When in doubt, send ’em round Lambay. That seems to be the feeling among Howth Yacht Club’s race officers as this uncertain semi-season gradually cranks into action. And with Saturday’s early-start Aqua Double-Hander Challenge seeing a greyish morning giving a fulfilled promise of sunshine to come, the trusty big island seven miles to the north of Howth Harbour came up on the course card with some windward work to get there and gentle progress back, all to fit in with the overall idea of a comfortably-finished event, well on time for a socially-distanced party.

Out on their own. Stephen Harris and his daughter Jenny looked to have it all sewn up with their First 40.7 Tiger, but the curse of having a big lead in the water came all too true as they sailed into a flat patch which others managed to avoid. Photo: Judith Malcolm

What with a goodly selection of cruiser-racers, and all eight of the club and privately-owned J/80s showing their faces, plus a choice selection of Puppeteer 22s, there were 38 boats racing in idyllic conditions. And in the proper order of things, as they came round the island it was Stephen and Jenny Harris in the First 40.7 Tiger who held a good lead – all of twenty minutes.

But halfway back to Ireland’s Eye, the Leader’s Curse of being first to sail into a wind-hole struck down Tiger’s formerly stylish progress, and she sat there for all of that twenty minutes and more while back along the the fleet, Howth’s nimble flotilla of Half Tonners were best at wriggling their way towards the new breeze – a summer wind from the west – which brought everyone to the finish after around four hours of racing, every minute of it hugely appreciated following the pandemic-imposed drought.

“Great to be sailing again!” Ben Colwell and his father Richard (Commodore ICRA) on their J/109 Outrajeous, which they sailed to third place in the White Sails Division. Photo: Ben Colwell

“Those Half Tonners are just too nippy for their own good…..” The Big Picture (left, finished second overall) showing ahead of Outrajeous. Photo: Judith Malcolm

Sam O’Byrne and Ryan Glynn read the wind-shift to perfection in Mata to lead fellow Half Tonner The Big Picture (Mike Evans & Des Flood) by a significant margin, which in turn saw the Evans boat clear of Stephen Quinn’s attractive J/97 Lambay Rules to provide the top three in Open IRC.

The White Sails Division was good day out for Kieran Jameson and Michael Wright on the former’s slightly-modified Sigma 38 and they took the gong with second going to the Malahide McAlister crew of Fore 5, while ICRA Commodore Richard Colwell with son Ben on the J/109 Outrajeous polled well to take third.

Kieran Jameson looks after the trim while Michael Wright does the helming on Changeling, winner of the White Sails Division. Photo: Judith Malcolm

Diana Kissane and Graham Curran got it all together with the chartered HYC-owned J/109 Cryptohouse despite the challenges of the private sector, with brothers-in-law Ribert Dix and Richard Burrows bringing Jennie in second ahead of Paddy O’Neill’s Mojo.

The Puppeteer 22s will usually race with four or maybe five, but owners Alan Pearson and Alan Blay with Trick or Treat upped their personal work-rate to win from Honey Badger, with Neil Murphy bringing Yellow Peril in third.

Keeping the weight amidships, and going well - Diana Kissane on helm and Graham Curran on everything else as the club-owned J/80 Cryptohouse heads for the class win

As for the Howth 17s, they decided through the week that in a fore-shortened season it wasn’t fair to squander a precious Saturday by leading half of their crew ashore, so they sailed a normal fully-crewed club race. But now they may find themselves up against a revolutionary movement to dry-sail the boats, as Gerry Comferford (who is building his own completely new Howth 17 up at his house on the hill) was sufficiently fired up with fresh enthusiasm to launch the Class Association-owned almost-new Orla with just two hours to go to the start.

And then, didn’t he go out and win, Ian Malcolm taking second in Aura with the hotshot syndicate third in Deilginis, while a frequent contender for a place in the Howth 17 frame dreamed the afternoon away in waiting for the tide to return and give sufficient thickness of water to a temporarily very thin bit out at Ireland’s Eye, but then it was that kind of day.
Not quite a horizon job, but near enough – Mata leads The Big Picture towards the finish. Photo: Judith Malcolm

Aqua Double-Hander at Howth Yacht Club Results 

Aqua Double-Hander All Classes IRC: lst Mata (sailed by Stephen O’Byrne & Liam Glynn), 2nd The Big Picture (Mike Evans & Des Flood), 3rd Lambay Rules (Stephen Quinn and Kieran Cotter).

