Day #2 2100 - Royal Cork Yacht Club Oyster 37 Blue Oyster skippered by David Coleman has retired from the 2021 Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race this evening

The boat retired into her home port of Crosshaven due to 'taking on water', according to the D2D Race Office.

Four Royal Cork boats are contesting this week's race including current overall IRC race leader, Nieulago as Afloat reports here.

This latest retiral brings to five the number of boats now withdrawn from the 38-boat fleet.

Day #2 0930: The “Dash to Dingle” began to live up to its name with renewed enthusiasm through the brief summer night, as the tide turned in the fleet’s favour approaching the Tuskar, and the breeze sharpened with enough south in it to enable them to lay the course round the corner clear outside the many hazards in the Saltee Islands area. 

The Grand Soleil 44 Nieulargo (Murphy family of Royal Cork) continues to lead the 2021 Dun Laoghaire Dingle Race on Day Two Photo: Michael Chester

Conor Doyle’s Xp50 Freya from Kinsale, having been delayed to rescue a kitesurfer blown offshore south of Arklow, has been very much back on the pace at the front of the fleet, and she was past the Tuskar at 0100hrs this morning making better than 8 knots – sometimes quite a good bit better – to confirm her line honours position.

However, not so very far astern the leading group on corrected time – which has usually included the defending champion Paul O'Higgins’ JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI (RIYC) in addition to other steady performers of the calibre of the Murphy family’s Grand Soleil 40 Nieulargo (RCYC), Pete Smyth’s Sun Fast 3600 Searcher (NYC), Chis and Patanne Power Smith’s J/122 Aurelia (RStGYC) and Bob Rendell’s Grand Soleil 44 Samatom (HYC) - have never been too far astern, and all are now well into clear water far at sea, and west of Hook Head, with Freya piling on the knots to such good effect she’s south of Dungarvan.

 Artful Dodjer leads Indian in IRC2 division of the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle race  

It’s drag racing by comparison with the struggle of getting down the east coast of County Wexford through yesterday evening and early night against flukey winds and strong flood tide. Off Arklow, Nieulargo and the slightly higher-rated Rockabill VI became glued together and match-raced all the way to the Tuskar, which they passed – still joined at the hip – at 0250hrs, with the even higher-rated Searcher crossing just in front of them on port tack to put the Pete Smyth-skippered Sun Fast 3600 into second slot on CT, between the leader Nieulargo and Rockabill VI

Other leaders who’d had their moments of glory were either there or thereabouts, including Aurelia who some hours earlier been briefly in the line honours slot through being in a better breeze slightly offshore while the bulk of the leading group struggled with very little wind close inhore on the North Wexford Coast.

Although they’re currently laying the course, today’s forecasts suggest the brisk sou’sou’west breeze will gradually veer to head them. And in any case, there’s something about the alignment of Ireand’s south coast which means that any breeze between south and west always eventually seems to settle in as the day goes on as a sou’wester – precisely on the nose for anyone making from the Coningbeg for the Fastnet.

It’s a scenario which favours those at the front of the fleet, as they’ll make the most distance in a leading wind, and they’ll also have less distance to sail along the coast of Kerry to the finish as the breeze then lightens as expected as Friday approaches.

At 6 am on day 2 of the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle race sees the fleet spread from the Hook to the Tuskar.  Now reduced slightly by the retirals of Prima Forte, Suaimhneas and Cambrinus.

Meanwhile it’s bumpy enough out there, with every mile well-earned. Freya is clear as on-the-water leader, but not by enough to save her time on overall and Class I leader Nieulargo which has 50 minutes in hand on Searcher with Rockabill VI third 34 minutes later.

The J boats dominate Class 2, with Finbarr O’Regan’s J/109 Artful Dodjer from Kinsale now ahead Andrew Algeo’s J/99 Juggerknot II (RIYC) by 27 minutes, while Simon Knowles’ J/109 Indian from Howth is 21 minutes further back.

