O'Connell and Twins are Rankin Dinghy 'World' Champions After Two Days of Racing Fun at Royal Cork Yacht Club

1st July 2024

Afloat.ie Team

Dan (right) and Paul O'Connell were the overall winners of the Rankin dinghy 'World' Championships at Royal Cork Yacht Club Credit: Bob Bateman

Dan O'Connell, crewed by his twins Paul and Millie, was crowned Rankin 'World' Champions after two days of friendly competition in a fleet of 24 traditional Cork Harbour dinghies.

Racing at the Royal Cork hosted 24-boat Rankin World Championships in Cork Harbour Photo: Bob Bateman

After a busy Saturday schedule, as Afloat reported here, Sunday's racing programme began in light northerly winds and included a windward-leeward course that required competitors to land on Spike Island and run across a beach collect a bucket of stones from Race Officers then place it in their boat and head for RCYC.

(Above and below) Rankin sailors race for buckets to collect stones on Spike Island before heading back to Crosshaven Photos: Bob Bateman

Rankin sailors race to a bucket finish on Spike Island Photo: Bob Bateman

The afternoon session had a 'Le Mans' style start to proceedings before finishing at Royal Cork in Crosshaven for a prizegiving.

Rankin World Championships 2024 prizegiving at Royal Cork Yacht Club (from right to left) Owen O'Connell, Rankin Class, Conor English, Rankin Class. Tom Dwyer, 2nd, Fiona'O' Connell 4th and crew, Dan and Millie O'Connell winners, John Horgan and crew 3rd, Maurice Kidney Rankin Class, and Rob Foster, Rear Admiral, Royal Cork Yacht Club Photo: Bob Bateman

Rankin Worlds 2024 Overall Results

Rankin Worlds 2024 Photogallery by Bob Bateman

Published in Rankin Dinghy, Royal Cork YC, Cork Harbour

Published in Rankin Dinghy

Tagged under

rankin dinghy

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The Rankin Dinghy of Cobh, Cork Harbour

A Rankin is a traditional wooden dinghy which was built in Cobh, of which it’s believed there were 80 and of which The Rankin Dinghy Group has traced nearly half.

The name of the Rankin dinghies is revered in Cork Harbour and particularly in the harbourside town of Cobh.

And the name of one of those boats is linked to the gunboat which fought against the Irish Volunteers during the 1916 Easter Rising and later for the emergent Irish Free State Government against anti-Treaty Forces during the Irish Civil War.

It also links the renowned boat-building Rankin family in Cobh, one of whose members crewed on the gunboat.

Maurice Kidney and Conor English are driving the restoration of the Rankin dinghies in Cork Harbour. They have discovered that Rankins were bought and sailed in several parts of the country.