The vast majority of club sailing enthusiasts need never trouble themselves with the ins and outs of the various levels and definitions of Corinthian and Amateur sailing. It’s basically simple enough at our home-port level. Most Corinthians pay to sail, one way or another, while Pros get paid, and that’s about the height of it.
It remains so for race-winning Corinthians even if their personal outgoings are minimal, as can be the case with a generous skipper who covers some expenses and rewards success with celebratory dinners at his or her expense. That said, one could imagine those boats that have been beaten beginning to grumble about “benefits in kind”.
MARINE INDUSTRY POSITIONS
We don’t have space here to refer to the various paid positions within the marine industry - in all its permutations - that can result in a sailor being defined as some grade of professional. All we know is that when a preliminary list was first published quite a few years back now, “Sailing Journalist” wasn’t on it. We didn’t feel too badly about that, or pretended not to, even when there were those who sardonically opined that any boat carrying a sailing hack in the crew deserved to have her handicap figure beneficially adjusted downwards.
Amateur Triumph: Ireland’s all-Corinthian J/24 Headcase holds off the professionally raced Japanese entry Gecko in testing Port Phillip Bay conditions to retain the world title won in Plymouth in 2025.
CHEERING REASON
Be that as it may, the Corinthian/Professional situation is now top of the agenda for both cheering and bothersome reasons. The cheering reason is that out in Australia, the wonderful all-Ireland crew of the successfully-defending J/24 World Champion Headcase were rated as a Corinthian entry, and here’s to Cillian Dickson of Lough Ree YC, Ryan Glynn of Ballyholme YC, Louis Mulloy and Marcus Ryan of Mayo SC, and Sam O’Byrne of Howth YC for this magnificent achievement.
Men in Black: Headcase’s crew take in their overall world championship victory, secured in the final race in Melbourne.
Their success is put in perspective when we consider that the hot fleet of 37 boats from ten nations had 13 boats which were rated as Professionals. Yet while Headcase may have won by a clear 12 points from the highly favoured Australian pros in Checkmate, the next best placed Corinthians were way down the line at eighth. It was a refreshingly clearcut outcome which makes the next aspect of the topic seem even more bothersome.
CORINTHIAN ADMIRALS CUP
The bothersome - or more likely bewildering - aspect of the pro-am situation is the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s announcement of a Corinthian Admirals Cup as part of the 2027 staging within what - for better or worse - has become thought of as the World Championship of Offshore Racing.
Amateur Era: Denis Doyle’s Robert Clark-designed, Crosshaven-built 47ft Moonduster races for Ireland in the 1969 Admiral’s Cup, when amateur sportsmen sailed alongside any professional “paid hands”. Photo: Cork Examiner
The 1957-established series was re-born for the RORC Centenary in 2025 by the simple expedient of taking entries for two-boat teams from clubs rather than nations, as successful clubs can move much more quickly with less restriction than cumbersome National Authorities. The championship completed, all theoretically then becomes sweetness and light with the winning nation being the country in which the winning club has its home base, thus making Monte Carlo and the Monaco YC the current holders from 2025’s contest.
SKIERS TO WIN ADMIRALS CUP?
Consequently, we are looking forward to Switzerland becoming the holders in due course, with their victory being achieved by boats financed by members of the Gstaad Yacht Club. It’s noted as a club of primarily ski-ing enthusiasts who hold their annual regatta at St Tropez, as one does, with a special award for the best-placed newly-arrived Centenarians. These in 2026 included the 70ft Fife cutter Hallowe’en, for long a feature of the Royal Irish YC, and line honours winner when fresh out of the wrappings in the 1926 Fastnet Race.
Centenary Classic: The Fife cutter Hallowe’en (foreground), long associated with the Royal Irish Yacht Club, celebrates her 100th year at St Tropez in 2026.
HUGE FINANCIAL RESOURCES
But with all due respects to the Monaco YC and the Gstaad YC, the first thought that springs to mind in both cases is the huge financial resources of their memberships, giving them – if they’re prepared to splash the cash - preferred access to the newest boats, and the best professionals.
Professional Edge: Pierre Casiraghi helms the Carkeek 40 Jolt 6 to Admiral’s Cup success for Monaco in the 2025 Rolex Fastnet Race, which he called the most exhausting race of his career.