White Sails IRC: 1st Changeling (Kieran Jameson & Michael Wright), 2nd Force Five (R & J McAllister) 3rd Outrajeous (Richard & Ben Colwell).

J/80 1st Cryptohouse (Diana Kissane & Graham Curran), 2nd Jeannie (Robert Dix & Richard Burrows), 3rd Mojo (Paddy O’Neill & Aaron Jones).

Puppeteer 22s 1st Trick or Treat (Plan Pearson & Alan Blay), 2nd Honey Badger (Burke & May), 3rd Yellow Peril (Neil Murphy & P Costello.

Howths 17s (Club Course) 1st Orla (Gerry Comerford), 2nd Aura (Ian Malcolm) 3rd Deilginis (Massey/Toomey/Kenny).

A while back, the off-the-wall idea was mooted of creating a line of quality face-masks, tastefully printed or even embroidered with sailing and yacht club logos. The world of high fashion was already on to the idea of designer-labelled COVID-contesting kit, and in our more sedately-minded sport, some of us were thinking it might soon become a good idea to have logo-featuring facial covering if the pesky disease thing didn’t go away, thereby requiring us to make mask-wearing as nearly trendy as possible, with - in some cases - the useful juice of a touch of snobbery to give it spice.

Certainly, it will take something extra to get sailing folk to use the things. For us, they generally come with distinctly unpleasant associations, because for anyone who runs a boat with a touch of DIY effort, facemasks are part of the scenario, and they are inextricably linked with the most horrible jobs of all, such as getting the anti-fouling racing-smooth in under the aft end. And though you should of course also be wearing goggles, many don’t, while those of us wearing spectacles find our misery with specs is exacerbated with a mask by seeing everything through thickening mist.

The Royal Cork YC’s very elegant burgee. In these extremely challenging times, would people be more prepared to wear a proper face mask if it incorporated their club’s logo?

Of course, I’m not suggesting you should immediately use your crisp new club logo-embellished quality facemask for those nasty jobs. But that said, after this coronavirus has been stalking us for a year or two, a certain cachet will attach to arriving down to join your work team of crewmates under the mighty ship, and attacking the preparation work on the nether parts of the vessel attired with an obviously very well-worn washable Royal Cork Yacht Club face mask to protect your schoolgirl complexion, and keep those nauseous fumes and poisonous particles out of the vital tubes.

It reminds me of when I first met up with American sailors wearing the always-trendy Sperry Top-Sider deck shoes. This wasn’t until the 1960s, yet the Top-Siders had been around since 1935, when Paul Sperry had become mighty inventive with non-slip soles after slithering over the side of his boat one night in Long Island Sound while wearing the usual glorified tennis shoes which passed for deck shoes in those days.

His eventual creations, with the uppers based on moccasin design, were soon fashionable, and even in the late 1960s, they still looked so good by comparison with anything in Europe that they were the height of style, and never more stylish than when looking well worn, as though they’d notched a Bermuda Race and then a Fastnet Race as well.

“No gentlemen would ever wear shiny new Top-Siders.” An advertisement honouring product longevity from an era when people wore yachting caps on every possible occasion, and planned obsolescence was only a gleam in some asset strippers eye

In fact, while I sometimes saw an American wearing an immaculately-polished pair of Top-Siders, there was never any doubt that this was well-loved footwear of considerable vintage, and it was virtually unknown to see anything remotely like a new pair of Top-Siders. Apparently the secret behind this was that, when you finally did have to buy a new pair, you’d get your gardener to wear them for a busy fortnight or even a month before you’d dream of using them yourself……

Royal Ocean Racing Club

We can’t of course get some obliging employee to wear our club-logo facemask to give it honourable venerability, but how the idea of such facemasks turn out will become part of the quaint world of club regalia folklore. Club cravats and bow ties are really a bit too much for most of us, but once upon a time, when people still wore ties, the seahorse-logo neck-tie of Royal Ocean Racing Club (where our own Laura Dillon is currently Rear Commodore) was quite the thing to be qualified to wear, and one evening in that wonderful RORC clubhouse in the heart of London, a fresh-faced young offshore-racing enthusiast burst into the bar and brightly announced to Douglas Campbell, the 100% proof Scottish barman, that he’d just become a member, and would like to buy a tie.

