge commitment to Dublin Bay sailing in general.

Due to the Government restrictions, a family funeral will take a place privately at 10 am on Friday (June 18th).

As a mark of respect, the funeral cortège will be passing the yacht clubs along the Dun Laoghaire Harbour waterfront on Friday morning at 9 am.

Funeral notice here

It is with the greatest possible regret that we record the death of Carmel Winkelmann of Dun Laoghaire, whose long and good-humoured contribution to sailing in Ireland - and its development in many areas of specialised interest - was to continue enthusiastically for sixty years.

Afloat i.e. will be publishing a full appreciation in due course, but for now, our thoughts and heartfelt condolences are with Carmel’s family and her very many friends.

A very special Golden Jubilee coming up in May provides links to an Irish Olympic Sailing Silver Medal, the Fireball World Championship, and the America’s Cup. W M Nixon finds the widest connections go even further than that to include a pioneering world voyage.

It was in May 1967 that the irrepressible Carmel Winkelmann oversaw the first results of a junior sailing initiative at the National Yacht Cub, her home club in Dun Laoghaire. It became a movement which went on which to have nationwide and worldwide ramifications, so much so that within Ireland we’re looking at an unbroken line in Irish sailing which is continued through the club which currently holds the title of ISA Training Centre of the Year, which for 2017 is Foynes Yacht Club on the Shannon Estuary.

That a successful club at the heart of the Atlantic seaboard can trace an almost magic thread back to something which happened at a club on Dublin Bay a long time ago is quite a story in itself. Particularly when the Atlantic seaboard club itself is imbued, as Foynes is, with the spirit of legendary circumnavigator Conor O’Brien. However, when the story is shaping up to continue with the Golden Jubilee as the latest chapter, it gives us an opportunity both to celebrate, and take stock of what it has all meant.

Foynes Yacht Club, heirs to an Irish tradition of junior sail training which was first formalized by the National Yacht Club 50 years ago. At the Irish Sailing Awards ceremony when Foynes were announced as winners of the ISA Training Centre of the Year Award were (left to right) Simon McGibney (Foynes Senior Instructor), Sailor of the year and Olympic Silver Medallist Annalise Murphy of the National Yacht Club, Elaine O’Mahoney (Foynes Sailing Academy Manager), Pat Finucane (Sailing Academy Principal) and Conor Dillon (Instructor). In a club which is imbued with the spirit of world-girdling Foynes sailor Conor O’Brien, it’s particularly appropriate that Conor Dillon’s sailing CV includes winning the Two-Handed division in the Round Ireland Race, sailing with his father Derek Dillon on a 34-footer. Photo: Inpho
But business first. Anyone who has ever taken part in the Junior Training Programme at the National Yacht Club is hereby alerted – if you don’t know already – that on the evening and night of Saturday May 20th, there will be a very special celebration at the clubhouse. The organisers Carmel Winkelmann and Ann Kirwan are particularly keen to trace those who have moved away, but would find much nostalgic pleasure with the meeting of old friends by returning on this day of days. So if that applies to you, or you know anyone to whom it does, please make contact with the key club administrator whom everyone refers to as “Oonagh at the National”, the proper line of contact being [email protected], tel 01-280 5725.

Bright morning of Optimism. The National Yacht Club slipway in 1967, long before the days of an extensive front-of-club platform, with the new dinghies of the Optimist Class being launched out of the cramped boathouse under the club, and down a steep and often very crowded slipway

To grasp the significance of what is being celebrated, please try to visualize the National Yacht Club as it was fifty years ago. The building itself, standing directly in the harbour, has the air of a fishing lodge in the West of Ireland on its seaward side, and a hint of neo-classicism when seen from the town. But in the early 1960s it was very limited in its shoreside facilites for sailing dinghies. There was a boathouse entered through fine granite arches under the clubhouse itself, but to use it, masts needed to be lowered. It was served by a very steep and easily-crowded slip, while there was access to another slip on the east side of the cub which served a small area where dinghies could be stored. But while there was space for the established classes of Fireflies and some IDRA 14s, some room was also needed for the small tenders for larger yachts moored in the harbour, while the racing keelboats were served by club launches which might be substantial dinghies driven by vintage Seagull outboards.

The concept of a proper dinghy park was still only in its infancy, relatively speaking, for craft such as Dun Laoghaire’s Firefly and IDRA fleets which had been active since the late 1940s. Thus if anyone had a centreboard boat which could reasonably be expected to lie to moorings, she was obliged to do so, and the fleet of small craft lying off the club included the 17ft Mermaids and the 14ft Water Wags.

