It has been quite the weekend for sailing all over Ireland, with flashes of pure sunlit joy. This was despite a weather prognosis which, at its gloomiest, had suggested that there might be no significant sailing at all anywhere. An unstable low pressure area – or maybe two or three such areas - marched across the country with close-packed isobars - and tight-knit hectopascals too, for that matter - a situation cheering only for the doomsters.
The possibility of no racing was certainly being aired here six days ago, admittedly to some extent, because we found the astoundingly alliterated headline "WEEKEND WEATHER WIPEOUT THREATENS FIXTURES FINALE" to be irresistible.
CARVING PROGRAMME OUT OF UNFAVOURABLE CONDITIONS
But having declaimed those sonorous words to music from the pulpit, we sensibly concluded that the notable talents of sailing organisation among Ireland's race officers might provide the most interesting aspect of all in a crowded programme, and said so in this concluding paragraph.
"However, despite the 2024 season's seemingly endless unsettled weather, Ireland's experienced race officers have shown that they are very skilled in carving a worthwhile programme out of apparently unfavourable conditions, and it would be very premature indeed to write off the weekend of October 5th-6th just yet."
Athletes in action. The sun did not get through to the closely-contested Championship of Champions at Cultra
Although little if anything could happen on gale-bashed Saturday, across the country events took advantage of the pre-storm lull on Friday evening to slip under the radar pronto, and the Cork Harbour National 18s raced their distinctly damp season-ender in the river for the Barry Trophy at the Royal Cork YC. This was both to provide a proper reason for the traditional in-club supper, and also a setting in which Colin Barry's new shades-of-green boat from Brightlingsea could make her debut, when she did indeed take line honours, but an OCS meant Alex Barry, Kieran O'Connell and Ritchie Leonard won.
CHAMPIONSHIP OF CHAMPIONS
Up at Cultra on Belfast Lough meanwhile, in the Royal North of Ireland YC Ruan O'Tiarnaigh, Race Officer for the up-coming Championship of Champions to be raced in RS 400s, found himself in an unusual poacher-turned-gamekeeper position. For he has been the Helmsman's Champion once, and runner-up four times, the most recent being 2023 when he came second to Olympian Finn Lynch in Mermaids at Foynes.
How many shades of green? The new National 18 at Crosshaven is a cool bit of kit
Yet here he was faced with matching a national top helms line-up of exceptional quality with a weekend of unusally unfavourable sailing weather. It was solved with a timely cancellation of the Saturday programme to maintain equilibrium with other activities (Titanic visit anyone?) and a start on Sunday just as the worst of the weather cleared from the south, saw the programme put through in jig time, with Ballyholme's Robert Espey, crewed by Mike Ferguson, putting together a very sensible series in which he didn't have any firsts but was seldom out of the frame, whole other stars zapped up and down the scale from first to "elsewhere".
CARLINGFORD CALLS THE COLLEGES
The mediaeval mini-port of Carlingford provided the ideal selection of après-sailing venues to accommodate the requirements of the most dedicated party animals among the college sailing set for the IUSA Team Championship at the weekend, and the eight university teams got a couple of races put through on Saturday before the top came off, while on Sunday lighter breezes were offset by torrential rain as UCD1, captained by Jacques Murphy, took the title.
The well-furnished mini-town of Carlingford is proving popular as a venue for university sailing. Photo: W M Nixon
SOUTHWEST FARES BEST
The weather variations could be very localized, and overall on Sunday it was best in the southwest. At Howth, they may have had the satisfaction of seeing their helms Ross McDonald, Neil Spain and Rob Dickson take 2, 3 & 5 in the All Ireland at Cultra, but at home having the Autumn League on Saturday afternoon and the dinghies' Claremont League on Sunday morning missed the slots for sailable weather, and they were cancelled.
BUOY NEEDS MORE EVOCATIVE NAME
In Dun Laoghaire, faced with a second cancellation, Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club's Kish Race Officers decided that having all Ireland to provide a weather shore in the strong southwest wind was something to be used, as was the Sewer Outfall Buoy in Killiney Bay. That moniker really does sound much more like a proper race mark when we call it the Shanganagh Buoy, but either way it did the business for a race in murky conditions which was an object lesson for everyone in its demonstration of how high humidity really does increase the "weight" of air, providing much more pressure for a given wind speed.
You can feel the weight of the dampness in the Shanganagh Race images, and the results were very pleasingly spread across boat types for handicap proponents, as Justin Burke's JPK 10.30 Request won from Chris Power Smith's J/122 Aurelia, with John O'Gorman's Sun Fast 3600 Hot Cookie third.
SUNNY SOUTH AND WEST
As our header photo reveals, it was the south and southwest that were far enough into Atlantic weather developments to get the best of the approaching brightness, with Kinsale and Cork Harbour's Autumn Leagues getting lots of wind but cheering sunshine with it. Up in the Shannon Estuary meanwhile, the opening day for the Royal Western Yacht Club's October League at Kilrush was Sunshine Central for a race in which three gaff-rigged cutters set the style.
Three gaffers racing hard at Kilrush are (left to right) Sally O'Keeffe, Naomh Fanchea, and Memory 19
These were Seol Sionna's well-travelled Sally O'Keeffe, Micheal O'Donohue's brightly golden-yellow gleoiteog Naomh Fanchea, and Louis Keating's Memory 19. The gleoiteog is of particular interest, as Steve Morris of Kilrush Boatyard was permitted to take the basic lines off a 1905 Casey boat, and then he and designer Myles Stapleton buffed them up a bit, and in the finished Kilrush-built boat as revealed in Afloat.ie four years ago, the electrically-driven propeller is in the trailing edge of the rudder, providing exceptional manoeuvrability
Giving her all. Naomh Fanchea hanging in ahead of one of the new-fangled Marconi-rigged yokes while the sky shows the sunshine will be short but good
BUSY KILRUSH
Kilrush is a classic and traditional focus these days, with the specialist boatyard staff increased to seven with the arrival of Jean Boyer from Douarnenez to join the team while living in board his traditional boat in the marina. They have the Dublin Bay 21 Oola nearing completion to be Number 5 in the Hal Sisk/Fionan de Barra DB 21OD Class restoration project, and the new Howth 17 for ICC Honorary Secretary Donal Gallagher is emerging from the preliminary stage with much background work done. So the word is that if you have a wooden heritage boat in mind, Kilrush Boatyard have all the skills to build it, and you're very welcome to call by and see what they do.
The re-born DB21 Oola emerging at Kilrush. Photo: Steve Morris