Double-handed Cinnamon Girl from Kinsale is up to sixth overall in the IRC division of the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race

In Class 3 the lead has now been taken by Paul & Deirdre Tingle‘s X34 Alpaca from Crosshaven, with Irish Offshore Sailing’s Sunfast 37 Desert Star (Ronan O Siochru & Conor Totterdell) second, while Kinsale’s Sun Fast 3300 Cinnamon Girl (Cian McCarthy & Sam Hunt) has stayed well ahead in the Two-Handed Division, giving some fully-crewed boat a hard time while she’s at it.

Update 4 will be posted early afternoon.

Weather forecast models are now showing a quick Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race, according to some of the top race navigators and tacticians in the 280-miler this morning. 

As Afloat reported earlier, there will be a beat to Tuskar on Ireland's southeast corner after this afternoon's start at 2 pm. 

There is a consensus that bigger boats in the 38-boat fleet are expected to make Wicklow Head before the tide changes.

It is likely the smaller boats won't and will have to beat around Wicklow Head then beat down close to the coast against the tide for the next six hours inside banks, then out to the Tuskar, according to Mark Mansfield, a sailing pro from Quantum Sails on board John O'Gorman's Sunfast 3600, Hot Cookie for the race. 

Wind forecasts are showing SSW after Tuskar Rock which will allow boats to fetch on port along the coast in medium winds, with maybe a short tack.

The bigger boats are expected to round the Fastnet Rock off County Cork about 8 or 9 pm. It will then be a fast reach on the last leg to Dingle with the first boats expected very early on Friday morning, maybe about 2 am or 3 am.

Some weather models are now showing it getting lighter through later Friday morning. 

All in all, there is agreement on the morning of departure that the first leg to the Tuskar will be the key period.

Those skippers that drive the boat hard with most crew on the rail for long periods will do well, according to one skipper.

"Time and tide will wait for no man, saith the adage. But all men have to wait for time and tide." Charles Dickens

As Dun Laoghaire Dingle Race day dawns, the skippers and navigators check the forecast for the umpteenth time. Predictions have been relatively steady for a few days, suggesting that there may be no change to the forecasted headwinds that will prevail, at least as far as the Fastnet. If the wind is as predicted, the need to get the tide right comes into sharper focus as the yachts head down the Irish Sea to the first turning mark, the Tuskar Rock lighthouse, which guards the southeast corner of Ireland.

These first 70 nautical miles will probably influence the eventual outcome as it has done before both in D2Ds and Round Ireland races. The importance of this stretch of the race is due to the strong tidal currents that define the area, squeezing the water between the offshore banks and the coast at rates that can exceed 4 knots at spring tides. Although not the highest spring tide of the month, the streams that the fleet will encounter are stronger than average. Starting two hours into the ebb, the navigators will want to stay out in the stronger stream, but will need to choose carefully when to head inshore as the flood tide starts to build. The bigger boats will likely be past Wicklow head when the flood starts, possibly rock dodging along the coast. It gets complicated inshore not only due to the presence of the Rusk, Glassgorman and Blackwater Banks, but also because Met Eireann's wind barb forecast suggests the breeze lightens closer to the coast.

"Met Eireann's wind barb forecast suggests the breeze lightens closer to the coast"

As the leading boats emerge from the Irish Sea around midnight Wednesday and settle for a long beat to Fastnet, it could well be that the winner will emerge from amongst those who have best timed their move inshore to dodge the flood tide along the Wicklow and Wexford coasts. This doesn't mean the end of the race for the smaller craft, indeed those who manage to round the Tuskar on the second ebb could well save their time on the big boats.

Organisers expect a 40-boat fleet for the 14th edition of the biennial Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race in ten day's time. 

The 320-mile offshore race will be a season highlight for the Irish fleet and is organised by the National Yacht Club.

An 11 boat ISORA fleet took the last chance for a D2D warm-up yesterday but conditions were light and flukey over the 50-mile coastal race course from Dublin Bay. 

