The Race Officer In The Armchair is as big a pain as the Hurler On The Ditch, particularly when either is operating in hindsight. And they're only slightly less of a pest when they're throwing in their tuppence-worth of advice beforehand, for heaven knows that those all-too-often unsung heroes of the sailing scene, the conscientious Race Officers, have their own network of top-level information to draw on when it's clear a difficult event is coming down the line.

Yet, in some ways it's reassuring to know that throughout Ireland, the Race Officers In The Armchair (let's call them ROITA) will be looking at what is going to be a volatile weekend weatherwise. "Volatile" is getting over-used these days, and it will soon go the way of "iconic", but we'll plough on with it for now, as the ROITA are going to be running the rule over the main events planned in this coming weekend of meteorological volatility. They will already know that Saturday is going
to be good - almost a ridge day in fact - such that in some places, there's even a chance that a lack of wind will briefly be a problem. But Sunday is going to be a complete stinker.

There'll almost certainly be southerly gales countrywide. So whatever you may think about the accuracy or otherwise of weather forecasts, you'd be flying in the face of reason to assert that any plans for racing anticipated on Sunday should be kept firmly in place regardless.

Because Sunday is going to be the kind of day which makes you realise why most of the yacht clubs in Ireland - and virtually all the major ones - face north. For if you're going to operate the clubhouse on a year-round basis with a winter sailing programme supported by an active in-house series of social events, you don't want your members and guests being blown away before they can get near the clubhouse or their boats.

Normally this fact of north-facing club life is barely noticed, but this weekend sees the two-day staging of the new-look Champions' Cup, otherwise the 75th Anniversary of the Helmsman's Championship. And it's being staged at the south-facing Sutton Dinghy Club in GP 14s. Sutton Dinghy Club is the very essence of the summer place. It may face across to Dublin city, yet in good weather with the fascinating abundance and variety of the Bull Island Nature reserve just across the way on the other side of Sutton Creek, the sense of being completely away from it all and at one with nature, of being young again with an exciting world right there to be explored in your little sailing dinghy, is what makes Suttonians - young and old - go misty-eyed.

GP 14s racing in a brisk southerly at Sutton. Photo: Andy Johnston

But an Autumn southerly gale at Sutton, made even more pressurised by the season's high-density air, is something else altogether, particularly with the tidal launching area. So presumably, they're already making plans in anticipation of it being a one day event which, come to think of it, was the form that the Championship took 75 years ago. High Water is 11.26 on Saturday, so dawn patrol racing could be possible to get a good chunk of the programme out of the way early, and
then all home, done and dusted and the 75th Anniversary Champion announced by evening time Saturday.

This meeting of the ROITA Association is now closed.