Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

As the proposed 2026 international sailing programme began to move from the possible though the probable to the completely definite stages, the Research Unit here in the Sailing on Saturday Production Facility began to be concerned that planned big sailing happenings in the English Channel and along the French coast might seriously impinge on interest levels in Irish sailing majors scheduled for 2026.

This may echo the no-nonsense September 5th 1898 statement of the Skibbereen Eagle, which left the world in no doubt that the paper’s Editor was keeping a close eye on the nefarious doings and possible international skullduggery of the Czar of all the Russias.

NERVE CENTRES OF SAILING POWER

For sure, the West Cork Declaration will have caused much worry at the time in the corridors of power in St Petersburg and Moscow. But as the pessimism of our research people here regarding 2026 was not made public, there were no comparable concerns about the SoS attention in the secretive nerve centres of sailing power at the Cowes Combined Clubs, the RORC, the UNCL, and the Sailing Promotion Units in such energetic ports as Les Sables d’Olonne.

BICENTENARY OF COWES WEEK

Having hugely enjoyed several Cowes Weeks back in the days when it was a sometimes chaotic fun thing, the fact that 2026 is the legendary regatta’s Bicentenary really does cause some focusing and much nostalgia. Yet whether or not the energies and interest it is drawing had an effect on numbers in Cork Week at the beginning of July is anyone’s guess.

Cowes Week fleet tide-dodging along the island shore. Photo:CCC

But in any case, Cork Week 2026 turned out to be such a sun-filled success that numbers depletion - or not, and by whatever cause - no longer seems to matter, for those who were there knew they were taking part in something very special indeed.

Sunlit sport. The Harbour Race during Cork Week 2026. Photo: RCYC/Rick Tomlinson

ACTION IN WEST CORK

However, with the siren calls of the 200th Anniversary calling across the seas from Cowes for next week’s Regatta, it is interesting to note that the exactly date-matching Calves Week from Schull – which starts on Tuesday 4th August after the traditional and freshly energised Bank Holiday Monday Regatta for Cruisers, 1720s and dinghies at Baltimore – will see Schull hosting a significantly larger fleet than has been experienced in recent years.

And with historic Calves Week star Rockabill VI, Paul O’Higgins’ (RIYC) JPK 10.80 taking the bullet at this week’s regatta-style DBSC evening race at Dun Laoghaire, it’s evident the cobwebs are being cleared, and the “friendly family sport” of Calves Week will be cut-throat as usual.

Before the cows came home….when founded in 1884, the one-day Schull Regatta was part of a traditional regatta programme in West Cork. This is the scene in 1960, as Tom Crosbie’s Int. 8 Metre If gets gracefully away from the start at Schull pier. Photo: Cork Examiner

Paul O’Higgins’ successful Rockabill VI racing in Calves Week. Photo: Robert Bateman

DEJA OVERVIEW

Nevertheless there’s an inescapable sense of deep déjà vu in scouting the overall programme in the areas of sailing interest that we hold to be sacred, for much has been packed in without too much clashing. Admittedly the Bermuda Race 2026 went off from Newport, Rhode Island on the same weekend of June 20th that saw the Round Ireland Race start from Wicklow, but distance reduces friction.

And as it happens, while there were individual Irish sailors racing to Bermuda, the Round Ireland attracted (for the second time) a specifically American entry in the form of the classic 1971 S&S-designed alloy-built 49ft sloop Hiro Maru.

The 49ft S&S49 Hiro Maru of the New York YC arrives in Cowes after a Transatlantic passage. She has since spent three years in Ireland, racing two Round Ireland events.

She’s owned and sailed by Hiroshi Nakajima, who must be one of the most clubbable sailors afloat, as he lists Stamford YC, RORC, Cruising Club of America, New York YC and Storm Trysail Club among his affiliations.

BERMUDA RACE RESULTS KERFUFFLE

Back in America meanwhile, the 2026 Bermuda Race saw its premier award, the St David’s Light Trophy, won by the Cal 40 St Nicole to provide yet another success for this truly great boat type, while second went to another very special craft, former CCA Commodore Sheila McCurdy and husband David Brown in their McCurdy 38 Selkie. Selkie is the great Carina’s little sister, and was designed by the co-skipper’s late father Jim McCurdy, of a family that hails originally from Rathlin Island.

