When Annalise Murphy of the National Yacht Club won the Dinghy Division of Sailing’s Championship of the Champions in Ireland last Sunday (October 4th) after two days of racing in Melges 15s at the Royal St George Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire, it was a time for both celebration and reflection.
Ten years have elapsed since she won the Silver Medal in the ILCA 6 at the Rio Olympics. But after ten years, her victory in the ILCA 6 Nationals at the RStGYC in July - her qualifier for the Championship of Champions in October - was a convincing signal that she was very much back as a force in ILCA racing, despite forays into other boats and sports, and her recent entry into the world of motherhood.
Ten years ago now…new 2026 Champion Annalise Murphy wins Silver at the 2016 Rio Olympics
CREW’S CONTRIBUTION SHARED
Yet going into the Championship of Champions, an added factor was the fresh sailing skills required to sail the two-handed Melges 15, and it was notable that in the post-win party she made a special point of ensuring that the contribution of her crew Barry McCartin was very much part of the celebration.
This generosity of credit for shared achievement by top stars was also evident when we considered that the last - and only - previous woman sailor’s win of the All-Ireland Championship title was when Laura Dillon of Howth took the silver salver in 1996, racing two-handed Laser 2s at Ballyholme on Belfast Lough, with John Gilmore very much credited by her as her crew.
She was 18 at the time, the second-youngest winner, bested only by the 17 year old Robert Dix of Malahide, who had taken what was then the Helmsman’s Championship, and raced in National 18s as the culminating event of the Royal Cork YC’s Quarter Millennium, at Crosshaven in 1970.
Seventeen year old winner Robert Dix (right) with finalists in the 1970 Helmsman’s Championship at Royal Cork YC including (left to right) Michael O’Rahilly, Somers Payne, Harold Cudmore, Owen Delany, and Maurice Butler. Photo: John Fitzpatrick
1996 SEASON
The international highlight of Laura’s 1996 season had been winning the Bronze with Ciara Peelo at the Youth Worlds at Newport, Rhode Island, and she was to go on to take many other major dinghy and keelboat prizes. But as the years passed, the male dominance of the All-Ireland started to mean that Laura’s only-woman win in 1996 began to define her sailing profile in Ireland.
However, she had moved for a while to London to work in what used to be called high finance, getting so involved in RORC racing that she became the RORC’s International Rear Commodore, while achieving continuing racing prominence – both inshore and offshore - as lead helm on Dutch owner-skipper Harry Heijst’s super-successful S&S 41 classic Winsome.
Winsome, win some more…Laura Dillon in the midst of a celebrating Winsome crew
TOP WOMAN SAILOR AT COWES
This brought Laura many further titles including top woman sailor in Cowes Week. But now that she has moved her business interests back to Ireland, she has been seen on high-profile and successful boats sailing from her home port of Howth, notably the Evans brothers’ The Big Picture, both the J/99 and the J/112e.
Thus sailing life most emphatically doesn’t end with being the only woman winner of the Al1-Ireland in its 79 years, but nevertheless last weekend’s win by Annalise Murphy was trebly welcome in more accurately reflecting the true state of top-level Irish sailing.
ADJUSTMENT TO REFLECT FEMALE SAILING ACHIEVEMENT
That said, we’d need at least twenty women sailors to become All Ireland Champions to reflect the ratios of the true state of contemporary Irish sailing, with our ongoing challenge towards the Olympics led by the likes of Eve McMahon and Sienna Wright at the head of a list of formidable female sailors from every main sailing centre.
And as we’ve pointed out before, it’s nothing new in Ireland, for way back in 1894 the magazine Yachting World ran a feature about the remarkable number of talented women sailors who featured with success in the racing of the Dublin Bay Water Wags.
Then too, it was all of 92 years ago that Elizabeth Crimmins of Cork Harbour became the first female awardee of the Irish Cruising Club’s premier trophy, the Faulkner Cup in 1934, an achievement since repeated by the likes of Daphne French of Dunmore East and Maire Breathnach of Dungarvan.
Pamela Lee (centre) and Cat Hunt on their way to the Round Ireland Two-Handed Record, October 2020
ROUND IRELAND RECORD
But it’s in the Round Ireland Record that the Irish women sailing input is most marked, as the two-handed record has been held with style since October 2020 by Pamela Lee of Greystones and Cat Hunt, after putting in a remarkable performance with a Figaro Beneteau 3.
Pamela Lee had a celebratory send-off from Dun Laoghaire by the Atlantic Youth Trust this week, as she is to be the first Irish woman skipper in the Transatlantic Route du Rhum on November 1st.
At this week’s Route de Rhum sendoff in the National Maritime Museum were Pam Lee (centre) and Enda O Coineen (left) of the Atlantic Youth Trust.
The Class40 that Pamela Lee will be racing in the Route du Rhum, starting November 1st.
But meanwhile it’s timely to remember that ever since people started getting serious about the Round Ireland Record in 1986, Irish women sailors have been involved. Denis Doyle’s Moonduster had recorded an exceptional time in the 1984 Round Ireland Race, and when in May 1986 Robin Knox-Johnston brought his 60 foot catamaran British Airways to Dun Laoghaire to challenge, top woman helm Jennie Guinness was in the crew as the big machine blasted away northwards out of Dublin Bay to establish enough of a new record to attract attention.
The crew of 60ft catamaran British Airways after the successful round Ireland record challenge in May 1986 included (left to right) Robin Knox-Johnston, Jennifer Guinness, John Guinness, W M Nixon, Enda O’Coineeen, John Leahy and Liam Lawlor
This was such that in November 1986, a grim time of the year to be speeding round Ireland under sail, Dickie Gomes of Strangford Lough and a large crew with Peter Phillips’ 83ft catamaran Novanet streaked round in more darkness than daylight to set a record which stood until 1993.
THE LAKOTA YEARS
That year, in Portugal, Con Murphy and Cathy MacAleavey met up with Steve Fossett’s marvellous 60ft triamaran Lakota and her crew and persuaded them to come to Ireland and have a bash at the record, which they duly did with great success in September 1993 with Con and Cathy very much in their crew.
Con Murphy, Cathy Mac Aleavey and Steve Fossett with the Lakota crew after establishing the long-standing Round Ireland Record in September 1993.
That all stood until 2016, when the advent of the Mod 70s and George David’s Rambler 88 and champion Class40s in the Round Ireland Race from Wicklow in extraordinarily favourable conditions saw the Open, the Multihull, the Monohull and the Two-Handed Round Ireland Records broken, and well broken at that.
LINEUP FOR KEELBOAT ALL-IRELAND CHAMPIONSHIP
All of which added lustre to Pamela Lee’s new two-handed record in October 2020 – it was a beauty. But now we’re at the situation where there’s a woman winner of a component of the all-Ireland who happens to be the daughter of former Olympian and Round Ireland record maker Cathy Mac Aleavey.
So how is it all looking with the entry list for this weekend’s two-day Keelboat Division of the All-Ireland, due to start this morning at the Royal Irish Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire racing J/80s. Well, it’s a formidable lineup of talent. But in the Magic Twelve, there’s only one woman helm. She is the Flying Fifteens’ Emma Pierce of Ballyholme YC & Strangford Lough YC. We wish her the very best of luck. After all, it was Ballyholme where Laura Dillon broke the mould by winning thirty years ago. So surely it’s payback time?
The Royal Irish YC is hosting the Keelboat Championship of Champions 2026 this weekend
