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Royal St. George Yacht Club's J122 Aurelia Wins Kinsale's Inistearaght Race

25th May 2024
Inistearaght Race prizewinners- L-R (back row) SCORA Commodore Daragh Connolly, Overall IRC winner, Chris Power Smith of Aurelia, sponsor James Matthews of The Matthews Centre,  ECHO winner Paul Tingle of Alpaca, Daniel Fitzgerald of Aurelia, Dave Cullinane of Kinsale Yacht Club, Front row Zixi Dong and Jamie Tingle
Inistearaght Race prizewinners - left to right(back row) SCORA Commodore Daragh Connolly, Overall IRC winner, Chris Power Smith of Aurelia, sponsor James Matthews of The Matthews Centre, ECHO winner Paul Tingle of Alpaca, Daniel Fitzgerald of Aurelia, Dave Cullinane of Kinsale Yacht Club, Front row Zixi Dong and Jamie Tingle. See photo gallery below Credit: Bob Bateman

Finishing in a sub-one-day elapsed time frame, Royal St. George Yacht Club's Chris Power Smith, on board his J122 Aurelia, won line honours and IRC victory on Saturday in Kinsale Yacht Club's eight-boat offshore Inistearaght Race.

Having won line honours in 2023, the sole Dublin boat in the race returned and went one better in 2025 and took the overall title ahead of defending champion Cian McCarthy's Sunfast 3300 Cinnamon Girl of the host club. 

This year's race was shortened to the Bull Rock due to the weather forecast reducing the distance from approximately 230 to 170 nautical miles.

The race down to the Bull was spectacular, but as the fleet reached the rock, conditions changed. It was a tough beat and fetch home to Kinsale in gusts of over 30 knots and a large sea. 

Aurelia finished with a corrected time of one day, zero hours, 57 minutes and 5 seconds, just 16 seconds ahead of Cinnamon Girl on 1d 0h 57m 21s corrected.

Chris Power Smith's J122 Aurelia is the 2024 Inistearaght Race champion Photo: AfloatChris Power Smith's J122 Aurelia is the 2024 Inistearaght Race champion Photo: Afloat

Third was Royal Cork yacht X-yacht Alpaca, skippered by Eddie Tingle on 1d 1h 53m 33s corrected who was the ECHO winner.

The Aurelia crew completed the ISORA Coastal Series in April and the early-season DBSC series on Dublin Bay. They will consider the Inistearaght Race victory an important indicator of their form for next month's 700-mile Round Ireland Race from Wicklow.

Inistearaght Race 2024 Prizegiving Photo Gallery by Bob Bateman

Race Results

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About Kinsale Yacht Club's Inishtearaght Offshore Yacht Race

To meet growing demand for offshore racing, Kinsale Yacht Club Commodore Matthias Hellstern along with Dave Cullinane (SCORA Vice-Commodore) launched the inaugural Inishtearaght Race in Kinsale on Wednesday, December 23rd in 2021.

The race is a new south coast offshore race to be held biennially commencing in 2022.

 

The course will be approximately 240nm long and will run along the spectacular coast of West Cork and Kerry, round Inistearaght island and back to Kinsale. The first race start is scheduled for Friday, 20th May 2022 with a fleet of seven entries for the first race.

 

The Thuillier family have kindly allowed the oldest trophy in Kinsale YC to be presented as the line honours trophy for the race. The Thuillier Cup is 150 years old, having been originally presented by the Royal Enniskillen Fusiliers in 1871 and won by Michael Thuillier. The cup was presented to Kinsale YC by the Thuillier family to acknowledge the long tradition of yacht racing in Kinsale.