It could get very crowded on that steep slipway. Paddy Kirwan at the centre of a group making do with limited facilities

To compound the space problems afloat and ashore, during the 1960s the area in the southeast part of Dun Laoghaire Harbour off the National Yacht Club was the focal point for the cross-channel ferry berths. The railway-system serving Mailboat with its emphasis on foot passengers continued to use the Carlisle Pier to the west of the club, but the East Pier was known for a period as the Car Ferry Pier as a busy new roll-on roll-off terminal, which admittedly always had a temporary look about it, had been constructed there to accommodate the new trend in cross-channel travel.

Thus not only was anyone sailing a dinghy from shore at the National YC dong so out of decidedly limited facilities, but they immediately sailed into an area cluttered with a collection of moored boats of all shapes and sizes, and that in turn was set in an area which might have ferry ships berthed close by, or manoeuvring on either side.

Learning curve. Gina Duffy and John Lavery on a close run in 1967. The latter has won many major championships, including the Fireball Worlds in 1995

The comparisons with today’s National Yacht Club with its spacious platform facing out over a much clearer harbour area, and beside it an installation of convenient berthing pontoons, could not be greater. But back in the 1960s, an equally important change was happening – there was a complete re-appraisal of what the most junior sailors really needed in boats and instruction to get the best from the sport.

For sure there were the Fireflies, but in terms of lower age limit they were really aimed at adolescents on the cusp of rapidly growing youth. The other available classes were even more adult-oriented. In fact, the underlying problem was that children going sailing were treated as miniature adults who would somehow pick up the skills of the game through a sort of osmosis, whereas for a crucial period of their lives they would have most benefitted from being treated as a different species, with different boats to meet their needs.

Yet even here, adult views dominated. The grown-ups thought that young people’s boats should at least look like small yachts. Thus a dinghy which was promoted for children by several clubs was the 11ft Yachting World Cartop Heron, which had originally been conceived as a DIY-build which could fit on the roof-rack of the average family car, and was designed with a gunter rig such that all its spars could be stowed within the boat.

It had some good ideas, and with a pretty sheer it fulfilled the adult expectation of what a miniature yacht should look like. But it was surprisingly heavy for its avowed rooftop requirement – you’d have needed a weight-trained family to get it on the car roof. And anyway, it was too large for really small kids who genuinely had the sailing bug.

The southeast corner of Dun Laoghaire Harbour was very different in 1967, with the East Pier re-designated as the Car Ferry Pier. Yet despite the limitations, the Optimist class quickly caught on after its introduction in 1967

So a revolutionary approach was needed, and it came thanks to one of the National YC’s international sailing stars, Johnny Hooper. He had achieved Ireland’s first Olympic Race win with Peter Gray in the Flying Dutchman in the 1960 Rome Olympics when the sailing was at Naples. But as an FD campaign towards the 1984 Olympics was prohibitively expensive with the venue in Japan, he returned to his first love of International 505 Racing, and it was at a big 505 championship in Scandinavia in 1965 or thereabouts that he first became aware of the game-changing possibilities of the Optimist for junior sailing.

Scandinavia being rightly renowned for the elegance of its yacht, it speaks volume for the versatility of the Florida-originating Optimist, the “simple little boxboat that sails surprisingly well”, that Scandinavia should lead the movement towards a world body for a boat which, whatever the traditionalists might think, the kids were clearly loving. Founded 1965, the International Optimist Dinghy Association (IODA) had Viggo Jacobsen of Denmark as its first President with his wife Edith as Secretary, and in that same year Johnny Hooper set about introducing the idea of the Optimist to Ireland.

Now if some ordinary Joe had happened to by impressed by an Optimist at some foreign location, and had even brought one home to persuade his fellow sailors that they were looking at the future, the idea probably would have fallen very flat indeed.

But that’s not the Hooper way. Instead, from his highly respected position he quietly targeted fellow National Yacht Club members who were themselves active sailors, but also had children who would benefit from the Optimist experience, and in time a group emerged which was to include initially Johnny Hooper with his wife Bernie giving the longterm involvement, Peter Gray, Paddy & Barbara Kirwan , Don Douglas, Franz & Carmel Winkelmann, Michael McGrath, Arthur Lavery and several others, many of whom had reasonable DIY skills and could see the possibility of building an Optimist in the basement of their Dun Laoghaire homes without too much disruption of the household. By the Autumn of 1966, the project was under way.