The Jim McCurdy-designed 38ft Selkie of 1984 vintage was second in the Bermuda Race 2026. The designer’s family trace their ancestry back to Rathlin Island. Photo: Facebook

CALVES ON ORC, STREET PROTESTS IN SCHULL?

Admittedly there was some kerfuffle among the results calculations in this year’s dash to the onion patch, as the Bermuda Race Committee seemed to be experimenting – for want of a better word – with various performance predictions based on expected weather.

But on this side of the Atlantic it’s enough to know that the more manageable fleet in a comprehensible setting at Schull for the four-day Calves Week are going to be treated to processing by ORC in addition to IRC and presumably ECHO. We pray that it runs smoothly and with rapid efficiency, as we saw during the West Cork Regattas very many years ago out at Cape Clear Regatta.

A diversity of small cruisers berthed at North Harbour, Cape Clear for the 1972 Regatta, when everyone won a prize. Photo: W M Nixon

There, some pretend-solemn yet twinkly-eyed West Cork seniors pulled a long tape of names out of a slit in a cardboard box which had “Results Computer” writ large on its side. The outcome was every boat quickly received a prize of local making in ceramics, and our charming West Cork cream jug lasted for a very long time, the perfect souvenir of a wonderful event in a marvellous place.

RESULTS WANTED IMMEDIATELY, IF NOT THEN SOONER

But the real point was that it was quick. So, knowing how the main street in Schull becomes a convivial pedestrian area during the evenings of Calves Week even as traffic struggles through bound slowly for Goleen and points west, if the added complications in the handicapping process cause delays, we fully expect a restless street protest to come through led by rabble rousers with a banner and loud hailers leading the chant of:

“What do we want?”

“Results”

“When do we want them?”

“NOW!!”

Schull Harbour, the setting for “friendly cut-throat racing” during Calves Week

ROUND BRITAIN AND IRELAND

There’s a further bout of nostalgia in noting that the up-coming Bicentenary Cowes Week is immediately followed by the RORC Seven Stars Round Britain & Ireland Race, which is celebrating its Golden Jubilee.

This juxtaposition of The Week and the Ocean Race is reminiscent of the way that the biennial Fastnet Race used to start on what would be the concluding Saturday of Cowes Week. But back then, it didn’t take all day to get the Fastnet fleet westward out of the Solent in a orderly manner, thereby leaving plenty of time for ordinary racing to continue.

Lula Belle was in good shape on her return to Dun Laoghaire in 2014……Photo: W M Nixon

……as were her crew, Brian Flahive and owner Liam Coyne. Photo: W M Nixon

SUCCESS IN 2014

But for now, it’s timely to remember that racing non-stop round Britain and Ireland has a much longer history, as the first such marathon was staged in 1887 by the Royal Thames Yacht Club to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria’s reign. As that was all of 27 years after the truly pioneering K2Q of 1860, we’ll allow the RTYC their pioneering claims.

In the modern RORC version, Ireland’s most memorable performance was put in during 2014 by Liam Coyne (National Yacht Club) and Brian Flahive (Wicklow SC, and now Malta) racing the First 36.7 Lula Belle to overall victory in the two-handed division, and first overall in the combined smaller classes, all recounted here in full detail 

NO DENT IN ROUND IRELAND NUMBERS IN 2026

It was feared that the attraction of the Round Britain & Ireland on August 9th from the Solent would have a detrimental effect on numbers in the Round Ireland, as they both fish for entries in the same pool. But if anything it’s the other way round, for although there are some gallant campaigners who are doing both, the entry for the B&I is currently 33, well below the combined round Ireland fleet.

FUTURE COMMEMORATIONS

Thus we seem to have reached the sufficient critical mass in entries for our major events to enable them to have stand-alone status, and now the challenge is accommodating a fresh wave of significant national and international Centenaries and Bicentenaries coming in over the horizon.

Still going strong. The 1913-built Jolie Brise won the first Fastnet Race in 1925, and is still very actively sailing the seas in the ownership of Dauntsey’s School

The arrival of the superbly-restored cutter Tally-Ho into Baltimore this ultra-festive weekend is a reminder that everything should be in place in 2027 to acknowledge that she was the handicap winner of the 1927 Fastnet Race. Yet as it happened there seemed to be little space available at the massive Fastnet Centenary in 2025 to acknowledge that the 1925 overall winner Jolie Brise is still very much with us, and it may well be that Afloat.ie was the only forum to point out that the first Fastnet and the centenary Fastnet were both won by French-designed and built boats, as Alexis Loison’s JPK 10.50 Leon did the business last year.

LINE HONOURS WINNNER IN 1926

Also worth remembering is that in 1926 – when the Fastnet was still an annual event – the line honours winner was the new 70ft Fife cutter Hallowe’en, driven on by a decidedly crude-looking Bermudan rig which today – for Hallowe’en still sails the seas and has long associations with the Royal Irish YC – has been modified into something still Bermudan-looking, but rather more pleasingly proportioned.

Hallowe’en in 1926 under her original rig, which was later modified to be gaff rigged using the same mast

We’ve no word if next week will see any acknowledgement of the Centenary of Hallowe’en’s achievement in 1926, and had gathered that she was going to resume her Mediterranean battling with the Mylne-designed yawl Mariella, which Dublin’s Billy Mooney used to helm with great style for his friend the owner Ronnie Teacher, Admiral of the Mudhook Yacht Club.

BICENTENARY AT KILRUSH?

On Ireland’s West Coast, 2028 may well be the Bicentenary of the establishment of the Royal Western Yacht Club of Ireland as the result of a regatta at Kilrush on the Shannon Estuary involving the O’Connell family in some strength, and somebody will know for sure in southwest Clare whether it was in 1828 or 1829.

The first Dublin Bay Regatta from the new harbour in 1828. This is the only known representation of an event which is due for major Bicentenary Celebrations in 2028

As for Dublin Bay, 2028 will be the Bicentenary of the first regatta staged from the new harbour in what had been Dunleary. We cannot allow its celebration to be conveniently put back a year to the regular biennial Dun Laoghaire Regatta in 2029. For although the first regatta in 1828 was blessed by good weather and great sport, the second regatta in 1829 was blighted by much rain, sabotaging of rival entries, and inter-crew fights afloat.

UNRIVALLED USP OF GUARANTEED BAD FEELING

On the other hand, perhaps a regatta that commemorates a Bicentenary of bad weather, foul sportsmanship and universal ill feeling would have a Unique Selling Proposition to make it an irresistible event.

CHEERIER NOTE

Perish the thought. Let us end on a cheerier note. One of the attractions of the Solent is that all marine services to the highest level are available in a compact area, and the providers are game for everything.

Back in 1977, Otto Glaser of Howth, despite having a fair level of success with his McGruer 47 Tritsch-Tratsch II, decided he needed to join the general movement to Frers designs to contest Ron Holland boats such as the new Big Apple in Cork. So he swung a deal to buy the Frers 49 Red Rock in full commission in Buenos Aires, and have her shipped pronto to Europe.

All together now…with Johnny McWilliam on the helm, and Harold Cudmore calling the shots, the crew of Big Apple make for a uniformly successful campaign in the Solent in 1977

She was to be unloaded at Tilbury in the Thames Estuary in the Spring. Then a dockers strike at British ports looked set to paralyse the entire project. But Otto was not a quitter. He got on the radio to the ship’s captain, and persuaded him to divert through the Solent on his way up Channel. Then he got onto Groves & Guttridge boatyard in Cowes, and arranged for them to have their most powerful launch meet the ship in the Solent close off Cowes.

NEED FOR EXTRA TOWING POWER

The extra towing power was needed as it was planned to speed the overall process by having Red Rock lowered from the ship with her cradle still attached, thereby saving yard time further down the line.

It all worked. And for a couple of seasons, Red Rock was very much at the races. Yet people still wondered if she really had been lowered from the heavens by a rusty ship’s derrick that may not have been used for years, but did the job nevertheless.

The boat that came out of the sky……Otto Glaser’s Frers 47 Red Rock racing in the Solent with the usual motley crew