Displaying items by tag: Flying Fifteens

19th June 2023

Flying Fifteens Offered Start in 2023 Fastnet Race

The Flying Fifteen class have been offered a start in the annual Fastnet Race which opens the Calves Week sailing festival in West Cork on Tuesday 8 August.

It will mark a first for the 20-foot one-design keelboat class that is normally found sailing over inshore triangular courses than coastal races.

A course from Schull Harbour to the Fastnet Rock and back again is around 35km and in normal conditions is likely to take between three and four hours to complete. The Racing Rules of Sailing apply and the race’s organising authority is the Dun Laoghaire Flying Fifteen fleet.

The National Yacht Club says a Rapid Raider RIB will be attending the fleet during the race and the Dun Laoghaire Flying Fifteen fleet will award prizes to the first, second and third finishers.

In addition the fleet intends, conditions permitting, to run a second race on the following day, Wednesday 9 August. RRS applies and the organising authority is the DLFFF.

To enter the race, complete the form on the NYC website HERE.

Published in Flying Fifteen

Tagged under

About Conor O'Brien, Irish Circumnavigator

In 1923-25, Conor O'Brien became the first amateur skipper to circle the world south of the Great Capes. O'Brien's boat Saoirse was reputedly the first small boat (42-foot, 13 metres long) to sail around the world since Joshua Slocum completed his voyage in the 'Spray' during 1895 to 1898. It is a journey that O' Brien documented in his book Across Three Oceans. O'Brien's voyage began and ended at the Port of Foynes, County Limerick, Ireland, where he lived.

Saoirse, under O'Brien's command and with three crew, was the first yacht to circumnavigate the world by way of the three great capes: Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope and Cape Leeuwin; and was the first boat flying the Irish tri-colour to enter many of the world's ports and harbours. He ran down his easting in the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties between the years 1923 to 1925.

Up until O'Brien's circumnavigation, this route was the preserve of square-rigged grain ships taking part in the grain race from Australia to England via Cape Horn (also known as the clipper route).

At a Glance - Conor O'Brien's Circumnavigation

In June 1923, Limerick man Conor O’Brien set off on his yacht, the Saoirse — named after the then newly created Irish Free State — on the two-year voyage from Dun Laoghaire Harbour that was to make him the first Irish amateur to sail around the world.

June 1923 - Saoirse’s arrival in Madeira after her maiden passage out from Dublin Bay

2nd December 1924 - Saoirse crossed the longitude of Cape Horn

June 20th 1925 - O’Brien’s return to Dun Laoghaire Harbour