The first of the new fleet sails. Paddy Boyd (left) Ann Kirwan (centre) and Vivienne Lavery right) getting to know their boats

While Johnny Hooper had introduced the idea, he stood back from its continuing implementation, for the Hooper modus operandi was to give an idea enough strength to soon have wings of its own. That certainly happened in the National Yacht Club, for very quickly a manageably small committee was in being, and the formidable Carmel Winkelmann became its secretary. The NYC Junior Programme became her baby, and it always has since been seen as such, even though the number of people involved in administering the programme over the fifty years, as the NYC facilities have expanded and developed to meet the needs of a modern membership, will now run into the hundreds.

In fact, properly organized junior sailing with boats specifically designed for young people’s needs is now so central to Irish sailing that it takes a huge leap of the imagination to visualize the scene as the first small group of National Yacht Club Optimist Dinghies – most of them locally-built either by amateurs or professonals – began to emerge in May 1967 with numbers increasing as each weekend passed. New they may have been, but they reflected their era, with a public Blessing of the Boats outside the Brindley household as a new batch of boats appeared.

Olympic sailor Johnny Hooper speaking at the Blessing of the Boats as a new batch of home-built Optimists awaits transfer to the National’s limited space.

Dun Laoghaire was a different place in those days, with Water Wags and Mermaids expected to lie to mooring. Vivienne Lavery and Ann Kirwan testing their skills with the new Optimists – Ann’s boat (476) was one of the few professionally-built in the first batch of Optimists, she was created by the legendary Skee Gray
But though most young sailors in theory had his or her own boat, before anything approaching full fleet numbers was approached they’d a habit of letting anyone sail some boat or other in the early stages, so much so that although Ann Kirwan was part of it from a very early stage, she admits that even she can’t claim total accuracy when identifying the helm of a known boat.

Going abroad......the new Dun Laoghaire Optimists make their debut at Bray Regatta: Paul, Adam and Lucy Winkelmann with Paddy Kirwan putting in his renowned act as a South American Air Marshall at Bray Sailing Club.

This habit of inter-changing sailors became even more marked in that first year when the early class discovered that the most useful base for their day-time sailing was the little-used Irish Lights service barge moored in the western part of the harbour. Over there, NYC Optimist sailors found much clearer sailing water, and they were well away from the comings and goings of the two cross-channel ferries off their home club, not to mention excessive parental control. In effect, the barge became their day-time base, and they ate their packed lunches aboard it while deciding who would take which boat for the first stage of the afternoon’s sailing. Fifty years down the line, we might well wonder if the Commissioners of Irish Lights are aware of the key role their humble barge played in launching Ireland’s Junior Training Programme.....

Vivienne Lavery and David Ryan getting away from the slip.

Once launched in its viable form in 1967, there was no stopping it, and the names which have emerged just from the National’s junior programme alone (for virtually all clubs now have one) take us over an extraordinary range, and up to the heights of Olympic participation, the winning of major world dinghy championships and associations with the America’s Cup.

It’s Johnny Smullen who provides the latter. The California-based Johnny Smullen in San Diego is now of world stature in anything to do with yacht and boat-building or indeed in marine construction generally, and his talent has been recognized at the highest level as he has worked on major projects for the very demanding Dennis Conner, aka Mr America’s Cup.

Johnny will have inherited his feeling for classics from his father Cass, a great sailor who was such an enthusiast for the Dublin Bay 21s in their original rather spectacular gaff-rigged form that when the class contemplated changing to a more easily-handled and convenient Bermudan rig in 1963, Cass claimed that he could easily rig a gaff-rigged DB 21 in 15 minutes flat. And that included setting the jackyard topsail to perfection. So he brought a DB 21 close into the clubhouse (as you could in those days), and in front of a drink-sipping crowd of observers on the verandah, he did the job within 15 minutes. But they still went ahead and converted to Bermudan rig.

Son Johnny meanwhile was enlisted in the NYC Junior Programme as soon as he reached he lower age limit, and when the 40th Anniversary was being celebrated back in 2007, he sent on his memoirs which well capture the flavour of it all:

San Diego, 17th May 2007

The way I saw it.

I am eight years old and my parents are wondering what to do with me for the summer, it went something like this: “Get him out from under our feet”. I was equally happy to stay at home and play in the back garden, invent stuff and dream up ways to frighten my sisters. Chasing them with worms was a good one.