An architectural gem and a nautical powerhouse in the heart of London – the RORC Clubhouse, once ruled by the legendary Douglas Campbell

Laura Dillon, RORC Rear Commodore, is still the only woman sailor to have won the All-Ireland Helm Championship

Douglas had a Scots accent so deep and growly you could have run the lighting off it, so he just looked up from under his heavy eyebrows and gruffly demanded: “Silk or Terylene?”

Younger readers, ie anyone under the age of about 60, will need to know that Terylene was the fancy new world-beating synthetic fibre which eventually became known, American-style, as Dacron. Our new young member back in the day in the RORC knew exactly what it meant, but he needed to be apprised of the full significance of the choice, so he responded: “I just don’t know Douglas, which do you recommend?”

Douglas ground out the reply, with his deep slow voice made even slower and deeper and growlier by this over-keen assumption of first-name familiarity:

“Well, if you just want to hold the trousers up, the silk will do. But if you need to start the outboard, then it has to be the Terylene”.

That was then, nowadays people need to be told that many offshore racers’ tenders carried quaint Seagull outboards which you started by winding a removable pull-rope round a wheel on top, and in extemis in the absence or breakage of that pull-rope, you were well stuck if somebody’s tie wasn’t up to the job – it was no laughing matter.

And nor is COVID-19, but heaven knows we need something to brighten our days as the full effects of this pandemic threaten to embrace us again in Lockdown claustrophobia, and we find that our news of sailing sport is increasingly reliant on local events which would probably be much happier to be left on their own to get on with their usually fairly private sailing.

Family affair. Peter Courtney racing Oonagh – his family first became involved in the Howth 17 class in 1907

As the dates of what would have been major national and international fixtures come and go with events un-sailed in this pandemic-constrained season, we find we’re cherishing the more manageable second-tier fixtures with a strong home-club bias which can still be staged with the proper controls in place. These are events which will probably have a slightly quirky character combined with a distinct local flavour which will provide an inbuilt level of crowd-control in these strange times.

For they are indeed strange times when, for long enough, it had seemed that “Three’s a crowd” was the mantra of the day, with social-distancing providing the code. And even now when the basics seem to be that we’re allowed close groups of ten if we watch our manners, we must always remember the ultimate fallback ruling is: “If in doubt, stay at home”.

In those circumstances, how do you transfer the safety of home and its instinctively-known rules and restraints into the fluid sociable structures of the group behaviour which used to be the natural basis of sailing’s shoreside post-race gatherings?

Dublin Bay & Cork Harbour cruiser fleets

“With some difficulty, and in a mood of constant vigilance” seems to be the answer, as we see modern classes such as the Dublin Bay and Cork Harbour cruiser fleets develop a controlled form of their normally hyper-sociable programmes, while in classic labour-intensive classes such as the Dun Laoghaire Water Wags and the Howth 17s, it seems to be a matter of baby steps - for want of a more robust phrase – as acceptable crew bubbles are evolved to make racing possible.

“Let there be light”. Club cruiser racing returns to Cork Harbour and the RCYC at Crosshaven on Thursday, July 9th 2020. Photo: Robert Bateman

But with every race in a shortened season thus becoming more precious in an already limited programme, people will not lightly relinquish their carefully-assembled crew bubbles for initially attractive short-handed events. Thus when it was announced some time ago that Howth’s annual Aqua Restaurant Two-Hander Race’s format – formerly aimed at the cruisers – was going to be extended to all Howth classes when raced today (Saturday, July 18th), it seemed a reasonable enough idea at the time, when personnel limitations looked like being a central theme of the 2020 season.

Howth Seventeens

However, since then the ancient Howth Seventeens have been carefully building up their fleet afloat together with the maximum crew groupings qualified to race the boats, so now their attitude to the Two-Hander invitation is: “Thanks, but no thanks”.

