It's that time of year again when the 2015 season is confined to the history books and new dreams, hopes and goals are set for the new season. Those with new boats, new crews, those who have learned from previous mistakes are all positive and gun ho for the new season that started on Saturday in Dublin Bay. The Flying Fifteen fleet turned out in good numbers with 16 boats competing on the new Green course on a surprisingly cold and windy day. Race Officer Eddie Totterdell and his team on Freebird got in two races in a building breeze that cleared any early season blues and rustiness.

Last year’s series winners Mathews & Poole sported the new ‘leaders’ spinnaker but as in the cycling they were tucked away safely in the peloton. This was good news for the breakaway which included Gorman & Doorly, new member to the fleet Neil Colin, Mulvin & Beirne and Green & McNeilly.

Race 1: the tide was coming in and the wind from the west was a good force three, there was a shift in the wind direction just before the start which made the pin end less bias. The boats at the pin headed towards the shore, Gorman didn’t go so far in but it was close with Gorman leading at the mark from Green and Mulvin close behind. The second beat was the defining leg of the race. Gorman was in tune with the shifts and increased his lead, Mathews and Gerry Ryan ( in his beautiful new boat) went right- not the correct thing with the forecast for the wind to shift to the sw! Neil Colin & Margaret in Deranged had done their homework and went hard left to come in to the weather mark in second place behind Gorman.

Gorman stayed ahead to win the race but on the last run there were some changes. The Meaghers came storming through to move up to second, Colin dropped back as did Green but on the final reach to the line after the gate Mulvin managed to pass the Meaghers to take second place with the Meaghers finishing third –  it was all very close-great racing!

For Race 2 the winds had shifted to the sw (as forecasted) and the course had to be re set, there was a strong wind now of over 20knots but it eased slightly just before the start. For the first race of the year Gorman & Doorly showed that they were not so rusty and got a good start on port at the pin crossing the fleet to lead all the way. Behind Green was going well with Mulvin and Mathews in close attendance. The Cahill brothers and Coughlan & Marshall were also going well. There were not so many changes in in this windward leeward course as the left side was always the favoured side with this wind direction. Gorman was first to complete a double for the day, Green was an excellent second followed closely by the Yellow Spinnaker Mathews

Thanks to the PRO and his team. It was the first Saturday on the Green course mixing different size boats, it worked reasonable well but when more numbers are out the triangle outer lap may have to be brought in for better separation. This Thursday the DBSC series continues and Neil Coleman will be sporting the Yellow Spinaker!

The Mitsubishi Motors sponsored Dun Laoghaire Flying Fifteen fleet has introduced a new initiative for the 2016 Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) racing season that starts in two weeks time. With a nod to The Tour De France, the lead boat in the DBSC series will fly the eye catching yellow spinnaker donated by the fleet sponsor.

The use of the trophy spinnaker will be spread among the gold, silver and bronze fleet during the season. Last season's winners Niall Coleman & Michael Quinn (Thursdays) and Ian Mathews & Keith Poole (Saturdays) will start with the new spinnaker in the first race on Thursday, April 28th.

The Flying Fifteen & friends annual dinner and prize giving took place at the National Yacht Club at the weekend. The class mustered over 90 for dinner with piano accompaniment Terry Brown who generously provided his talents for a donation by the class to the Dun Laoghaire Lifeboat.
Class Captain Ronan Beirne welcomed the guest of Honour Winkie Nixon of Afloat.ie, Georgina Nixon, Larry Power Commodore of the host club and Commodore Pat Shannon of Dublin Bay Sailing Club. The Captain thanked the Clubs for their support and Mitsubishi Motors for their sponsorship of the class.

In between courses class members gave a short presentation on the fleets activities in the year. Alan Dooley reviewed a busy year with his “flying fifteen health check” resumé. Chris Doorly presented his “Magic Moments” as crew with David Gorman while winning the Championship of Ireland, The Northern and Southern Championships. Alan Green reported on the Worlds in France where he attained a place on the podium with third place.