The Archambault 31 'A Plus' from the host club is contesting the 2021 D2D Race Photo: Afloat

Sailing Instructions for the Wednesday, June 9th D2D start at 1355 hours off Dun Laoghaire has been published (downloadable below as a PDF document) and show the course shall be from the starting line in Scotsman’s Bay, East of Dun Laoghaire Harbour, leaving the marks listed hereunder to starboard:

• (i) Muglins
• (ii) Wicklow Head
• (iii) Tuskar Rock
• (iv) Barrels Light Buoy
• (v) Bore Rocks Buoy
• (vi) Coningbeg Light Buoy
• (vii) Red Bank Buoy
• (viii) Old Head of Kinsale
• (ix) Fastnet Rock
• (x) Mizen Head
• (xi) Calf Rock
• (xii) Gull Rock (off Bull Rock) and
• (xiii) Washerwoman Rock (off Great Skellig)
• (xiv) Great Skellig and thence to the finishing line off the entrance to Dingle Harbour.

D2D competitors are required to leave the Muglins Rocks to starboard when exiting Dublin Bay on June 9th

Other race documents are now available from the D2D site here

Afloat will carry a full D2D race preview next Saturday (June 5)  by WM Nixon

While there may have been nothing exactly like the current schedule-wrecking Pandemic before, in times past - nationally and internationally - we've come through comparable catastrophes. And enough of previous generations have survived to tell the tale and provide guidance when future generations are faced with a similar situation.

Cynics will of course gleefully leap on the fact that if enough of us hadn't lived through the Black Death or whatever, it would take millions of years before anything remotely resembling the human race evolved again. And if that was the case, we could only hope that the new wave of evolution would have come up with a premier species kitted out with something rather less troublesome than the current human body's problematic skeletal framework, plumbing arrangements, power systems and thought units.

Be that as it may, we meanwhile have to make the best of what we've got, and can only wonder at how generally unaware the current generations seemed to be pre-Pandemic of the appalling effects of the Spanish Flu piling in on the end of World War I a hundred years ago.

In fact, I knew of only one senior sailing man who ever even mentioned it, and that was Billy Doherty, who in the 1960s used to charter his 36ft 1912-built J B Kearney yawl Ainmara to groups of us when we were relatively penniless schoolboys and students, mad keen to go cruising from Belfast Lough under our own command.

Billy Doherty of Donegal, the Godfather for a whole generation of young Belfast Lough sailors. It wasn't generally known that his lifeview was significantly shaped by narrowly surviving the Spanish flu pandemic of 1919. Photo: W M Nixon  

A Donegal man, Billy became a popular neighbourhood policeman in Belfast, augmenting his income with some beautiful building of clinker dinghies. His passion for boats was such that in 1957 he commuted his pension to raise the lump sum to buy Ainmara, and thus the modest £20 weekly charter fee he charged us actually played a significant role in keeping her going, even if he sometimes did have to wait until somebody's maiden aunt was generous at Christmas in order to make up the final total.

As for the boat's availability, the only unchangeable fixture in Billy's season was the annual regattas at the beginning of August back among his people along the Donegal shores of Lough Foyle, where he'd a couple of salmon-fishing licenses to exercise, and Ainmara was expected to be flagship as the Greencastle Yawls – also known as the "Drontheim Boats" as they were descended in design from standard boats imported from Trondheim in Norway – raced in fierce competition.

The traditional Greencastle yawl evolved from a Norwegian type

Outside of that, for June and much of July Ainmara was tearing about the seas with young ne'er-do-wells aboard, taking in cruises to St Kilda and round Ireland, and somehow winning the 1964 Round Isle of Man Race overall too. In fact, we got so much out of the boat that some of us helped Billy and his son Wesley with the fitting-out, and over the years we became friends and talked of much.

But it was only once in an East Belfast pub that Billy mentioned he'd almost been a victim of the Spanish Flu. Typically of young Donegal men with limited futures, in 1919 aged around 17 he'd gone to Glasgow in search of work, and Glasgow being in the midst of the epidemic, he'd soon contracted the disease.