I was enrolled in the adventure of my life.

At first I was lead to believe it was going to be a fun thing with the opportunity to meet new people and friends, maybe making me more sociable as I was quiet child in a world of my own. I bought into this and showed up for the first day. It was great, lots of people all different shapes and sizes, so there we were all sitting around playing with stuff and one-upping on how my father is better than yours, especially at snooker. The chatter fell silent when along came this very tall white-haired lady with an incredibly loud voice. It was at this point I became suspicious as I had just watched Paths of Glory and A Bridge Too Far, I had seen how the enemy rounded up people and put them in trucks and brought to places, unfriendly places.....

We arrived at Sandycove harbour where we were lined up on the pier. I though this was it, we were then forced to line up at the steps and walk down into the freezing water fully clothed and flail around, there were guards (instructors we were led to believe) everywhere, and just to make sure the torture was effective they made us hold our heads under water for 30 minutes, well 30 seconds, but it felt like minutes. Then we were all forced to walk back to the NYC where our fate was to be determined. Freezing and scared, I was cursing my family and wondering what I had done to them.

He survived.....eventually Johnny Smullen became a keen Mirror dinghy sailor, but he was pessimistic enough to call his boat Splinter

We arrived back at Camp NYC and were lined up and made to wear large cumbersome protective coats, some were yellow, purple, some orange, I guessed they were labelling us, something to do with our religion. Some of these jackets had large protective collars probably to help protect us from the beatings to come, I thought. Our names were branded onto the “Life Jackets” as I started to call them, knowing they would play a key role in our protection.

We were divided into groups and lead away by the guards into this large damp room with arches and a dank smell of cotton, hemp and mould. This was where we were to remain for all the rainy days to be brain-washed, they started by teaching us knots. I was convinced this was going to be how to tie the very knot that would be the doom of us, I compared it to carrying the cross of Calvary. I decided then to be really bad at it in the hopes that one of my knots would slip open and I could dash to my freedom. We also had to jump up, and hand-over-hand along the light blue steel beam that ran across the dark room, this was to make our arms really strong, they had a plan for strong arms – I will tell you about that a little later.

Food consisted of a march up to Wimpeys for a spice burger and chips all drowned in vinegar to disguise the taste, if there was good behaviour we got to go to the Miami Café. The day was long (except Thursdays when we had to get out early) and after a week in Boot Camp we were all tired and weary. What had I done to my family to deserve this?

The second week came along and we were introduced to the ships, rather large wooden craft resembling a landing craft with the flat bow (I was always looking for the hinges). This is where the strong arms came into. We were grouped into six per team, and the guards waited until low tide when we had to carry the ship down a rickety wooden slip (there’s a reason for calling it a slip). Upon its surface there were large wooden rollers but we were forbidden to use those rollers, and to make sure they filed a fat spot on the rollers, deeming them useless. We picked up the incredible heavy boat, all six of us, one on each corner holding a knee, and two in the middle by the oar locks. Later I was to learn the place to be was up at the bow (by the door), it was lightest. I was adapting to this cruel camp. As we descended down to the icy water again fully clothed, we came across a bright green pungent slime. I had what I thought were special sailing shoes, but as soon as I touched the slime I was down. Down hard. The guards started yelling, I knew I had to get up quickly....remember Calvary!....We reached the bottom and stopped, the guards yelled again and made us wade right into the icy deep, still fully clothed. With the landing craft now floating, we had to master manoeuvring, the craft were lined up alongside the slippy slip, that’s the reason they call it a..................

I stepped on the gunwhale. Now at this point I did not understand the physics like I do today, and when you apply a load to any point of the gunwhale of a flat-bottomed craft two things will happen (once only). The opposing gunwhale will come up as you travel down, and because I am as tall as the craft is wide, somewhere in the middle he two surfaces will meet, your face and the opposing gunwhale. After the initial shock, the second shock comes from the icy cold water. Then I found out what the large collar was for as the guards hauled me out of the abyss semi-conscious. Once inside the craft, we were grouped into two and handed oars. Let the games begin.....

After a week of rowing and shipping oars and coming alongside we were all adapting well to boating, there’s nothing to it. Just as we are enjoying ourselves, we are reminded that this is a work camp with launch and retrieval exercise twice a day. The launch and retrieval is carefully timed at 6 and 12 hours intervals to make sure it was low tide and we’d the longest slimiest walk up the rickety slips, observed closely by the guards from the window of the snooker room glaring down at us. Boating is turning out to be challenging but fun, and the new friends are all pitching together to eventually plan an assault on the guards to free ourselves.