Flying fifteen champions David Gorman and Chris Doorly

David Mulvin recounted on “The Road to Rhu” and the British Championships which took place on the Clyde.
The guest of Honour Winkie Nixon of “Afloat” gave a most entertaining and informative talk on the talents and life of flying fifteen designer “Uffa Fox”. In addition to the Fifteen he recalled the many other yachts from the board of Fox including the flying thirty five “flying Fox” formerly of the National Yacht Club.
The prize giving was organised by Frank Burgess where some twenty trophies and thirty class medals and six ISA medals were presented. The top class trophy the Championship of Ireland which winners David Gorman and Chris Doorly presented to Larry Power Commodore of the National Yacht Club for safe keeping. The top Dun Laoghaire class trophy the “Heineken Plate” for the best combined Saturday & Thursday results was presented to David Mulvin.
The evening’s formal proceedings concluded with Ronan Beirne passing on the Class Captains Cap to the new Class Captain Joe Coughlan.

Sixteen Flying Fifteen’s took part in Saturday's racing on Dublin Bay where there was drama on the water when Joe Coughlin’s crew Ed Ruane had to be taken from the boat with a dislocated shoulder. The drama unfolded on the reach in Race 2 when Joe himself fell overboard leaving Ed to fend for himself with the spinaker still up in a force 4! In trying to take control pulling halyards his arm suddenly got pulled causing his shoulder to pop out causing excruciating pain. As this happened the alert rib crew of Mark and Cian had Joe in the rib and put him on the Fifteen, it was only then that they realised Ed was in trouble, with a careful transfer to the rib he was brought ashore where the NYC boatmen looked after him till the ambulance arrived and took him to hospital. The good news is that he is now recovering, we look forward to welcoming him back when we resume sailing in April.

There were three races, all of which were won by guest helm Sean Craig and Alan Green in Frequent Flyer. PRO Ian Mathews and his team provided great racing in fantastic conditions, more akin to a summer’s day than November! Overall David Mulvin & Ronan Beirne had to have three reasonable results to take the 9 race series. This they did with consistant results with a 3, 3 and 4. Sean and Alan didn’t have it all their own way and racing was close. In race one Ken & Ben were going well along with the Meaghers. In race 2 the Meagher’s led the way only for spinnaker troubles to undo their good work. In Race 3  Sean had a more comfortable race as fatigue set in after a tough days sailing, Tom Murphy was second with Ken & Ben third. Others sailing well were Adrian Cooper and the Cronin’s.

Overall it was a close affair for the podium places Alan Dooley with Joe Hickey were second overall and Niall and Nicki Meagher third on equal points with John McAree & Ben Mulligan. Thanks again to Ian Mathews and his team and Michael Campbell for the use of his boat. Its now time to put the boats away for the winter in what was an exciting season, with great turnouts for competitive racing.

Dublin Bay Saturday series was won by Ian Mathews & Keith Poole in the Gruffalo, Thursdays was won by Niall Colman & Mick Quinn. At regional level the Dublin fleet did well also,  the Lough Derg Keelboat Regatta was won David Mulvin & Ronan Beirne, The East Coast championships were won by UK helm Charles Apthorp with Alan Green crewing and in what can only be described as a very successful season. Dave Gorman & Chris Doorly won the South Coast, the Northern Championships along with the  Championships of Ireland.

Meanwhile there will be a second meeting after the formalities of this week's Dublin Bay agm to discuss FF racing for 2016 in the Bay. The class Annual Dinner is on Saturday, 21st November.

The Flying Fifteen Frostbite series continued with a great turnout of 16 boats after the break last week for the Lough Derg Keelboat Regatta. Race officer Ian Mathews and his team got two races completed in a building NW wind that touched on 28–knots at one stage during race 2.

Race 1 got going at first time of asking, the line was reasonably square but those who started at the pin end and went in towards the shore came out best at the weather mark after a nice lift up towards the weather mark, McCambridge with Andrew Marshal crewing led the way from Fraser Mitchel & Peter Murphy with the Meaghers, Dooley and O’Neill just behind. This is how it stayed but on the reach of the second lap a valuable lesson was about to be learned.

The two lead boats were vying with each other in a luffing match as they approached the gybe mark. McCambridge luffed up to protect his position but Mitchel kept at him and up and up they went. Rumour has it they touched but no turns were done- we wonder why? Meanwhile as the fleet saw what was happening and the Meaghers quietly went through to take the lead, a lead they kept to the end.

On the next beat McCambridge got back to second place, downwind on the last run was exciting with the wind now up at 20knots, McCambridge was unfortunate as his gooseneck at the boom broke and his race was over. The Meaghers won, with Fraser second, O’Rourke third and the Cahills fourth.

