With the J/109s and the classic Half Tonners already drawing blood in battle by mid-June, the 2025 Kildare Campus Sovereigns at Kinsale from Wednesday, June 25th to Saturday, June 28th has extra edges in every direction, as it somehow also manages to incorporate the Irish Cruiser Racer Association Nationals 2025.
The J/109 Outrajeous (Johnny & Suzie Murphy, Howth YC) is form boat every which way, having emerged from the latter half of the 2024 season on top of just about every peak in the entire range, and now in 2025 they've added on the Volvo Dun Laoghaire-Dingle win in convincing style this past weekend to show they're as hot offshore as around the cans.
The Boardman, Kelly, O'Leary Half Tonner 2Farr comes to the 2025 Sovereign's Cup, having already won on the Solent at Easter and on home waters in June's Lambay Race Photo: Afloat
The Sovereign's 2025, with a classy entry pushing towards the 95 mark, offers both coastal and cans, and it would have been beyond contemplation in the pre-computer era. Whether or not AI is well involved we can't say for certain, which means it probably is, all of which points to the mega-issue of AI making a significant input into boat racing strategy and tactics. And to think that friendships used to be sundered over whether or not one could or should use Decca…….
Entries are from as far north as Belfast Lough, as far west as Galway Bay and Tralee, as far east as Pwllheli, and as far south as Schull.
Entry list here
With so many categories on offer, it's quite a job extracting the top boats overall, but in 2023 the winner was James and Dave Dwyer's Half Tonner Swuzzlebubble from Royal Cork. Before that, it was Mike and Ritchie Evans J99 Snapshot from Howth. But the truth is the racing has to be running for a couple of days before anyone can detect trends which are capable of being maintained to the final day.