People were dying all round him, and he'd only one thought in his feverish mind – to get back to Moville so that his mother would at least have a body to bury. Somehow he got himself aboard the packet-boat for Derry down at the Broomielaw on the Clyde, and collapsed in a large shared sleeping cabin where many of the other recumbent forms never woke up when the ship reached the Foyle.

The Glasgow-Derry steamer Rose was built in 1902, and became much-used by the people of Donegal in going to Scotland to search for work  

However, Billy Doherty did wake up, feeling better by the minute with lots of motherly home nursing, and each day more determined to live life to the full. Thus when the opportunity to buy Ainmara arose in 1957, it was no contest. He commuted his pension to raise the funds, and as a result for ten years he had the Grand Annual Return to Donegal, and many of the younger sailing enthusiasts on Belfast Lough had the benefit of a sort of one boat sail self-training organization in which they somehow learned to be their own sea-going skippers.

But perhaps the strain of surviving the Spanish flu in 1919 had left hidden ill-effects, for in 1967 Billy Doherty died of cancer. But the story of Ainmara continued, for one of the young sailors who had benefitted from the "Doherty Scheme", a relative newcomer to the sport called Dickie Gomes, was determined to buy her. I counselled him against buying a 55-year-old boat, but for Dickie it was Ainmara or nothing, and so it came to pass.

Dickie Gomes with Ainmara during her Centenary Cruise of Scotland's West Coast in 2012. He'd bought her in 1967 despite being advised against "getting involved with such an old boat", he owned her for more than fifty years, and she has since gone international under Swiss ownership, with her home port now at Dunkerque. Photo: W M Nixon

Thus in 2012 after very many thousands of miles in several other boats, Dickie and I were together again on Ainmara's Centenary Cruise to Scotland's Western Isles, with a special Centenary Feast at the Rodel Inn on Harris in the midst of the most enjoyable cruise to the Outer Hebrides we'd ever had.

There was much to reminisce about, and if the vaguely remembered Spanish Flu of 1919 did come into the conversation, it would have only been in the context of having shaped Billy Doherty's life-view such that he brought Ainmara into our lives in a big way, resulting in our being in Rodel in these very special circumstances half a century later.

Of course, had the Spanish Flu been mentioned at all, it would have been dismissed as something which would never happen again in the face of the efficiency of modern medicine. Yet it has happened again, albeit in a different form of disease. But if we go around feeling sorry for ourselves and making comparisons with 1918-1921, we really are drivelling on in un-merited self-pity.

That said, even in normal non-pandemic peacetime a hundred years ago, life expectancy estimates were maybe only half of what they are now, and deaths at every age were much more common. But now with smaller families and every extra passing year of personal existence ever more valued, each individual life becomes precious, such that amongst many, general timidity is the default setting.

But if we don't straighten our thinking, we'll see thousands swept away in a completely new form of pandemic. They'll be gone in a wave of complete and utter boredom and inactivity. Thus all power to the Irish sailing community, for during the past 14 months they've made the very best of every sailing opportunity available while maintaining reasonable regard for the regulations, and the result is that we face into the beginning of the semi-season on 7th June with our sport in good heart.

This is how it was, In Real Time – the new Sun Fast 3300 Cinnamon Girl gets ready for her splash at MGM Boats in early March, 2020. Photo: W M Nixon  

These thoughts are provoked by the realisation that the next Sailing on Saturday will be the first "real" one since March 7th 2020. In those very different times, a few days earlier I'd been present at the un-wrapping of the new Sunfast 3300 Cinnamon Girl for Cian McCarthy of Kinsale at MGM Boats in Dun Laoghaire.

As ever in March, the general conversation was how to get more young people into sailing, with the theme being that the sailing community should be more friendly and accessible. But my argument in that last real SailSat was that sailing is first and foremost a vehicle sport, and if they could get more really sexy boats like the Sunfast 3300 out on the water, then the young folk would follow.