For Race 2 the wind was really up, some boats headed in so only 10 started. Johnny O’Rourke, guesting instead of David Mulvin, and with Ronan Beirne crewing led most of the way but at the last leeward mark they headed up to do another beat, but the blue flag was on the committee boat signalling the finish line, this allowed Murphy to slip in and finish in first place, with O’Rourke second and Colman & Quinn third with the Meaghers fourth.

There are two more weekends of the series left and David Mulvin & Ronan Beirne lead the way from Niall & Nicki Meagher with Alan Dooley & Joe Hickey third and Ben Mulligan & John McAree fourth.

Ignis Caput sailed by National Yacht Club pairing David Mulvin and Ronan Beirne were overall winners of the Flying Fifteen end of season keelboat regatta sailed at Lough Derg Yacht Club in Tipperary today. Second were Dun Laoghaire club–mates Niall Meagher and Keith Poole with County Antrim's Brian Willis and John McPeake third in the six boat fleet. Full results downloadable below.

Dave Gorman and Chris Doorly of the National Yacht Club are our “Sailors of the Month” for September on the basis of a great half hour or so of sailing in Dublin Bay on the morning of Sunday 13th September.

Anyone who read Chris Doorly’s riveting account on Afloat.ie of the penultimate race of the Mitsubishi Motors Flying Fifteen Championship, and has raced a sailing boat at any level – whether local, regional, national or international – will have identified totally with this dedicated duo as they sailed their hearts out. And they did it all just to secure a third place, in order to put themselves in the happy position of knowing they were champions without having to sail the last race.

It would be quite something in a club race or a major regatta series. But this was the big one, the Irish Championship with visiting superstar Steve Goacher – three times World Champion – expected to sweep the board. And even if he was off form – which he wasn’t - the class in Dun Laoghaire is now in such vibrant condition, and growing, that the lively home fleet was putting up half a dozen crews who were in there with more than a shout.

But Chris and Dave did it. And being proper sportsmen, they stil sailed the last race anyway, but the fact that they were able to discard the fourth place it provided shows the kind of form they’d been in throughout the championship.

It cannot be said too often that winning a series is more a matter of solid consistency than occasional flashes of total brilliance. In the end, though, it can all come down to something so mundane as securing a third place at just the right time. But as Dave and Chris had been lying sixth until they realized the need to up their game, and saw a way of doing so, what they achieved is something we can all identify with, making them ideal “Sailors of the Month”.

It’s for days like this that we sail Flying Fifteens on Dublin Bay, a sunny warm afternoon with a nice force 3/4 from the SE on excellent courses set by Suzanne McGarry and her team on Freebird. There were two races, the first won by Ian Mathews & Keith Poole in Gruffalo and the second won by Chris Doorly & Alan Green in Frequent Flyer.

It was the last Saturday of the DBSC summer series and the thirteen boats that turned out enjoyed great conditions and close racing. Coughlin & Marshal were in great form sailing particularly well having two thirds.

In Race 1 Mathews was out of the blocks quickly and led all the way, Doorly & Green were second close behind and chased Mathews all the way, these two extended their lead, behind it was a closer affair but Coughlin & Marshal managed to pull ahead of the Cahills to take third place. It was not a very shifty day so places tended to stay as they were over the four laps.

In Race 2 the line was square, most boats headed in to the right, Green helming this race, went more left out to sea hoping for more wind, it was close at the weather mark but Mathews coming from the right got the lead, Green was second followed closely by Coughlin and the Meaghers. Green and Mathews pulled ahead and Green got close on the second beat tacked inside Mathews to take advantage of one of the few shifts of the day to close the gap. On the last beat Mathews outhaul came undone, he managed to half fix it but Green took advantage and just nipped it on the line. Behind Coughlin and the Meaghers were having a great ding dong sail but Coughlin got into third.

It was great to see so many boats out racing, the turn outs this season has been fantastic. Thanks must go to Ronan Beirne and his committee for encouraging people to get out even it is isn’t with their usual crew or helm. Next week the NYC Frostbite Series starts and will continue into November.

The class travels to Lough Derg in October for the Western Championships. While other classes fold up their sails the flying fifteen class have two more events!