In a normal season, the 1898-established Howth class would sail an impressive total of between 55 and 60 races. But in this shortened season, even with some add-ons if the Autumn proves clement there’ll be far fewer races, and each one will be that much more precious as a result.

The time-honoured Saturday Howth 17 contests - each one a mini-regatta with the fleet resplendent in their jackyard topsails – have become such a pillar of the class’s programme that the idea of one of them being a race in which personnel numbers are reduced to just two per boat is something which smacks of sacrilege when they’ve found that a Howth 17 will often give of her best with four on board.

Classics addict. Ian Malcolm won the Howth 17s last Tuesday, and then took fourth in the Water Wags in Dun Laoghaire on Wednesday.

In an age when modernity is such a dominant feature of popular thinking, building up such a large group of enthusiasts with their shared joy in racing boats of an ancient type is a remarkable community achievement, but it doesn’t just happen by accident. Slightly interested newcomers are gently but persuasively drawn into the net until they become totally committed class enthusiasts.

And though the boats are based on a revered One-Design concept, an assiduously maintained double-scoring system of both scratch and handicap divisions is a class-strengthening recognition of the differences in human abilities and aptitudes, as it ensures that nearly every boat genuinely wins a prize.

In some ways, this was the biggest difference I noticed when I moved from the north to the south of Ireland very many years ago. Up north, One-Design means One-Design, and the idea of having a handicap division within a One-Design class probably offended against the tenets of the majority religion.

Water Wags

But in Dublin Bay and Howth, handicapping in One-Designs was regarded as being every bit as normal as having handicaps in club golf, and it was something which contributed greatly to the extraordinary longevity and good health of many of the OD classes.

The strong historical basis of all this became evident recently when the Water Wags Honorary Treasurer David Clarke was putting some old paperwork in order, and he discovered that the yellowing documents included a copy of the Evening Herald for Friday 3rd September 1939.

At first glance, you might think the Dublin daily evening paper had been kept because its front page featured disturbing news from Eastern Europe regarding an increasing unpleasantness between Germany and Poland. Indeed, maybe that had something to do with it. But the real reason it is in there is because it includes the DBSC Handicaps for the next day’s racing, on Saturday, September 4th 1939.

The Water Wag Class’s copy of Dublin’s Evening Herald for Friday 3rd September 1939. You might well think the interest is in various unpleasant events in Eastern Europe……Courtesy David Clarke

…..but in fact the focus was on the handicaps as they applied to the Water Wags on Saturday, September 4th. Courtesy David Clarke

And they don’t half bend over backwards to keep everyone in each class involved. Few more so than the Water Wags. They may not match the mixed cruisers, where one boat – the deliciously misnamed Windward – is allowed 41 minutes. But then the Water Wags were allegedly One-Design, yet northern OD sailors would have been appalled to discover that they were so tolerant that one boat – Glanora – was generously allowed all of 15 minutes by the two hotshots, Coquette and Penelope.

The 26ft gaff cutter Marie (seen here in 1966) was one of the boats featured in the 1939 DBSC handicaps list – she was allowed 39 minutes against the scratch boat, Harald Osterberg’s 14-ton Bermudan cutter Marama. Built by J E Doyle of Dun Laoghaire in 1893 and designed by his daughter Maimie (who also designed the new type of Water Wag in 1900) Marie is still with us, owned and restored by Roy Ashton of Groomsport in County Down

Olympians Finn Lynch & Annalise Murphy

Quite what handicaps the number cruncher of 1939 would have applied to Olympians Finn Lynch and Annalise Murphy who won the Water Wags on scratch this week is beyond the realms of speculation, but those seriously interested in the well-being of grass roots sailing will have noted that Ian Malcolm with the 1915-vintage Barbara (allowed 4 minutes back in 1939) placed fourth on scratch in the Wags on Wednesday in Dun Laoghaire, while on Tuesday he had taken line honours with his 1898-vintage Howth 17 Aura at Howth, a double classics performance which few if ever can have achieved before, and evidence that, truncated season or not, some people are determined to get in just as much sailing as they can in this truncated season of 2020.

Thus they’re now developing the idea that Howth’s attractive marina/clubhouse complex provides an ideal sailing sport setup in the time of coronavirus, as on the land side it’s a completely closed compound which also provides the club’s only access to moored boats in the outer harbour, a closed compound where entry can easily be restricted to one gateway, and registration and contact tracing can be rapidly developed, particularly with Wave Regatta from 11th to 13th September in mind.