In the real world of total sport, that’s the way it is, and we’d make the point that once upon a time, the Walker Cup for international amateur golf was a top-rated affair. But for some years now, the mega-money Ryder Cup has put everything else in team golf – the Walker Cup included - almost invisibly in the shade.
CELEBRATING RORC CENTENARY
In a world like that, we can only hope that in the sailing community the highly-visible financial excesses of the America’s Cup will leave the Admirals Cup some space to retain something of its core values of amateur enthusiasm, which were basically what the pre-Centenary celebrations in the Spring of 2025 were all about.
And there was another aspect of the RORC/Fastnet Race Centenary year of 2025 that should be remembered. The celebrations started with a Centenary Dinner with a full house in the Royal Cork YC in April 2025 which mainly honoured the memory of the great Harry Donegan of Cork, an RORC founder member whose 17-ton cutter Gull finished third out of seven boats in the first race of 1925.
Fastnet Origins: Harry Donegan’s 1898-built, Charles E Nicholson-designed 17-ton Gull shortly after the start of the inaugural Fastnet Race in 1925.
The various speeches included some inevitable references to the losses of life in the storm-struck Fastnet Race of 1979. But equally it was pointed out that the Royal Cork’s own Donal McClement, skippering the slim little UFO 34 Black Arrow, reckoned the best way to tackle the conditions of 1979 was not to try and ride with the huge waves, but instead to attack each and every one of them with his boat’s notably pointy bow, more or less going straight through most of them in a very wet progression that resulted in Black Arrow becoming overall winner of Class IV.
EXPLOITING FASTNET 79 TRAGEDY?
With several indications that some people in the global communications industry and media are looking to exploit the “Fastnet tragedy” for its Golden Jubilee in 2029, we do well to remember the success in 1979 of Donal McClement and the late Ted Turner and others, while recognising that the experience of that storm has if anything added to the mystique of the Fastnet Race, and the Admirals Cup with it.
Fearless Beginnings: Donal McClement demonstrates early IDRA 14 trapeze technique while crewing for Dougie Deane aboard Dusk, years before his Class IV victory in the storm-hit 1979 Fastnet Race. Photo: Tom Barker
HIGH STAKES GAME
It has become a high stakes game too, with the reality of it emerging with the results of the Centenary Fastnet back in July 2025. In all, there were 464 entries, of which 407 were racing under IRC. And of the 36 boats in the Admiral’s Cup, nearly all finished in the top 40 overall on IRC.
SAVING AMATEUR OFFSHORE RACING
It was a stark demonstration of professional power. But a different approach to the shape of the revived Admirals Cup has emerged from the Royal Maas Yacht Club in the Netherlands at Rotterdam, where in 2025 they were celebrating both the beginning of their own two-year celebration of their 175th Anniversary, while also staging the main European Continental RORC/Fastnet Centenary Dinner on 8th May 2025.
380 ATTENDEES
With 380 attendees – well over twice the number that had been making merry in the Royal Cork – we get some idea of the central role the Royal Maas plays in European involvement with the RORC. Their first Dutch member was the Royal Maas’s own Kees Bruynzeel (later of Stormvogel fame) way back in 1936 – he soon went on to be overall winner of the 1937 Fastnet with the Sparkman & Stephens-designed Zeearand.
Dutch Connection: Some 380 guests gather for the RORC/Fastnet Centenary Dinner at the Royal Maas Yacht Club in Rotterdam, founded in 1851.
With such a depth and breadth of membership, the Royal Maas is keen for all truly enthusiastic sailors - particularly those from less wealthy backgrounds - to have an opportunity for Admiral’s Cup racing without having to try to enter the rock-star stream of top level professional sailing. It’s a proposal they are very entitled to make, as their team finished sixth in the 2025 Admirals Cup, and in the Fastnet Race their “amateur/junior” boat ROST van Uden won Class 1 IRC.
Youthful Challenge: Royal Maas Yacht Club’s ROST van Uden, with a crew emphasising young amateur sailors, wins IRC Class 1 in the 2025 Centenary Rolex Fastnet Race.