Results of the final DBSC 2015 race are here

As we near the end of the traditional sailing season, inevitably there’ll be heart-searching among boat owners as to the success and value obtained from their summer afloat – can they really justify the expense of continuing to keep a boat? And with so many imponderables in our sport after a summer which was decidedly mixed in its weather - to say the least - the larger sailing community will be scrutinising those classes which seem to be barely hanging in, those classes which are doing quite well, and those few classes which are spectacularly successful. W M Nixon takes a look at the International Dragons in Glandore, the Flying Fifteens in Dun Laoghaire, and the Puppeteer 22s in Howth to try and find that magic Ingredient X which helps - or has helped - these three very different examples to stay ahead of the game.

The wish to own a boat is a vocation, a calling, a quasi-religious emotional endeavour. It’s all very well for high-flown consultants to tell us that if sailing is going to have general appeal and expand, then publicly-accessed freely-available try-a-sail boats will have to be based at every major club. But dedicated sailors know that what comes easy, goes easy. A spell of bad weather, and your jolly public groups who turned up in droves for a bit of free fun afloat will disappear like the will-o’-the-wisps they were in the first place, seeking instead to find somewhere warm and bright and out of the rain and readily providing the latest novel form of entertainment.  

Meanwhile, those who are dyed-in-the-wool boat addicts will have barely noticed the idly-interested strangers coming and going. For whatever the weather, they’ve a boat to maintain, gear to repair, a crew to keep together, and some sensible purpose to find in order to give it all deeper meaning. For they know that unless they’ve a boat and her problems and possibilities occupying a significant part of their mind, they’re going to lose the plot completely.

Nevertheless, in the huge spectrum of boat ownership and sailing classes, why is there so much difference in the successful buzz created by some classes at certain localities, as opposed to the dull and declining murmur emanating from classes which are clearly on the way out?

After all, there are very few utterly awful boats afloat. No boat is completely perfect, though some may seem less imperfect than others. But in today’s throwaway world, if some class of boat is not a reasonably good representative of her general type, then she’ll never make the grade in the first place. And even in times past when news and views moved more slowly, the word soon got around if some much-touted type of boat was in truth a woofer.

Flying Fifteens provide the best of sport in a very manageable two-man package

The perfect harbour for vintage International Dragons – Glandore, with a goodly selection of classics in port, and Dragons of all ages dotted among them

That said, boat-owning is such an all-consuming passion that once a sailor has finally (or indeed hastily) committed to a particular boat type, then he or she will tend to be absurdly dismissive of any remotely comparable craft. But in the last analysis, the desire to own a boat is irrational. So we shouldn’t be surprised that once the decision is made, irrational attitudes manifest themselves in every direction. 

And anyway, as John Maynard Keynes once remarked in a totally different context, in the last analysis we are all dead. So in the meantime, it behoves us to get as much reasonable enjoyment out of life as possible. Thus if owning and sailing a boat is your way of obtaining pleasure without harming anyone else, then good luck to you and me, and let’s look together at boat classes which are doing the business.

In considering the International Dragons in Glandore, the International Flying Fifteens in Dun Laoghaire, and the emphatically not-international Puppeteer 22s in Howth, we are indeed casting the net wide, for really they couldn’t be more different. The 29ft International Dragon originated in the late 1920s from the design board of Johan Anker of Norway, and she has become a by-word for Scandinavian elegance in yacht design, but today she’s totally a racing machine and has strayed far from her original concept as a weekend cruiser for sheltered waters.

Golden days of classic Dragon racing at Glandore

As for the Flying Fifteen, they originated from designer Uffa Fox having a brainstorm in 1947, in that he took the underwater hull section of the renowned International 14 dinghy in which he was something of a master both as designer and sailor, but above the waterline he drew out the bow to an elegant curved stem, then he lengthened the gentle counter lines to finish in a long sawn-off transom. That done, he added a little hyper-hydrodynamic bulb ballast keel which seemed very trendy, but in truth it’s severely lacking in useful lateral resistance. Nevertheless it gives the boat the reassuring feel of being a small keelboat rather than a big dinghy, and atop it all he put the rig of an International 14 dinghy of that era.

The clean lines of a modern Flying Fifteen fleet. Try to imagine that within each hull there’s an International 14 dinghy, and above it is the original rig

The result was a boat which is really only useful for racing, and it is a design so much of its times that it’s said that many years later the designer himself tried to disown it. But the owners would have nothing to do with this, they liked the compact and very manageable racing-only package which the Flying Fifteen provides, and these days the class has an interesting world spread, and an attractive policy of staging their World Championships at agreeable sunshine destinations where – thanks to their guaranteed ability to turn up with a fleet of viable size – they can arrange block discounts to provide the owners with a very appealing package.