Howth Yacht Club’s marina/clubhouse complex provides a usefully-closed compound from the landward side.

Round the Kish

As it is, the sailors of Howth have been quietly putting their good fortune to proper use, with the second race of the Fingal Series being staged last Saturday to see Dermot Skehan put in a masterclass demo with his Humphreys-designed Toughnut to do a horizon job on the rest of the fleet of sixteen in a race which took them out round the Kish, and meanwhile, HYC Cruising Group Captain Willie Kearney liaised with the sailing club at Skerries (where so far as I know there’s still no harbour master) in order to ensure that there’d be enough clear quay space for his fleet of 18 Howth cruisers to berth in a social-distance compliant style, and Skerries Sailing Club obliged.

Meanwhile, we note that the Royal Irish YC is right up to speed with the continuing twists and turns of the un-winding and re-winding of the regulations, with a crisp notice issued yesterday informing members that if they want a beer or two after today’s DBSC race, they must still order food with it.

Some day, some day maybe very distant, somebody is going to set a mighty computer to work at calculating just how much weight the thirstier part of our nation has had to put on in order to be comfortably un-parched, and yet COVID-compliant….

The delayed 2020 racing programme at Howth Yacht Club had a boost last weekend with a 20-boat fleet for Saturday’s inaugural race for the Fingal Cruiser Challenge, while the Puppeteer 22s, Squibs and Howth 17s mustered viable turnouts for their regular club event. But since then, the slack wet weather of mid-week has put everything on hold, with Tuesday’s utterly flat no-race evening in particular so damp and windless you couldn’t tell where sea and sky ended or began.

Thus although Saturday’s forecast had not been too hopeful, it is already a memory to be cherished, as the westerly breeze held up, and the Race Officer’s courageous decision to send the cruiser fleet round Lambay saw them finished within a reasonable time, despite the course being a dogleg to the Portmarnock mark for some uphill work before they took in Lambay to port and back to a pier finish in Howth.

The special challenge of a close-reaching pier start as the fleet goes off in the first race of the Fingal Cruiser Challenge from Howth round Lambay. Video by Emer Quinn.

The Evans brothers’ Half Ton Classic The Big Picture found things to her liking to take line honours and the IRC win from Paddy O’Neill’s J/80 Mojo, while in Class 2 the Gore-Grimes team in the X 302 Dux also had the line honours and win, this time ahead of the Corby 25 Impetuous (Noonan /Chambers) and another X302, the Darmody/Patterson crew with Xebec, while the Mullaney brothers with the Sigma 33 Insider made the running in Class 3, and once again Dermot Skehan was there in front in the White Sails division with Toughnut.

Scorie Walls was back in top form for 2020 with the Puppeteer win on Gold Dust from Terry Harvey’s No Strings second, with Ghosty Ned getting third, while in the Howth 17s it was the familiar shape of Deilginis (Massey, Twomey, Kenny) out in front, with the Squibs (which will muster a fleet of 14 when all are in action this year) saw Fergus O’Kelly’s 3point9 take the bullet. The possibility of better weather this Saturday is encouraging others into socially-distanced action, and then after a full midweek programme, Saturday 18th July sees the all-keelboat-classes Aqua Two-Handed Challenge.

There were by no means full fleet affairs, but the 2020 racing season has definitely got underway at Howth where the One Designs raced in a good breeze on Tuesday evening, while last night (Wednesday) the cruisers found themselves battling with a floatathon, gliding along under barely-filling spinnaker with a change of tide at mid-race to add to the sport. Those who may have amused themselves since March with games of snakes and ladders were probably best prepared for the evening's racing, with the light south easterly breeze and a tide that changed from flood to ebb set plenty of challenges for those hoping for a straightforward intro to the 2020 calendar with pier starts.

There were gliding and tide-dodging conditions for the 20 cruisers which turned out on Wednesday night

The early cruiser leaders, reaching up the middle of Howth Sound ahead of a fleet of 20 to take advantage of the tide, found themselves in snake mode as the flow reversed and the wind faded. The canny chasers headed for the East Pier, daring each other as close to the evening strollers as their depth sounder alarms and willingness to risk fresh antifouling allowed. The shortened course signal after a single lap of the Sound ensured a finish for most before the wind disappeared and the mist rolled down off Howth Head.