The third week came along and there were large wooden poles with white canvas and a stick with notches cut out of it, why on earth did they have to make it harder? It was perfectly simple with the clean decks and oars and oar locks, now the boats are so heavy with this rig up, my bow lifting position is not that smart as we carry down the slip with the sail pressed hard against my face. After countless days of theory brainwashing in the damp room, we have to pass a few tests to prove worthy to sail, if called upon, out to the US Aircraft Carrier John F Kennedy anchored out in Dublin Bay. The first test was to take the stick with the notches and stretch out the canvas and hook onto a rope loop, without falling over this was harder than carrying the feckin’ boat, the second was to line up two pins while hanging over the transom full of chips and spice burgers. If it had hair....

Most of us mastered that task after a few tries, and it wasn’t long before we were sailing out to the sterns of the ferry Hibernia or Cambria, whichever was in port at the time. This went on for a few weeks and as we settled into the routine it got easier as we went on.

During the time in the damp boathouse, usually when it was blowing dogs off chains outside and while I was trying to get the batteries out of the loudhailer, I noticed a beautiful varnished clinker planked boat, it was almost new, and a very wise man was looking after it. This Man was tough as the rivets holding it together and knew everything about the seas. I knew if I paid attention he would help get me through the summer, he did and he is almost responsible for what I do today. Thank you Jack!

The discipline of Boot Camp had turned us into great sailors, great card players, snooker players....it wasn’t until the third stage we found flagons. But not on the night of May 17th 1975, I was at home doing my homework that night....

Ah.....the memories, I hope I have stirred a few, it was the most wonderful time of my life and I wish I was there to get drunk with all of you and play cards till the wee hours, but meanwhile thanks

To Carmel, thank you very much; I always have my lifejacket.

To Jack Brennan, I am always thinking of you up there, and thanks for teaching me how to tie my shoelaces.

To all the instructors Paul, Ann, Jimmy, I never believed the story of the rabbit and the tree, but thanks anyway

And to all my dear family and friends

Lots of love, Johnny Smullen

PS It was me that stuck the coke bottle in the cannon at the front of the club....

Johnny Smullen and Dennis Conner inspect the hull of the 1925-built Cotton Blossom

Cotton Blossom II after restoration by Johnny Smullen

Inspired by Jack Brennan and other master craftsmen, Johnny has gone on to become a shipwright of such skill from his base in San Diego, California, that he in turn inspires others, one of his most famous projects being the complete restoration of the 49ft Q Class sloop Cotton Blossom II of 1925 vintage.

When a complete restoration is contemplated, Johnny doesn’t mess about. The word is that when he and Dennis turned up to finalise the deal on Cotton Blossom and bring her back to San Diego, they found the previous owners sorry enough to see her go, and rather proud of the style in which they’d maintained her. But after they’d gone to sort the details with the new owner, they went to take a last look at the boat. It’s said they found that Johnny had already delivered his opinion on the existing rig by cutting the shrouds and stays at the deck with bolt-croppers, and cutting the old mast off at deck level with a chainsaw.

Maybe that’s an apocryphal Johnny Smullen from taking delivery of another boat. Yet when you see Cotton Blossom in her restored form, it’s clear what Johnny says should indeed be Holy Writ. This is a project of world standard. But what’s even more remarkable is that despite everything the Sailing Boot Camp at the NYC might have inflicted on him all those year ago, Johnny’s love of boats and sailing is such that he has his own personal sweet classic, the lovely 36ft International One Design Altair. She’s sailed as often as possible, and though he can’t make it back to Dun Laoghaire next month for the Golden Jubilee as there’s very major project under way, Altair will be racing with the San Diego classics under the National Yacht Club burgee.

Johnny Smullen’s own pet boat Altair reveals his abiding love of sailing.
John Lavery’s father Arthur was another of those pioneering Optimist dads back in the late 1960s, and John and his sister Vivienne were both in that first batch of trainee sailors. He ended up winning championships in more classes then you could quickly count, but the peak of it all came in September 1995 when he and David O’Brien of this parish won the Fireball Worlds in Dublin Bay.