After the sheer internationality of the Dragons and the Flying Fifteens, the Puppeteer 22s are something of a culture shock, as almost every one in existence has ended up based in Howth, where they have such a busy club programme that they only very seldom go south of the Baily, though they do have one annual adventure to Malahide for the Gibney Classic, and once a year they take part in the historic Lambay Race. But otherwise, they’re totally and intensely focused on club racing off Howth.

The Puppeteer 22s seldom stray far from their home port of Howth, for at home they get superbly close racing with a fleet of up to 26 boats in evening racing. This is former ISA President Neil Murphy racing hard at the helm of Yellow Peril, neck and neck with Alan Pearson’s Trick or Treat. Photo: W M Nixon

They were designed by Chris Boyd of Strangford Lough in the mid 1970s to be fractionally-rigged mini-offshore racers, and in all about thirty-three of the Puppeteer 22s were built by C & S Boyd in Killyleagh (Sarah was Chris’s wife). For a while it looked as though they might take off as a semi-offshore One Design class in the north, but somehow they began to trickle down to Howth. They appealed to those sailors who felt that the alternative of a Ruffian 23 with her huge masthead spinnaker was a little too demanding on crews, whereas the Puppeteer’s fractional rig is fairly easily managed. And today the class in Howth is in such good health that even in the poor weather of 2015 they were obtaining regular midweek evening racing best turnouts of up to 26 boats.

Obviously the Puppeteer 22s are now very much a completely localised phenomenom. But while the Flying Fifteens in Dun Laoghaire and the Dragons in Glandore may be representatives of well-established international classes, the fact is in both cases their neighbourhood success is largely due to a distinct local flavour driven by individual enthusiasm. And in Glandore while it’s recognized that the vintage Dragon class was started by Kieran and Don O’Donohue with the classics Pan and Fafner, the man who beats the drum these days for the racing at Glandore as providing “the best and cheapest Dragon racing in the world” is the inimitable Don Street.

Most people will expect that they will be slightly older than the boats they own, and the older you get the greater you’d expect the age gap to be. But Don’s classic Dragon Gypsy is 82 years old. Yet Don himself manages to be that proper little bit senior to her, as he’s 85 and still full of whatever and vinegar, as they’d say in his native New England.

The one and only Don Street in his beloved Glandore. His International Dragon Gypsy is 82 years old, but he still manages to be the senior partner at 85.

Conditions are pleasantly sheltered for the Dragons in Glandore Harbour, but when the fleet goes offshore – as seen here for last year’s championship - they can find all the breeze and lively sea they might want, and more.

The things that Don has done with Gypsy – between intervals of the renowned ocean voyaging with his 1905-built yawl Iolaire which he has now sold – are remarkable, as he sailed Gypsy from Glandore to the classic regatta in Brittany, which is a prodigious offshore passage for an open cockpit racing boat along what the rest of the world would see as significant portions of the most exposed parts of the Fastnet Race course.

Yet although he did such wonderful business with Gypsy on great waters, he has no doubt that the secret of Glandore Dragon racing’s local success is the sheer nearness and convenience of it all. “Down to the pier and out to the boat in five minutes, the starting line is right there, and we don’t race those boring windward-leewards, rather we use club buoys, government navigation marks, islands - and lots of rocks……”

His argument is that with lovely Glandore Harbour being such an fascinating piece of sailing water, part of the interest in keeping up the pace in a local class lies in using those local features, rather than pretending they simply don’t exist by setting courses clear of the land. But of course when the Glandore fleet – which continues as a mix of classic wooden and glassfibre boats – hosts a major event such as last year’s Nationals – which was won by Andrew Craig of Dun Laoghaire in Chimaera – then the courses are set in open water, and they’d some spectacular sailing with it.

In many ways Glandore is a special case, as the population swells in summer with people coming for extended vacations. When that’s the case, their commitment to local Dragon racing can be total, and not least of the occasional local summertime alumni is the great Lawrie Smith. He may have won the Dragon Gold Cup from a fleet of 66 boats last month in Germany under the burgee of another club, but when he’s racing Dragons in Ireland, he’s emphatically under the colours of Glandore Harbour Yacht Club.

