Mixed Fortunes for Northern Ireland Boats in the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race

12th June 2023

Shaun Douglas’s Beneteau 40.7 Game Changer from Royal Ulster Yacht Club suffered a litany of mishaps east of Cork Credit: Afloat

Fortunes were mixed for the two boats from the North of Ireland taking part in the Volvo Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race.

Michael Eames Sunfast 3200 from Royal Ulster YC and Strangford Lough YC finished sixth overall and top of RORC 3 class, and also won ISORA Class 2. Unfortunately, Shaun Douglas’s Beneteau 40.7 suffered a litany of mishaps on Thursday morning just east of Cork.

Michael Eames, All or Nothing, meanwhile, had been behind Game Changer. He recalls, “We had a fantastic sail. It’s strange that we went halfway around Ireland and didn’t need to do a single tack. We had put a lot of effort into the symmetric setup, which really paid off this week”.

Michael Eames's Sunfast 3200 All or nothing enters Killiney Bay after the start of the 2023 Volvo Dun Laoghaire Race Photo: Afloat

Michael Eames, third right, and his Volvo D2D crew of All or Nothing at the County Kerry prizegiving: (l to r) Niall Eames, Mark Fletcher, Colm McLarnon, Richard McCullough and Phil Anderson

Michael said that the start was quite chaotic, with a mixed swell in the bay and lots of spectator's ribs, but they managed to get off with a clear lane away from the bigger yachts. All or Nothing was the second smallest yacht in the race, so they tried to keep on the coattails of the big yachts for as long as they could. He continued,” After the Muglins near Dalkey, we set the code 0, followed soon after by the symmetric kite. The forecasted north Easterly wind slowly built, and we were able to make it to the Tuskar tidal gate just before it changed. The wind kept increasing overnight, but we had a great night run with the kite up. As the day broke, we started to see serious gusts with big waves, and we were regularly surfing at speeds of over 15 knots. Our maximum was 19.2, just off Cork. The wind speed was 38 knots when we gybed around the rock”.

Michael Eames at the helm of All or Nothing

Once around the Fastnet, the wind stayed on the beam, but the waves became a little smaller. The final leg up to Dingle was close hauled, and they were followed most of the way by the local tourist attraction dolphins. So, 30 hours after the start, they enjoyed the welcome in Dingle, which met expectations.

For Shaun Douglas’s Game Changer in his second D2D – they were eighth in 2021- all was well till near Cork when they were lying fourth. With 35 knots on the clock, the spinnaker pole broke free of the track on the mast and holed the mainsail. The spinnaker twisted around the forestay, and while the crew untangled it, a metre length of Tuff Luff head foil broke off. But Game Changer was surfing at about 15 knots under the main only.

Game Changer's mainsail and what a stray spinnaker pole can do

So they sailed on under the main for another 15 hours and retired not far from the finish as they weren’t making any headway approaching Dingle. Reflecting on the race Shaun said,”That’s sailing! Disappointing as we were in a good position and catching boats in front. We’ll be back in 2025”. But well before that, Game Changer makes another trip to Dun Laoghaire to race in Class 0 of the Volvo Regatta 2023.

Game Changer in 35-knots, just north of the Tuskar Rock

Another RUYC member, Ross Boyd, raced on the Grand Soleil 44 Samatom finishing in third place in line honours and 8th overall. Ross commented on the Club Facebook page: “The average speeds on YB don’t represent the real conditions. On Samatom, we were doing 24 knots boat speed at times in 30+ knots of easterly breeze. Fantastic downwind conditions with lots of records broken. We finished in under 28 hours. The previous record set by a maxi was 24.5 hours”.

Published in Dun Laoghaire Dingle, Northern Ireland Waters

Dun Laoghaire Dingle Race Live Tracker 2023

Track the progress of the 2023 Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Yacht Race fleet on the live tracker above and the leaderboard below

Dun Laoghaire Dingle Race Live Leaderboard 2023

The 16th edition of the 280-mile race organised by the National Yacht Club starts at 2 pm on Wednesday, June 7th, on Dublin Bay.

Read the full 2023 race preview by WM Nixon here
Read all the D2D Race News in one handy link here
Listen to Lorna Siggins's interview with Race Chairman Adam Winkelmann on Afloat's Wavelengths here

WM Nixon will be posting regular race updates and analysis throughout the 2023 race here

Published in Dun Laoghaire Dingle

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Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race

About The Author

Betty Armstrong

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Betty Armstrong is Afloat and Yachting Life's Northern Ireland Correspondent. Betty grew up racing dinghies but now sails a more sedate Dehler 36 around County Down

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Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Yacht Race Information

The biennial Dun Laoghaire to Dingle race is a 320-miles race down to the east coast of Ireland, across the south coast and into Dingle harbour in County Kerry.

The race is organised by the National Yacht Club.

It never fails to offer a full range of weather, wind and tide to the intrepid entrants, ranging from a 32ft cruiser to a 79ft all-out racer.

Three divisions are available to enter: cruiser (boats equipped with furlers), racing (the bulk of the fleet) and also two-handed.

D2D Course change overruled

In 2019, the organisers considered changing the course to allow boats to select routes close to shore by removing the requirement to go outside Islands and Lighthouses en route, but following input from regular participants, the National Yacht Club decided to stick with the tried and tested course route in order to be fair to large and smaller boats and to keep race records intact.

D2D Course record time

Mick Cotter’s 78ft Whisper established the 1 day and 48 minutes course record for the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race in 2009 and that time stood until 2019 when Cotter returned to beat his own record but only just, the Dun Laoghaire helmsman crossing the line in Kerry to shave just 20 seconds off his 2009 time.