In fact, the graduates from 50 years of a junior training programme at the National YC can be found in successful positions in many boat classes in many places, but it is the club’s outgoing attitude to those who wish to learn to sail which deservedly provided its most outstanding success. A long time ago a Mrs MacAleavey, a widow with no sailing connections, was looking for a club which would make her increasingly boat-mad daughter Cathy – who had recently bought a clapped-out 420 – feel encouraged in any way to learn to sail. Despite the fact that it was still in process of recovering from a fire in the clubhouse, the NYC showed itself the most welcoming along the Dun Laoghaire waterfront, so much so that Mrs McAleavey felt sufficiently encouraged to buy her daughter a new 420, and that in turn led on eventually to Cathy representing Ireland in the women’s 470 in the 1988 Olympics.

The three children she had with husband Con Murphy went on to get their introduction to sailing through the National YC’s junior programme, and daughter Annalise emerged with the talent and the burning ambition which resulted in a heart-breaking fourth at the 2012 Olympics in the Women’s Laser Radial when a medal had seemid almost certainly within her grasp. But memories of that were entirely laid to rest with the Silver Medal in the 2016 Olympics Rio after a difficult final race in which the lone sailor seemed to stay as cool as you please, while the nation at home watched with bated breath.

The medal-winning moment as Annalise Murphy crosses the finish line in Rio to win Silver.

That it was ultimately a very personal achievement is something respected by her club, and they claim to have done nothing more than provide the first steps on the pathway, and a general spirit of encouragement. But nevertheless the success is all of a piece with the Golden Jubilee which will be celebrated on May 20th, and Carmel Winkelmann continues in her mission of providing a background of training for young sailors of all types, whether they aim only to be a competitive club sailor, or whether they aim for the ultimate heights.

Thus one of her projects in recent years was to find real support for young Finn Lynch, who had reached that difficult stage of being a top junior sailor, yet still had to find his feet as an adult. Thanks to support raised by Carmel, he became Ireland’s representative in the Men’s Lasers at Rio despite going through the final stages of the selection with a training injury recovery problem which may have had an adverse effect on his performance in as the youngest sailor in Rio, aged just 20.

Whether or not he would have been better off not being in Rio at all is neither here nor there. When you’re 20, four years can seem an appallingly long time. The Tokyo Olympics in 2020 must have seeemed aeons away for a young sailor who had shown many flashes of real talent. It was better for him to be in Rio while learning a lot, rather than kicking his heels in frustration in some dead end. And when he needed material help to see through the campaign, it was Carmel Winkelmann who was there to make to ensure that support was available. That will be something else for celebration on May 20th.

Carmel Winkelmann and Finn Lynch at the National Yacht Club, June 2016. Photo W M Nixon

#waterwag – Dublin Bay Sailing Club doyen Carmel Winkelmann officiated at the launch of the newest Water Wag dinghy, Mademoiselle, No. 46 on Sunday at the Royal Irish Yacht Club.

The new 12–foot clinker dinghy was built for Bay sailors Adam Winkelmann and Doug Smith. The boat was built in Skol Ar Mor, France.

The Water Wag is the oldest one design dinghy in existence, having been devised in 1886 and formalised as a one design class in Ireland in 1887. The design (last modified in 1900) is still sailed to this day on Dublin Bay and is one of the most popular dinghies sailed on the capital's waters recording some notable turnouts of late.

Immediately after the champagne launch ceremony, the Water Wag class held its annual picnic race (which has been running since 1887) with a pursuit down to Dalkey Island and back. An exciting race down to the Island with the end of the ebb tide. Mademoiselle led for most of the way but Mollie managed to overtake her coming into Dalkey sound, with David McFarland in third.

On the return home, No 1 Ethna sailed by Bill Nolan and Niamh Hooper led out of Dalkey sound, Moosmie had to go back as she was over the line but came steaming up the inside to take the win with Ethna 2nd and Mollie 3rd so taking the overall win!

The class thanks 'Thyme Out' and the Bretzel Bakery for sponsoring the fabulous lunch on Dalkey Island. Also our thanks to Brian and Anne Craig and Michael O'Leary for acting as mother ships, Dara, Caoimhe and Eddie Totterdell who had just got in from Greece at 4 in the morning from holidays and made it out drive a rib for us, also to Sandy Aplin who did a sterling job of ferrying us in an out of the Island.

Mademoiselle (above and below) led the Wags on their annual picnic race to Dalkey Island after her launch. Photos Owen McNally

The Wags moor up off Dalkey Island (above) and go ashore for a picnic Photos Owen McNally

Results;

1st Moosmie
2nd Mollie
3rd Mademoiselle
4th Ethna
5th Skee
6th Barbara
7th Coquette
8th Good Hope
9th Chloe