Despite these glamorous international links, it’s the folk on the home ground with their dedication to the Dragon Class in Glandore who keep it all going, and it’s Don Street with his dogged determination to prove you can run a Dragon out of pocket money, regardless of the megabucks some might be ready to splash out, which gives the Glandore Dragons that extra something. And in the end it’s all about people, and shared enthusiasm. If you’ve a warm feeling about the Dragon class, and particularly for classic boats in it, then you know that in Glandore you’ll find fellow enthusiasts and every encouragement.

But up in Dun Laoghaire, if you take a look over the granite wall on to the east boat park at the National Yacht Club in summer, and see there the serried ranks of apparently totally identical Flying Fifteens all neatly lined up on their trailers, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s all just ever so slightly clinical, and certainly distinctly impersonal.

Just about as one design as they could be – the fine fleet at last weekend’s Flying Fifteen Irish Championship in Dublin Bay showed the vigour of the class, which has 47 ranked helmsmen in this country.

Yet you couldn’t be more utterly wrong. Today’s Flying Fifteens may have been technically refined to the ultimate degree to give maximum sport for the minimum of hassle. But their current runaway success – they’re far and away the biggest keelboat One Design class in Dublin Bay – is down to a friendly and very active local class association, and its readiness to reach out the hand of friendship and encouragement to anyone who might be thinking of joining the class’s ranks. 

Recently the pace has been set by class captain Ronan Beirne, who recognises that simply announcing and advertising an event is not enough. You have to chivvy people and encourage them into their sailing – particularly after a summer remembered as having had bad weather – and then far from sitting back and smugly counting numbers, you have to keep at it, seeing that crewing gaps are filled, and that those on the fringes are brought to the centre.

The Flying Fifteens – which are essentially a National YC class – offer exceptional value and a very manageable package. The boats are dry-sailed in their road trailers, and instead of queuing for a crane, they have a rapid rota of slip-launching, with the expectation of renewing the wheel bearings each year. Salt water and road trailers are not good partners, but in order to ensure the most efficient launching and retrieval of the boats after each day’s racing, replacing wheel bearings has become something of an art.

The class in Dun Laoghaire secured good sponsorship from Mitsubishi Motors at the beginning of the year, and the sponsors in turn have been rewarded by a thriving class in which inter-personal friendships have developed to such a healthy state that you might find people crewing for someone who would be a complete and untouchable rival at other times in many other classes, but in the Dun Laoghaire Flying Fifteens he’s a fellow enthusiast who happens to be short of a crew on that day.   

One of the enthusiastic newcomers to the class this year is Brian O’Neill, who originally hailed from Malahide and was best known for campaigning the family’s Impala 28 Wild Mustard with great success for several years, but now he’s very much a family man living in Dun Laoghaire with three growing kids, and sailing had gone on to the back burner.

Charlie O’Neill (aged 7) at Strangford SC with dad Brian’s newly acquired Flying Fifteen. Under the rapid moving launching system at the National YC, the dry-sailed Flying Fifteens use their road trailers to get the boats afloat in record time. The need for regular replacement of the wheel bearings is allowed for in each boat’s budget. Photo: Brian O’Neill

But as the National YC is just down the road from where he lives, he was drawn into its welcoming ambience, and soon became aware of the attractive and friendly package offered within the club by the Flying Fifteens. He bought one in good order from an owner at Strangford Sailing Club in the Spring, and was soon in the midst of it. Yet it takes up only a very manageable amount of his time, it simply couldn’t be more convenient, and the people are just great too.

Who knows, but having won the class’s last evening race of the 2015 season, he might even be prepared to travel to maybe one event at another venue in Ireland. But the primary attraction continues to be the class’s strong local ethos and ready racing at the National, the friendliness of fellow Flying Fifteen sailors, and the sheer manageability of the whole thing – this is not a boat where the ownership gets on top of you.  

If you want to get the flavour of Dun Laoghaire Flying Fifteen racing, you get a heightened sense of it from the report in Afloat.ie of how David Gorman and Chris Doorly won last weekend’s Irish championship in classic style, and if this isn’t good value in sailing and personal boat ownership, then I don’t know what is.

