It was that noted offshore yachtsman and rail travel enthusiast Vladimir Ilyich Lenin who observed that ten years can go past with no significant history occurring at all, and then suddenly ten years of hectic history can happen in just one week or even less. Certainly, anyone who was trying to follow the fast-moving incident-filled 270-mile Volvo Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race staged so successfully by the National Yacht Club’s Adam Winkelmann and his team this week may well have reflected on Captain Vlad’s thoughts, but any hopes we might have of racing in haste and analysing at leisure will go out the window.

For there has been total concentration for a week, and by Saturday’s heroic prizegiving in the Dingle Skellig Hotel, it will all have been dissected, analysed, parsed and held up to the light for microscopic examination from every possible angle. Then in the days, weeks, and years ahead, anyone who claims to recall the permutations of the prize-giving will be bluntly informed that if they think they can remember it, then clearly they weren’t there at all.

A port well worth racing to: Dingle is the essence of coastal Kerry and its hospitality

Ron O’Hanley’s Cookson 50 Privateer finishing first by many country miles in Dingle in a record time, with the clean Atlantic water clearly revealing her businesslike appendages. Photo: Dominick Walsh

THAT D2D ADDICTION

Fortunately, being D2D addicts for all of its 30 years at Afloat.ie as participants, observers, reporters and analysts, we carried a continuing stream of D2D reports. But that can only be part of the picture when a 270-sea-miles non-straight-course race has been seen off by the two leading boats in less than 24 hours – up to five hours within the previous record set by a 94-footer. And on top of that, the major prizes have gone to two boats – one of them one of the largest in the 43-strong fleet, the other one of the smallest.

Rapid change of scene. At lunchtime Wednesday, Privateer is in pre-start manoeuvres off Dun Laoghaire’s classic waterfront…..Photo: Michael Chester

……yet by early morning Thursday, she is already approaching the final turn at Skellig Michael in Kerry under a fantastic sky-scape. Photo: Privateer

In the bigger picture, there’s no getting away from the fact that of the 43 starters, 15 retired. While at times there was plenty of wind and some ominous forecasts in the northern offshoots of Stor Oscar down in Iberia, it always had a strong element of east in it, so it wasn’t a matter of boats being battered to bits while slugging to windward.

On the other hand, it was a particularly cold wind-stream, the sea is still almost at its annual coldest so early in June, and these and other factors combined to make the one full night at sea an experience of exceptionally marked chill factor – in fact, for some hours they were in effect racing at freezing point.

EXCEPTIONAL RUDDER STRAINS

Then too, with hard offwind sailing, rudders and steering gear were undergoing exceptional strain. It is of course a strain which this equipment should take in its stride, but we are once again in a cycle where boats and their equipment are pushing the envelope in terms of lightness of construction. So when you hear that an early retiree with a broken rudder and attendant “ingress of water” was a new boat of what some marketing genius has called the Extreme 37 class, a certain heavenwards rolling of the eyes is permissible.

In this case the boat was steered by a powerful wheel, and in the more cruiser-oriented or larger craft, wheel steering is the norm. The power exerted by modern wheel steering is remarkable – you really don’t know your own artificially enhanced strength – but as well, much of its workings is well hidden away. Being early in the season, maintenance may not quite be up to speed, and when it does go wrong the sense of helplessness – allied to the danger of getting yourself too intimately involved with all those moving parts in dark and cramped places – makes the appeal of a handy port all that much greater.

And that abundance of handy ports all along this most coastal of major offshore races is another drop-out factor. It was noticeable that as the superbly-sailed top dozen boats on the water simply got further and further ahead, their confidence and competence building with every mile, several of those astern found they were surprisingly near either their own home port or some friendly harbour where they’ve been made welcome in times past, so with no prospect whatever of any significant silverware, they peeled off into shoreside comforts.

BEST J/109 IS ONLY NINTH OVERALL

Finally, before we get down to the details of the top two boats, there’s one last thought. Although there were five J/109s racing and one of them – the ever-successful Mojito – will pick up an ISORA prize, the reality is that Mojito finished ninth overall in the depleted fleet.