Maximus, Paddy Kyne's X302, took best advantage of the conditions, to grab line honours. Regardless of result, just being afloat.and having their first race sailed was success for everyone and good reason to head ashore for socially-distanced food and refreshments, along with tales of what might have been.

We’re back! Howth's reviving Squib fleet were in jaunty form on Tuesday

The effective full return to sailing announced last week is good timing for Howth’s Wave Regatta team who continue to work towards what is now likely to be the key sailing regatta of this very short sailing season.

Wave Regatta chairman Brian Turvey enthusiastically welcomed Irish Sailing’s news last week, which effectively allows a return to full sailing activities from this today, explaining ‘This confirms that our decision to postpone Wave Regatta until September 11th was both timely and correct. The fact that sailors can now return to racing with full crews means that they will enjoy 10-weeks of racing before the event and should have time to get boats and crew prepared. We are also delighted with the organisation team’s experience and work in respect of preparation for a ‘safe regatta’ and in line with sport and hospitality guidelines.’

In addition to their plans to make Wave 2020 the safest and most attractive regatta of the year, the team has advised of some further improvements to their original hugely successful regatta in 2018.

The format for this year’s event has been further modified to provide an additional ‘round-the-cans‘ race on the Saturday morning before Howth Yacht Club’s famous Lambay Race. Similarly, scoring has been modified, whereby the Lambay Race will score single points for those competing in the ICRA National Championships and will be discardable - whilst it will be non-discardable and carries a 1.5 weighting for boats competing for Wave Regatta prizes.

Early entry discount concludes this coming Friday (July 3rd) and it is expected that this week will draw many more entries, all availing of the reduced early-rate.
As plans evolve for the ‘shoreside’ set-up, the latest news is that a more complete hospitality offering will be in place, albeit carefully managed in respect of pandemic precautions. A huge outdoor lounge is to be built on Howth Yacht Club’s large forecourt, with extensive menus and top-class food available morning until night-time.

Online entry and Notice of Race can be accessed at waveregatta.com and a discount is still available until next Friday.

If you’re having trouble deciphering what you can do and can’t do as Lockdown lifts, well, welcome aboard. But at least Howth Yacht Club have realised that their annual Aqua Two-Handed Challenge may simplify things for locals and visitors alike, with its inbuilt people limitations and provision of some safe space between those involved.

That said, until now it has tended to be a down-home affair with the prize a dinner at Aqua Restaurant. It used to be the Howth Yacht Club building, and thus carries very special peninsular memories, so it really has all been rather cosy. But in those abnormal times, it could well be that the set date of Saturday, July 18th is as good as many are going to get in resuming competitive sailing, so HYC are sending out the news that it definitely is open to everyone, they very much hope to see boats from Dublin Bay and south of it too for that matter, and also from along the Fingal coast.

In the past, this race has been for cruiser spinnaker and non-spinnaker classes. But this year they’re including separate starts for J80’s, Puppeteer, Squib and Howth 17’s, with starts under way by 10.0am, and the finish is planned for a civilised afternoon hour.

With the current restrictions, this event offers organised racing, a great day out on the water, and a chance to work on two-handed skills. Crews can be household members or those that can accommodate the social distancing recommendations set by Government for July 18th.

Entry fee is just €25 with Howth's easy online entry here. The Notice of Race is posted here and sailing instructions will be added closer to the date. Aqua and Howth Yacht Club plan to give you a great day on the water and ashore, so phone a friend and enter now.

The entry of a Howth Yacht Club XC 45 and J109 brings August's Round Ireland Yacht Race fleet to 45.

The stand-out result is made all the more impressive as the Wicklow Race has achieved the numbers in the middle of a pandemic and there are still eight weeks left to the first gun.

Robert Rendell's XC 45 'Samatom' and Simon Knowles' J109 'Indian' now bring to three the number of entries from Howth.

They join clubmate John Murphy's early J109 entry 'Outrajeous' for the 700-miler.