That was all for real. But only a week later, and we were into fantasy land. The plague from China was rampant, and on Wednesday, March 11th, the planned reception at the Royal Irish Yacht Club for the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race (scheduled for Wicklow SC on June 20th) was cancelled. Nothing daunted, we produced an account of a convivial virtual party for the Sailing on Saturday of March 14th, and it has been like that ever since, with us realizing that IRL isn't just a set of national identity lettering you have on your sails, it also means In Real Life, and it's something with which our connections have at times been very tenuous – occasionally to the point of non-existence - ever since.

You could say that we've been off the wall now and again, except that at times it was doubtful if there was a wall to be off in the first place. But now if we don't have walls, at least there's the semblance of an emerging programme, and unless things go exceptionally haywire on the general health front, in a week's time we'll be considering the riders and runners for the National Yacht Club's 280-mile Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race on Wednesday, June 9th.

Oh for sure, we ran a runners 'n' riders piece for the pop-up Fastnet 450 Race on August 22nd 2020, and our conservative reckoning that the Murphy family's Grand Soleil 40 Nieulargo from Cork was the best bet would have produced a modest if real return. But many of us now find something almost dreamlike in recollections of the Fastnet 450 – did it really happen at all?

Did it really happen? Nieulargo finishing to win the Fastnet 450 in the entrance to Cork Harbour. Photo: Nigel Young/North Sails  

Thus there's something more tangible about the 1993-founded Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race - it's a regular rather than a pop-up event, and it's an ideal major happening to get the season going, for within the Pandemic limits which are likely to continue in some form for some time, the fact that the restrictions need to be imposed in only two ports makes it much more straightforward, as it can draw on experience gained with the Fastnet 450.

By contrast, this weekend in Scotland the much-confined Scottish Series is kept within the upper Firth of Clyde instead of across those generous waters north of Arran leading into Lower Loch Fyne off Tarbert, and the pre-series Special Instructions for 2021 which obtained for a while were a forceful reminder of just how free and easy the sailing game had been in the old days, as they read:

• All shoreside and social activity has been cancelled
• The volunteer engagement program has been cancelled
• There will be no physical race office or notice boards, these will be virtual
• There will be no physical jury or appeals hearings in person, these will be virtual
• The venue has been changed to the Clyde Estuary
• Fleets will be split into three groups spread out from the Cumbraes to Helensburgh
• There will be no prizegiving ceremonies, shoreside briefings or vendor events
• There will be two handed classes recognising the fact crews may need to operate with restricted numbers
• Prizes won will be delivered after the event
• The event will be reduced to three days
• The top tier price bracket has been removed in recognition that the larger boats may need to run with lower crew numbers
• Entry rates will be discounted below that of the 2019 prices
• General entry will open on the 2nd April 2021 and close on the 14th May 2021 with an additional late entry admin fee applied from 1st May 2021

That was the way it was. Things have now eased a bit in Scotland, but nevertheless "light-hearted" is still not the mood of the moment. By comparison, the organisation of a straightforward passage race from one Irish port to another is surely a much more manageable business, and in Dun Laoghaire thanks to the Training Races, the sight of boats gathering is no longer quite the shock it was. IRL is emerging from the mists of pandemic.

Maybe next year…..? Tarbert on Loch Fyne during a normal Scottish Series

After last Saturday's high octane start to the ISORA season at Dun Laoghaire Harbour, several new boats are expected to join the Irish offshore fleet as the scene hots up for the National Yacht Club hosted Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race on June 9th. 

A third Sunfast 3600 will arrive Dublin Bay shortly, according to Afloat sources, and also expected is a new Grand Soleil 44R.

As Afloat reported earlier, Mike and Ritchie Evans's new J/99 is also expected to compete in ISORA.

Another Howth boat, a Dufour 45, is yet another welcome addition to the Dublin race scene. Although she did not participate in the first ISORA training run, the distinctive navy hull of Emmet Sheridan's Dufour 45e was seen sailing on Dublin Bay last Saturday. The Howth Yacht Club yacht is entered for the D2D in the IRC racing division.

Andrew Algeo's J99 Juggerknot II will be joined by another J99 design this season in the ISORA Series Photo: Afloat

Overall, this means a fleet of 20 could muster for the next ISORA training event on May 29th, a part of the Viking Marine Coastal Series, the last before the D2D. 