A glimpse of the future. The fresh-out-of-the-wrappings Sunfast 3300 which was to become Cinnamon Girl as seen at MGM Boats in Dun Laoghaire just as the pandemic arrived. Photo: W M Nixon

Are we really past peak J/109 years in Ireland and Irish Sea waters? It would be a pity. The design may have been around for twenty years now, but then so too has the design of the D2D overall winner and record-breaker, the Cookson 50 Privateer. The handsome, versatile and sensibly-sized J/109 might have been designed with the needs of Ireland and Irish Sea waters specifically in mind. We need her, and will need her for many years yet.

GREAT NEWS FOR JEANNEAU IN THE TOP FIVE

We’re so bowled over by the totality of Privateer’s success and the cheeky second overall of the little Cinnamon Girl that it takes a while to register that three of the top five boats came from the Jeanneau stable. With speeds slowing towards the finish for the bulk of the fleet, the clarity of Privateer’s win by two hours becomes emphasized, as the Sunfast 3300 Cinnamon Girl from Kinsale in second was only an hour and ten minutes ahead of John O’Gorman’s Sunfast 3600 Hot Cookie (Natinonal YC) in fifth, which means that very narrow margins separate Pete Smyth’s Sunfast 3600 Searcher (NYC) in third and Paul O’Higgins’ JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI (RIYC) in fourth.

Cinnamon Girl coming into Kinsale to record her first major success in the 2022 Inishtearacht Race, and her crew of two already plotting improvements. Photo: Robert Bateman

But it has to be remembered that Cinnamon Girl was being raced two-handed whereas the others were fully-crewed, with Kinsale’s Ben Fusco as the “token Paddy” aboard Privateer, hugely energised by the experience of sailing with one of the hottest boat/crew combinations on the current global scene.

(Above) Whoops! Port and starboard applies with equal force offwind – Cinnamon Girl on port gives no more than is absolutely needed to another Cork boat racing to Dingle

Cian McCarthy and Sam Hunt, likewise of Kinsale, have largely had to make it up as they go along, although they are effusive in their appreciation of the advice and encouragement they have been given when seeking inspiration and ideas from Ireland’s own Figaro ace Tom Dolan. In fact, Cian McCarthy and Sam Hunt’s missive of yesterday (Friday morning) so effectively captures the essence of the Cinnamon Campaign that we’ll close this week’s column by quoting it in full in its totally raw closely post-race state, which reveals that our glimpse in a report of them at 14.3 knots off the southwest coast was more than something of a serious speed under-estimate:

Job done. Sam Hunt and Cian McCarthy in Dingle

CAMPAIGNING CINNAMON GIRL

“Since last year’s Inishtearacht Race win, added 70cm to the bow sprit and 10 sq mtr to the kites, so we were hoping for conditions like we got.

“Boat is very robust and stable with deep (Sunfast 3600 size) rudders giving plenty of grip, made gybing at 25 knots on a wave ... quite palatable. Kite first, then let boom come when she is good and ready.

That very special bowsprit – there’s no way it will be kept as a secret weapon. Photo: Sam Hunt

“Typically, one of us drives and the other rests or navs or trims. With the driver, driving is to the kite (all A sails). A lot of trust in each other's capabilities to push on hard, and knowing the boat’s strengths means environment is calm, and process-focused.

“We had pre-race routing assistance from Tom Dolan, and a new jib from Nin O’Leary at Doyle Sails.

“Believed a chance would come and the race opened up for us on the power reach from Fastnet to Bull Rock, where we were sitting at 17-18 knots in a power hose of water and speed surges at 22 to 23 knots.

Cinnamon Girl races on towards a forboding sky with its hinted offshoots of Storm Oscar, which brought winds to provide speed bursts of 22-23 knots. Photo: Sam Hunt

“Thanks to our wives mostly. Baby is due in 2 weeks for Sam, so feeling blessed, his wife Sara left him go - was touch and go for a while. He did float internally that if they won, he would have to do the Fastnet, but a mountain of brownie points to be earned in a short period of time to get a window for that. If not, chartering a Sunfast 3300 and bringing our beloved bow-sprit down under is on the cards for the Hobart in December”.

Two-Handed Cinnamon Girl arrives in Dingle and a remarkable result in a remarkable 2023 edition of the Volvo Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race Photo: Dominick Walsh

A joy to watch – Cinnamon Girl at full chat before Cian and Sam souped her up even further: