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A Sigma 33 One Design keelboat racing on Dublin Bay Photo: AfloatA Sigma 33 One Design keelboat racing on Dublin Bay Photo: Afloat

Displaying items by tag: O'Flynn Exhams

Bob Bateman's latest photos from yesterday's Royal Cork's October League are over the fold. Having sailed six races in the O'Flynn Exhams Autumn League and, with a discard applied, a trend is emerging writes Claire Bateman. The exception to this is White Sail 1 and 2 who have had four races and at the wish of the classes have reverted to two races each day. It was another light day with yachts waiting patiently for the breeze to fill and when it did it was a light breeze from the west going further into the south as the day went on. Richard Leonard's Green Fleet were on a laid course outside the harbour and having postponed the first race during the start sequence, he eventually got the fleet going when the west breeze settled. Class Three and White Sail 1 were started together followed by Class Four and White Sail 2. The mixing of classes made for interesting racing as it kept the boats in close proximity to one another and a second race was sailed successfully thereafter.

On David O'Brien's harbour course with the Red Fleet the breeze was slower to fill in. However, when it did Class 2 and the 1720s were sent on a course to Ringabella against the flood tide. The Class Zero and Class One fleets were over eager and suffered a general recall so they started last. Again they were over anxious and were bunched at the pin end of the line but after some manoeuvering a clear start was called and they too set off for Ringabella, the boats heading for the western shore to avoid the tide faring best. First to reach Ringabella was Jump Juice but she obviously didn't feel like leaving as she clung to the mark having to suffer the fate of watching many of the class rounding before she eventually got free. In Class One IRC Donal O'Leary's D-Tox is on 7 points but David Scott's EOS is on 20 points with Michael Wallace just one point adrift on Felix.

The position in Class Three IRC appears to be the most obvious with the prowling Kenefick/O'Brien Tiger leading with five first places followed by Ian Traver's Bandit on 9 points and in Class Zero IRC the same equally obvious situation pertains with Kieran Twomey's Gloves Off on 5 points and Conor Phelan's Jump Juice on 9 points. In Class Four IRC Mike Sexton's Granny Knot and Alan Mulcahy's Sundancer are tied on 7 points each.

This league is also counting for the SCORA 2010 League as is the April league from Kinsale a total of fifteen races overall with three discards so this also adding spice and competition to the event.

To-day's day prizes were presented by Eamonn Muldoon of O'Flynn Exham's and racing will continue next Sunday with first gun at 10.55 am.

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Published in Royal Cork YC

An 80 boat fleet set sail for the opening day of the Autumn League at the Royal Cork Yacht Club Regatta today writes Claire Bateman.

While conditions setting out were typical of a lovely Autumn day, the wind, however, was to prove fickle going up and down changing direction. As a consequence of this Race Officer David O'Brien with the Red fleet made up a course to suit the conditions and Race Officer Richard Leonard brought the Green fleet to the Eastern bank where they were to sail a laid course. The Whitesail fleets sailed an extra leg to their race as they have decided to have only one race each day.

The Red fleet started their first race at Whitebay and went to a laid mark on the eastern shore before spinnkaers were hoisted to be dropped shortly afterwards as they headed for OFE 2 before fetching across to Ringabella and running in to a finish at no. 5. Race 2 saw a beat out to W2 for Classes Zero, One and 1720s and a run back to No.11 where the course was shortened. Shortly after the start of the race a shower came and with it some wind but when the rain stopped the wind died resulting in the shortening of the course. Class 2 were also given a beat out to W2 but they were given a shorter course finishing at No. 7.

As usual we had welcome visitors from Kinsale, Dungarvan, Waterford and Cobh participating. It was good to see Jump Juice back in the water as it also was to see Indulgence back in action again. And perhaps best of all was to see a resurgence of 1720s back on their home waters in Cork Harbour.

Prize giving took place immediately after racing and the prizes were distributed by Irene O'Donovan a Partner in the sponsor firm of O'Flynn Exhams Solicitors.

Racing will continue next Sunday with first gun at 10.55am.

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First Race Results on Royal Cork Site HERE

More Bob Bateman Photos on the Gallery HERE

 

Published in Royal Cork YC

The Notice of Race (NOR) for the O'Flynn Exhams sponsored Autumn Regatta at the Royal Cork Yacht Club is now available to download below. The Regatta will commence on Sunday, October 3rd and will continue the exciting format that was used for the first time last year. The dates for the races are October 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th & 30th. Entry form and NOR downloadable below.

Published in Royal Cork YC

How to sail, sailing clubs and sailing boats plus news on the wide range of sailing events on Irish waters forms the backbone of Afloat's sailing coverage.

We aim to encompass the widest range of activities undertaken on Irish lakes, rivers and coastal waters. This page describes those sailing activites in more detail and provides links and breakdowns of what you can expect from our sailing pages. We aim to bring jargon free reports separated in to popular categories to promote the sport of sailing in Ireland.

The packed 2013 sailing season sees the usual regular summer leagues and there are regular weekly race reports from Dublin Bay Sailing Club, Howth and Cork Harbour on Afloat.ie. This season and last also featured an array of top class events coming to these shores. Each year there is ICRA's Cruiser Nationals starts and every other year the Round Ireland Yacht Race starts and ends in Wicklow and all this action before July. Crosshaven's Cork Week kicks off on in early July every other year. in 2012 Ireland hosted some big international events too,  the ISAF Youth Worlds in Dun Laoghaire and in August the Tall Ships Race sailed into Dublin on its final leg. In that year the Dragon Gold Cup set sail in Kinsale in too.

2013 is also packed with Kinsale hosting the IFDS diabled world sailing championships in Kinsale and the same port is also hosting the Sovereign's Cup. The action moves to the east coast in July with the staging of the country's biggest regatta, the Volvo Dun Laoghaire regatta from July 11.

Our coverage though is not restricted to the Republic of Ireland but encompasses Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Irish Sea area too. In this section you'll find information on the Irish Sailing Association and Irish sailors. There's sailing reports on regattas, racing, training, cruising, dinghies and keelboat classes, windsurfers, disabled sailing, sailing cruisers, Olympic sailing and Tall Ships sections plus youth sailing, match racing and team racing coverage too.

Sailing Club News

There is a network of over 70 sailing clubs in Ireland and we invite all clubs to submit details of their activities for inclusion in our daily website updates. There are dedicated sections given over to the big Irish clubs such as  the waterfront clubs in Dun Laoghaire; Dublin Bay Sailing Club, the Royal Saint George Yacht Club,  the Royal Irish Yacht Club and the National Yacht Club. In Munster we regularly feature the work of Kinsale Yacht Club and Royal Cork Yacht Club in Crosshaven.  Abroad Irish sailors compete in Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) racing in the UK and this club is covered too. Click here for Afloat's full list of sailing club information. We are keen to increase our coverage on the network of clubs from around the coast so if you would like to send us news and views of a local interest please let us have it by sending an email to [email protected]

Sailing Boats and Classes

Over 20 active dinghy and one design classes race in Irish waters and fleet sizes range from just a dozen or so right up to over 100 boats in the case of some of the biggest classes such as the Laser or Optimist dinghies for national and regional championships. Afloat has dedicated pages for each class: Dragons, Etchells, Fireball, Flying Fifteen, GP14, J24's, J80's, Laser, Sigma 33, RS Sailing, Star, Squibs, TopperMirror, Mermaids, National 18, Optimist, Puppeteers, SB3's, and Wayfarers. For more resources on Irish classes go to our dedicated sailing classes page.

The big boat scene represents up to 60% of the sail boat racing in these waters and Afloat carries updates from the Irish Cruiser Racer Association (ICRA), the body responsible for administering cruiser racing in Ireland and the popular annual ICRA National Championships. In 2010 an Irish team won the RORC Commodore's Cup putting Irish cruiser racing at an all time high. Popular cruiser fleets in Ireland are raced right around the coast but naturally the biggest fleets are in the biggest sailing centres in Cork Harbour and Dublin Bay. Cruisers race from a modest 20 feet or so right up to 50'. Racing is typically divided in to Cruisers Zero, Cruisers One, Cruisers Two, Cruisers Three and Cruisers Four. A current trend over the past few seasons has been the introduction of a White Sail division that is attracting big fleets.

Traditionally sailing in northern Europe and Ireland used to occur only in some months but now thanks to the advent of a network of marinas around the coast (and some would say milder winters) there are a number of popular winter leagues running right over the Christmas and winter periods.

Sailing Events

Punching well above its weight Irish sailing has staged some of the world's top events including the Volvo Ocean Race Galway Stopover, Tall Ships visits as well as dozens of class world and European Championships including the Laser Worlds, the Fireball Worlds in both Dun Laoghaire and Sligo.

Some of these events are no longer pure sailing regattas and have become major public maritime festivals some are the biggest of all public staged events. In the past few seasons Ireland has hosted events such as La Solitaire du Figaro and the ISAF Dublin Bay 2012 Youth Worlds.

There is a lively domestic racing scene for both inshore and offshore sailing. A national sailing calendar of summer fixtures is published annually and it includes old favorites such as Sovereign's Cup, Calves Week, Dun Laoghaire to Dingle, All Ireland Sailing Championships as well as new events with international appeal such as the Round Britain and Ireland Race and the Clipper Round the World Race, both of which have visited Ireland.

The bulk of the work on running events though is carried out by the network of sailing clubs around the coast and this is mostly a voluntary effort by people committed to the sport of sailing. For example Wicklow Sailing Club's Round Ireland yacht race run in association with the Royal Ocean Racing Club has been operating for over 30 years. Similarly the international Cork Week regatta has attracted over 500 boats in past editions and has also been running for over 30 years.  In recent years Dublin Bay has revived its own regatta called Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta and can claim to be the country's biggest event with over 550 boats entered in 2009.

On the international stage Afloat carries news of Irish and UK interest on Olympics 2012, Sydney to Hobart, Volvo Ocean Race, Cowes Week and the Fastnet Race.

We're always aiming to build on our sailing content. We're keen to build on areas such as online guides on learning to sail in Irish sailing schools, navigation and sailing holidays. If you have ideas for our pages we'd love to hear from you. Please email us at [email protected]