At least three of four boats new boats will be racing the 320-miles to Dingle, which will be an offshore highlight of the Irish sailing calendar. 

New Greystones yacht, the J122 Kaya Photo: Afloat

As Afloat reported previously, last Saturday's first outing saw a new Greystones yacht, the J122 Kaya join the ISORA scene, a sistership to Chris Power Smith's top-performing Aurelia, from the Royal St. George Yacht Club. 

June's Volvo Dun Laoghaire Dingle Offshore Race is fully subscribed and operating a waiting list and still operating on the basis that it will go ahead as planned on June 9th despite the changing public health situation, according to Race Chairman Adam Winkelmann.

The confirmation comes after a lack of clarity for sailing events following the easing of lockdown restrictions announced earlier this week by the Government. 

"We are not cancelling the race at this time and we do not intend to cancel the race until the facts and the guidance determine that we should cancel it", Winkelmann told skippers, who are making preparations for the 2021 edition of the 320-miler in just under 70 days time.

The Government plans to continue its cautious approach, gradually easing restrictions, while a substantial level of the population is vaccinated during April, May and June, after which, it should be safe to reopen society more widely.

"we do not intend to cancel the race until the facts and the guidance determine that we should cancel it"

In an update to competitors, the National Yacht Club organiser said "A strong element of the ethos of the race is that it be fun. It combines competitive racing at sea followed by great social fun in Dingle for those that want it, and the opportunity to cruise in the South West region or participate in other racing events such as the Sovereigns Cup".

We want to offer all our skippers, crews and supporters just that - but the public health situation increasingly looks like it may make that combination impossible to achieve", he told the fleet. 

Adam Winkelmann, Volvo Dun Laoghaire Dingle Offshore Race Organiser - in making the decision to stage the June fixture he says he also has to consider the situation with regard to rescue services and those people responsible for our safety at sea

For now, Winkelmann and the NYC race team continue to monitor and track all available information and guidance in respect of running an offshore sailing race.

He says the NYC currently have very little hard information beyond April 26th, though the NYC and the Dingle Skellig Hotel, in particular, are hoping for an opening of inter-county travel and hotels in early June.

Winkelmann says he will announce more as soon as he can with another date of May 5th now being the likely timeframe for more information.

The organisers may also run a survey of entrants at that point to better gauge individual owners intentions.

Winklemann told the ICRA conference in March that if the restrictions do not permit the race to go ahead on June 9th, then a decision has already been made to "push the event out until its next staging in June 2023".

Read Winkelmann's full statement here

How quickly can we hope to return to the carefree style of sailing sociability which reflects the mood displayed above, as seen in the officially-accredited Sporting & Cultural Mission from Howth Yacht Club on its traditional biennial visit to the Sovereign's Cup in Kinsale?

Naturally, we can't go into any personal details or identification - what happens in Kinsale stays in Kinsale. But any contemplation of this display of dynamic camaraderie is a forceful reminder of how the past fourteen months have seen us pushed further and further from everything that makes Irish sailing so effortlessly sociable.

And "effortlessly" is the keyword here, for as you'll deduce, the HYC modus operandi includes taking a block booking in the hotel which is as close as possible to Kinsale YC and its marina, without actually putting the group on conspicuous display in a waterfront establishment.

As various commentators have already pointed out, the official Lockdown Easing pronouncements of recent days seem, on closer examination, to be a series of "definite maybes". But after everything that has been experienced, not to mention what may be yet to come, the sailing community does not at this stage expect its leaders to be setting completely finalised dates.

Ann Kirwan – seen here racing with co-owner Brian Cullen – may be noted for campaigning a Ruffian 23 called Bandit. But as Commodore of Dublin Bay Sailing Club, it is the Bandit skipper who will be clarifying the law-keeping for her many members

Thus Ann Kirwan, Commodore of Dublin Bay Sailing Club and thereby the actual and spiritual leader of the largest yacht race organisers in Ireland, got the tone just right when she expressed a hope for starts of sorts in mid-May, but made it clear to any thinking sailor that these things are being monitored on a day-to-day basis while we all hope for the best, and of course at every turn social distancing will continue for some time to be a major consideration.