As Afloat predicted earlier, the Round Ireland fleet is building to be an international one for its 21st edition.

Among the fleet are five Jeanneau Sunfast 3600s as well as Cian McCarthy's new 3300 from Kinsale and a French class 40. Also from Dublin Bay is Andrew Algeo's J99 from the Royal Irish Yacht Club.

Simon Knowles' J109 from Howth Yacht Club Photo: Afloat

When Howth Yacht Club Junior Organiser Sara Lacy posted a notice on the club website on Wednesday about a controlled post-COVID-19 resumption of Junior Sailing at the club scheduled for Tuesday, June 9th, she was swamped with enquiries as the proposed re-introduction – initially on Tuesdays and Thursdays – will be supervised sailing sessions for groups of ten who have successfully completed their Improving Skills Level, while also having a general level of competency as specified in the online booking form.

It sounds as though she could have filled ten of these groups within minutes, so keen are the juniors to get back afloat after the Socially-Distant-Compliant HYC Seniors led the way seaward, headed by Commodore Ian Byrne, on Sunday, May 24th. The special junior supervised programme initially won’t involve racing, and will run from 6.0pm to 8.0pm. But with the emergence from the Lockdown now accelerating on practically every front, we can surely expect that the first races are already almost within sight.

Sara Lacy, HYC Junior Organiser, is faced with a welcome “Problem of Success” in bookings for her planned resumption of supervised junior sailing at the club next Tuesday (June 9th)

With the complex COVID-19 regulations, many sailors with boats to fit out and get into commission had difficulty in assessing just what they could and couldn’t do. But Ian Byrne, Commodore of Howth Yacht Club, made it his business to analyse the national and local regulations and limitations. And then, as various stages were passed, he led his members afloat for a first sail, fully compliant with social-distancing, on Sunday May 24th. This has resulted in a gradual resumption of day sailing, with family and household crews becoming accustomed to the “new normal”.

This is 2 metres-plus…….HYC Commodore Ian Byrne on the genoa winch, and Lea O’Donoghue on the helm, successfully demonstrating the two-metres-plus social distance requirement in order to get sailing again aboard Ian’s Sunfast 32 Sunburn

Howth Yacht Club, in County Dublin is one of Ireland’s premier yacht clubs, wishes to recruit a Club Manager. Although previously advertised last March, the recruitment process was halted due to the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions. The position is now being re-advertised. Previous applicants who still wish to be considered for this position do not need to reapply.

Howth Yacht Club (HYC) is 125 years old, has over 1,700 members and an annual turnover of €2.2m. It operates from its award-winning building overlooking Howth Harbour that houses office, bar, dining, and changing facilities. Apart from the Clubhouse, HYC has a 250-berth marina, two cranes and a boat storage area. In addition. its moorings in the harbour are serviced by launch.

The Club employs up to 31 staff during the summer and is the largest employer in Howth village. HYC normally provides an annual programme of club racing on a year-round basis as well as hosting a full calendar of International, National and Regional competitive events. It operates a fleet of two large committee boats, 9 RIBs, 5 J80 Sportboats, a J24 and a variety of sailing dinghies that are available for members and training. The Club is also growing its commercial activities afloat using its QUEST sail and power boat training operation while ashore it hosts a wide range of functions each year, including conferences, weddings, parties and the like.

Details of the Club Manager position are as follows:

The Club Manager, reporting to the Commodore, will be responsible for implementing decisions as directed by the Commodore and General Committee, the overall operation of the Club, ensuring compliance with all legislation, overseeing services provided and ensuring customer service is to the standard that positively reflects on the Club.

The successful candidate will be dynamic and customer focussed, have an appropriate third level qualification or suitable experience in Finance, Engineering or a Marine related activity, a proven track record in management, good interpersonal and social skills coupled with a practical and pragmatic approach to problem solving. A genuine interest in marine activities and the environment is needed.

If you believe that you have these attributes and would enjoy using your skills and expertise in one of the busiest sailing clubs in Ireland, please submit your application by 29 June 2020, in writing or email, with your CV to:

The Commodore, Howth Yacht Club, Middle Pier, Howth, Co Dublin, Ireland. D13E6V3
[email protected]

A Job Specification and Description can be found here