THE CORINTHIAN PROPOSAL
Thus they are the initiating movers and shakers in encouraging the RORC to run a Corinthian Cup as part of the 2027 Admiral’s Cup, and the plan will be broadly as follows:
The Corinthian Cup will be awarded to the eligible two-boat team achieving the lowest combined score under IRC across the Admiral's Cup series. Under the 2027 Notice of Race, an eligible team may have no more than four sailors holding World Sailing Group 3 categorisation on its Admiral's Cup 1 boat and no more than three on its Admiral's Cup 2 boat.
World Sailing's categorisation system distinguishes between Group 1 sailors, who broadly compete as a pastime, and Group 3 sailors, whose professional activities fall within specified categories connected with racing and the marine industry.
The award is therefore not restricted to entirely amateur crews, nor is it a youth trophy. It recognises the best-scoring team meeting the crew limits, whether its strength comes from an experienced family programme, dedicated amateur sailors or emerging talent. Individual awards with equivalent Group 3 crew limits are also provided for in both Admiral's Cup classes.
Golden Ambition: The Admiral’s Cup is made of gold, and Nixon reflects on the substantial resources now needed to challenge for it.
GETTING THEIR RETALIATION IN FIRST?
By setting the pace from the get-go, the organisers of the 2027 Admiral’s Cup have got their retaliation in first on the matter of amateur involvement. In what some would see as a reasonable proposal when set against the reality of modern top level international sailing, they have to some extent got the outlines set in stone in what some argue is a take-it-or-leave-it approach.
But there are rumblings in the undergrowth. The following has come to Afloat.ie through various channels at different levels of anonymity, and initially we’ll let it speak for itself:
CORINTHIAN MAYBE?
“If I understand the proposed rules, a Corinthian team for Admiral's Cup can have FOUR Cat 3 professional sailors on board? LOL. That's hardly a "corinthian team" by any stretch of the imagination, or even remotely complying with the definition of "corinthian".
"Corinthian" describes an amateur sports competitor, especially in older British sporting usage. It often meant an amateur who competed for the love of the sport and was associated with ideals of fair play, sportsmanship, and the spirit of "friendly competition".
Here's the delicious irony in my view; the term "corinthian" famously got associated with one of the United Kingdom's most famous "football" teams in the late 1800s. The term comes from the Corinthian Football Club, founded in 1882 as a club of top amateur players. Read this link here
I really think you should reconsider the use of the word "corinthian" as it applies to the Admiral's Cup. Perhaps updating the rules & regs to classify a qualifying team as all amateurs under World Sailing Category 1 rules??
Please note: the J/70 class is the world's most popular one-design keelboat today. And, the J/70 class "corinthian" category strictly adheres to the World Sailing Cat 1 definition... and the Corinthian World Championship gets 50 to 100 participants depending on the event location”.
PROFESSIONALS CAN BE A MIXED BLESSING
Many of us might have thought that “Corinthian” in its various definitions goes right back to the ancient Greeks, but we’ll leave that for now. Amateur sailors will generally tend to agree that this is a high proportion of professionals, whereas owners or sponsors who have already spent heavily will prefer to hedge their bets by being all pro.
In fact, mixing Corinthians and Pros can be an absolute minefield. Mutual contempt can quickly emerge, and for some amateurs there’s still the attitude of the pro being the old-fashioned paid hand rather than the respected modern athlete who should make all the difference to a boat’s performance.
That said, it’s truly joyful when a hyper-talented amateur outperforms everyone in a place like the Solent, as Tim Goodbody of Dun Laoghaire did in 1987 in the Admirals Cup in the Dubois 40 Irish Independent, which went on to be the highest scoring boat in the series with the Fastnet Race overall victory included in her score.
So the formalisation of a Corinthian aspect in the 2027 Admiral’s Cup could well be a fraught business. But there’s something about the mood at the finish of a Fastnet Race – whether it was in Plymouth, or as now in Cherbourg – which ensures that true sportsmanship prevails, and goodwill is all.
Magic Moment: Tim Goodbody helms the Dubois 40 Irish Independent past the Fastnet Rock in August 1987, en route to overall Fastnet victory and the highest individual boat score in the Admiral’s Cup.