TRAINING ELEMENT PLAYS SIGNIFICANT ROLE

Where training is involved, there is a significant element of school opening allowances in the equation, and Howth YC Commodore Paddy Judge has expressed the hope that training courses will be underway at or soon after April 26th, which brings a resumption of sorts within the almost foreseeable future.

When it was good, it was very, very good. The season of 2020 may have been truncated, but it provided some superb memories before lockdown returned, and one of the best was Howth's last keelboat race is notably warm weather on Sunday 13th September, with Simon Knowles' J/109 seen here chasing down three of the hot HYC Half Tonners. Photo: Judith Malcolm.

On the more complex question of sailing for everyone, the feeling was that DBSC got it pretty much spot on in the amount and timing of the racing it organized through 2020's truncated season. But if anything, the controlled success of last year puts even greater pressure on the organisers to make the right call and provisions as the new season approaches. For the background factors keep changing.

After all, every day we hear of increased Brexit-induced ferry connectivity with France, yet France has recently seen Pandemic levels rise to such dangerous numbers that they're now into a three-week lockdown in France, and especially in Paris.

April in Paris, yet the City of Light is closed? But in Paris, not all is as it seems. Once upon a time a long time ago, I met a guy in Paris, an American, who was still living off the regular royalties he'd inherited from the fact that his father had, among other popular works, written the song April in Paris.

Yet April in Paris can feel like winter, as is the case at the moment. However, it's nothing new – this man in Paris admitted that the romantic events in Paris which inspired the song that continued to keep him in such comfort had actually occurred in May. But all his father's skills as a songsmith simply couldn't get May to scan with the rest of the lyrics, so he shifted it to April, and blushed all the way to the bank.

April in Paris – rainy but romantic. The outcome of the current three week April lockdown in France may well play a pivotal role in some important aspects of the 2021 sailing season in Europe.

FRENCH LOCKDOWN MAY AFFECT FASTNET RACE 2021

This may all seem irrelevant to the opening or otherwise of the 2021 sailing season. But in fact what happens in Paris over the next three weeks will be of real importance to the sailing hopes of at least eleven Irish offshore racing crews with a taste for the international competition, as this August is scheduled for the first of the new-look RORC Rolex Fastnet Races finishing in France at Cherbourg, and they're entered for it.

But if the supposedly total three week lockdown in France, which started yesterday, goes astray by being ignored with extensive social unrest to compound the problem, and yet another massive COVID surge results thereafter, then events in August will experience a damaging knock-on effect.

It might even see the Fastnet Race organisers forced to revert to the historic finish port of Plymouth in order to keep all the shoreside activity within one national jurisdiction. And we hasten to add that this is not a belated April Fool notion.

The traditional Fastnet Racecourse in gold, with the planned 2021 extension to finish at Cherbourg in red. If the current newly-introduced Three Week Lockdown in France fails to curb the latest major surge of COVID-19, it's possible that the RORC may have to revert to the Plymouth finish in order to keep all shoreside activity connected to the Fastnet Race restricted to one relatively pandemic-free jurisdiction.

As it happens, we don't have to look to France for the need for restrained behaviour. Easter in Ireland with imposed social limitations will seem particularly irksome to a people accustomed to make this their great traditional Springtime get-together, especially so after the cancellation for a second year of St Patrick's Day.

Let us hope that it is not blind optimism to expect that the population generally will be carefully regarding the regulations over this long weekend. The nation has barely got things back in an even keel after the huge post-Christmas & New Year surge before this new threat is upon us. And vaccinations are still running at a worryingly low level, yet we find ourselves thrust back into a pressure-cooker situation to keep the virus-spread under control.

APRIL 20TH WILL BE DATE WHEN SITUATION CLARIFIES

All of which means that while we may talk of a significant easing of restrictions around April 26th, it won't be until the days around the 20th April – 14 days after Easter – that we'll have the actual figures and the accurate graphs to tell us the real story about the level of after-effect from any illicit Easter socialising, and what expectations can be realistically expressed about various levels of resumption of activity.