Across Dublin Bay in those misty waters of Fingal beyond the Baily, your correspondent found himself reporting aboard Alan “Algy” Pearson’s Puppeteer 22 Trick or Treat last Saturday for the opening race of the MSL Park Motors Autumn League. I did so with some trepidation, for Alan has a super young crew recruited from Sutton Dinghy Club in the form of GP14 ace Alan Blay, Ryan Sinnott and Claud Mollard, but our cheerful skipper said that as the day was brisk, they needed the fifth on board for ballast.

In fact, I’d only once raced a Puppeteer before, in the lightest of winds when somehow we managed a win. But as this race progressed with the skipper and his young tacticians making a perfect call for the long beat in a good long course which made full use of the splendid sailing waters north of Howth, by the last leg after many place changes it looked as though another win might be on the cards.

Action stations. Puppeteer 22s closing in for their start. Photo: W M Nixon

At mid-race, Gold Dust led narrowly from Yellow Peril, but by the start of the last beat, Trick or Treat was leading from Gold Dust with Yellow Peril third. Photo: W M Nixon

In the MSL Park Motors Autumn League, the mix of classes can sometimes make for interesting situations. Having out-gybed Gold Dust, Yellow Peril is ploughing towards some biggies on another course altogether, and meanwhile there’s the inevitable lobster pot lurking on the way with just one tiny white marker buoy. Photo: W M Nixon

Algy Pearson’s Trick or Treat giving Yellow Peril a hard time to snatch the lead, which she then increased with a cleverly-read long beat. Photo: W M Nixon

But the pace in the Puppeteers is ferocious, and though we’d got a bit of a gap between Trick and former IDRA 14 empress Scorie Walls in Gold Dust, one sneeze from us and Gold Dust would pounce, and alas - we sneezed.

As long as we were carrying the no 2 headsail (what I’d call the working jib) we were level pegging with the formidable Walls-Browne team. But Gold Dust has a lovely new suit of sails (nice ones, Prof), and when the easing wind meant we’d to change up to the genoa, it emerged as a sail of a certain age, and having it set sapped our confidence.

It looked for a while as though Gold Dust (254) had been put fairly comfortably astern……..Photo: W M Nixon

……but an easing of the wind saw Gold Dust finding new speed, and with perfect tactics she was right there with just a hundred metres to go to the finish. Photo: W M Nixon

Until then, the boat had been sailed magnificently, tactics right, trim right, and throwing gybes with such style that the downwind pace never missed a beat. But trying to get that genoa right was a mild distraction, so when Scorie the Queen of the Nile came round the final mark to chase us up the last beat to weather Ireland’s Eye, we’d failed to throw a precautionary tack to keep a loose cover, and suddenly as she rounded she found a local favourable but brief shift of 15 to 20 degrees, and then it was all to play for.

Dissecting it all afterwards (you’ll gather it was a post mortem), we could see two places where we might have still saved the day, but we didn’t grab them, or maybe in truth they were beyond our reach. Whatever, Gold Dust was in the groove and we weren’t. Madam beat us by three seconds. But the banter afterwards and the evidence that Puppeteer people – owners and crews alike – move happily among boats to keep turnout numbers up, was ample proof that here was another truly community based class which perfectly meets a strong local need.

That winning feeling…..Gold Dust’s crew relax after taking first by three seconds. Photo: W M Nixon

The Howth experience. Howth YC Commodore Brian Turvey heads back to port after racing the MSL Autumn League with the Howth 17 Isobel which he co-owns with his brother Conor. Photo: W M Nixon

It had been a great day’s sport, and the Puppeteers being of an age and regularly turning out to race together, they run both a scratch and a handicap system, which is a great improver of local classes – after all, where would golf be without handicaps? 

It shows how well Gold Dust has been going this year that her rating is such that we beat her on handicap by one minute and 19 seconds, but we in turn, having been second on scratch, were fourth on handicap, where the winner was the O’Reilly/McDyer team with Geppeto.

Forty years after they first appeared, the Puppeteer 22s are giving better sport than ever, but in a very local context rather than on the bigger stage that might have been anticipated. Yet for their current owners, they do the business and then some. For most folk, this is sailing as it should be. And as to this longterm success of classes which continue to thrive whether they come from a local, national or international background, certainly the quality of the boats is important to some extent. But mostly, it’s the people involved, and their realization that you’ll only get as much out of sailing as you put into it.

