Royal Irish Yacht Club to Race New York Yacht Club Invitational 2025 in September

6th February 2025

WM Nixon

David Maguire's Cape 31 Valkyrie is providing intensifying training for the Royal Irish YC's team for September's New York YC Invitational at Newport, RI. Credit: Afloat

The Royal Irish Yacht Club has nominated Dave Maguire's 'Team Valkyrie' to represent the club at the 2025 Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup this September.

Unusually, three top Irish sailing teams, two from Dublin and one from Cork, will contest the Cup this September off Rhode Island. In addition to the Royal Irish Yacht Club, the Royal Cork Yacht Club and Howth Yacht Club are in the line-up of twenty teams from 15 countries competing.

The RCYC has competed in every event since its inaugural event in 2009, while Howth has done two. This will be the first year that the RIYC has competed in the Cup, and the Club has selected a Team that has real potential to podium.

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP STATUS

The Rolex NYYC Invitational Cup is a biennial event hosted by the NYYC in Newport Rhode Island. This prestigious regatta is widely regarded as The World Championships of One Design Big Boat Corinthian (amateur) racing.

In the lead-up to The Invitational Cup, Maguire and his crew are competing on the Cape 31 Race Circuit with a crew of seven. The Regatta will be raced in the IC37, a high-performance boat with a crew of nine to eleven. Both yachts are designed by Irish designer Mark Mills.

OLYMPIANS IN CREW

Maguire says the final crew panel for The Invitational Cup is almost complete, with seven of the nine on-the-water crew confirmed. Team Valkyrie is selected from some of the best talent in Ireland, with Dan O'Grady (former Olympian in the Soling class) and former Olympic 49er skiff campaigners Seafra Guilfoyle and Johnny Durcan in the lineup.

O'Grady and Maguire have competed against one another in their teens in dinghies and more recently in separate Cape 31s, Valkyrie and Aja. 2024 saw them combine forces on the Cape 31, Valkyrie in the IRC European Championships hosted by the RIYC in September. This was the first time they have sailed together and cemented the desire to compete for the Invitational Cup representing the Royal Irish Yacht Club.

Maguire commented "we are honoured to receive the nomination to represent the Royal Irish Yacht Club and hope to do the Club proud at the 2025 Invitational. We have assembled a strong crew this year and are not going to make up the numbers".

FIVE DAYS OF RACING

The Regatta will comprise a optional practice period beginning September 3, registration and more optional practice on September 6, two days of mandatory practice racing on September 7 and 8, and five days of racing beginning September 9. The memorable Rolex Awards Banquet will be held September 13 on the lawn of the New York Yacht Club Harbour Court.

Commodore of the RIYC, Tim Carpenter is no stranger to one design racing with many years competing in the Dragon fleet. The Commodore stated; "We were honoured and delighted to receive the invitation from the New York Yacht Club to compete in the 2025 Rolex NYYC Invitational Cup. I am very much looking forward to following the Team and watching the event this September"

Published in New York Invitational Cup

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Royal Irish Yacht Club

About The Author

WM Nixon

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William M Nixon has been writing about sailing in Ireland for many years in print and online, and his work has appeared internationally in magazines and books. His own experience ranges from club sailing to international offshore events, and he has cruised extensively under sail, often in his own boats which have ranged in size from an 11ft dinghy to a 35ft cruiser-racer. He has also been involved in the administration of several sailing organisations.

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New York Yacht Club’s biennial Invitational Cup

Ireland has a proud history in New York Yacht Club’s biennial Invitational Cup, with Irish participation from the very start and a podium result in 2019.

In 2009, two Irish Clubs, Royal St. George in Dun Laoghaire and Royal Cork in Crosshaven, entered into New York's newest sailing competition that was reminiscent of Newport’s America’s Cup days when 19 yacht club teams from 14 nations descended on this “City by the Sea”.

The Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup is a competition between yacht clubs, with strict eligibility rules ensuring that each team is comprised exclusively of amateur sailors.

The competition, which was first run in 2009, has drawn entries from 49 clubs from 22 nations on all six inhabited continents.

The New York Yacht Club won the inaugural event in 2009, with the Royal Canadian Yacht Club winning in 2011 and 2013, England's Royal Thames Yacht Club winning in 2015 and Southern Yacht Club from New Orleans winning in 2017.

In 2019 the regatta was sailed for the first time in the New York Yacht Club’s fleet of IC37 yachts, and Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, from Australia, became the first Southern Hemisphere club to win the trophy. And it was in this edition that Anthony O’Leary’s Royal Cork team took the bronze medal.