We'll have to accept that it must start quietly and in a restrained and socially distanced way, and all strictly at club level. Admittedly our clubs are of such variety in size and character that "at club level" will have different meanings at different sailing centres. But any sailor of responsibility and goodwill will know the limitations without them having to be rigidly enforced, for as we learned last year, the strength of the Irish sailing club tradition is such that the Commodores and Admirals are expected to quietly clarify the developing situation for their members, and this was done at all main sailing harbours through 2021, with a reassuring level of both thoroughness and rightness.

A moment of real hope. Proper and officially-sanctioned club keelboat racing finally gets underway on a glorious sailing evening at the Royal Cork YC in Crosshaven on July 9th 2020. Photo: Robert Bateman

The Pilot. Colin Morehead, Admiral of the Royal Cork YC. In January 2021 he was acclaimed as Cork's "Person of the Month" for the skilled way he had guided his club through the incredibly difficult experience of effectively cancelling his club's long-planned Tricentenary, and then being involved in arranging regulation-compliant events which included the offshore Fastnet 450 Race to optimize his members' severely constrained 2020 season 

However, the very nature of sailing as a vehicle sport, where crew numbers can quickly rise to threaten the limitations of family or bubble numbers, means that each situation may have to be decided on its own merits. We're told that in the current circumstances, sailing as a sport is grouped in with tennis, golf and cycling, but that obviously creates problems of interpretation.

Naturally the solo-sailing brigade are in something of a category of their own, but there's no escaping the fact that the invisible but very real on-water camaraderie of a fleet of solo sailors can very quickly translate into shoreside social-distancing problems as the group comes ashore in a wave of banter at race's end.

You can of course have two folk from the same bubble racing Lasers of Aero RSs or whatever in match events to their heart's content, though I suppose they'd have to make some sort of allowances for having a rescue boat. But if you want to push the fleet numbers out, it can always be designated as a training and coaching session, for once a certain level of competence has been attained, there is simply no better way of improving someone's solo sailing ability than through racing.

Now there's a real start……In pandemic circumstances, there are few healthier group sporting activities than big-fleet Laser racing – but problems arise when the fleet tries to get organised ashore.

Certainly, the charms of match racing can soon wear off, with it becoming a reminder – and here's something you mightn't have known – of the fact that in Scotland, there has never been a complete ban on playing golf throughout the pandemic. But since January 1st, it has been limited to a maximum of two players (and presumably a minimum of one), with the players regulation-compliant in every way, a dour enough situation perhaps, but it must have seemed like a relative paradise to unnecessarily restricted golfers in Ireland.

It's something to think about as we wait to see what the graphs and numbers are like on April 20th. Anyone who thinks otherwise has clearly forgotten about how the balloon went up in the second and third weeks of January. Meanwhile, it's arguable that there's currently no justification for prematurely cancelling any planned local events scheduled from mid-May onwards provided their local credentials are impeccable, and by June who knows, but we may indeed see the national season of 2021 get underway in style with the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race of Wednesday, June 9th, even if it is slightly subdued by shoreside restrictions.

Sacred activity. With the addition of face-masks, these two would have been allowed to continue their sport in Scotland through January, February and March.

The 1939-built Fred Shepherd classic 50ft Amokura (Paul Moxon) returns to the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Dingle Race start line in June for another attempt at the 320-mile Irish offshore race.

The Falmouth based wooden yawl will be racing double-handed again but this time trying to avoid the rigging damage that beset her in her D2D debut two years ago. 

Unfortunately, after looking very stylish at the start, the only wooden classic in the race was doing very well despite being Two-Handed but was then slowed by rigging damage.

As Afloat reported previously, 42 boats are now entered for the National Yacht Club fixture, edging the club closer to its 50-boat advertised limit. Afloat's WM N Nixon predicts the biennial fixture will be the race that should get sailing going again, if restrictions are lifted.