A super crew. Aboard Trick or Treat after racing are (left to right) Alan Blay, Ryan Sinnott, Alan Pearson and Claud Mollard. Photo: W M Nixon

Local man, local boat. Algy Pearson with his Puppeteer 22 Trick or Treat. The Pearsons have been sailng from Howth for three generations. Photo: W M Nixon

As Afloat.ie reported on Sunday, David Gorman and Chris Doorly of the National Yacht Club won the 32–boat Mitsubishi Motors Flying Fifteen Championships of Ireland at the weekend beating a visiting triple world champion in the process. Here Chris Doorly describes how the cup was won.

The Notice of Race for National Championships should carry a health warning, both for physical and mental well being! Going up the last beat of Race 6 on Sunday morning we were in sixth place, we needed to be third to win the event and avoid sailing the last race (quiet a luxury really!) The legs were burning, the wind was fickle and the mind was playing games on us, were we going to lose out and leave it all to the last race?

The 32–boat championship fleet start race five

It was not a pleasant thought, patience and calmness were the order of the day, we checked in with our inner mind and settled down to just do what we always do, stick to the process just like the rugby lads! Soon after the leeward gate we got past Brian O’Neill and then Tom Murphy, up to fourth, would it be enough, Dave thought it might be. Last year’s winners Andy and Dougie were in good form today and it was far from a given that we would pass them.
As we approached the weather mark Steve Goacher was leading followed by Sean Craig, we watched the water for pressure it was now light in most places, where would the wind come from next? we saw texture on the water to the right and noticed Steve had a bit more pressure, also at the right as he rounded the mark, we took the risk and went in on port to the right side, on the lay line we tacked and we crossed the lads, third place! Downwind the wind was still light and all over the place, it was a long 1.2 miles to the gate and finish! There was total concentration on the spinnaker. We stayed close to them deliberately, or were they staying close to us waiting to pounce? We just managed to stay ahead gybing at the leeward mark on the inside and crossing the line in third, we had done it! There was great delight on board so much so that some on the committee boat were wondering why we were celebrating after getting third in a race!

Steve Goacher and Martin Grady prepare for a hoist

It was a three day event with racing starting on Friday, we like the three day events as we tend to go well in all conditions and are not heavy or light weather specialists. In the build up we would have been considered one of the favourites, a tag that means very little in sailing, but with the entry of Steve Goacher and Sean Craig our expectations were dampened but we were determined to give it our best shot.

There was a severe weather forecast for Saturday in particular and it was blowing over 20knots on Friday at the briefing. International race officer Jack Roy and his team put on three races on Friday in case Saturday got cancelled. On the water the 20knots had disappeared and Jack put up the AP. Eventually we got going, there was a general recall on the first start but on the restart the pin was biased and we nailed it, this was critical as the boats at the pin end were the lead boats for the race, Steve led the way at the weather mark and to our surprise we passed him downwind just before the gate, our joy and confidence boost were short lived as the tide pushed us up against the mark and we had to do our turns, we carried on finishing second to Steve with Brian Willis third and Sean Craig fourth, it was good to start with a counter.

Sean Craig and Alan Green finished third overall

In racing you need a little luck, in race 2 in light conditions we finished second as we were out on what ended up the favoured left side, some would call it the windier side, with Sean Craig who won the race, Steve was on the right and got caught out to finish seventh. Similarly in Race 5 on Saturday in the westerly winds we had spotted wind on the right and got a fantastic 20 degree lift up to the mark as our competitors were on the left side, we went on to win this Race while Sean was fourth and Steve fifth. In saying that we aware that while left into the shore generally pays it was not always the case and our eyes were scanning the course for wind. On Saturday night we had a four point lead but from previous experience we knew that it may not be enough but were delighted to be in the lead and in contention.

Roll on race six on Sunday where we managed the required third place to take the cup back to the National Yacht Club. Race seven was windier with some exhilarating downwind sailing to round of a fantastic weekend of sailing. Again Goacher and Craig didn’t have it all their own way as local boys Ian Mathews & Keith Poole and last years champions Andy McCleery & Colin Dougan took off to be first and second with Steve third, Sean piped us on the line to take fourth place but this was to be our discard.

Thanks to Jack Roy and his race team, the race office, the National Yacht Club and to the local class captain Ronan Beirne along with all the competitors who all did a great job ensuring the success of this event.