Howth Yacht Club's members are of course absolutely tops in modesty. Which is just as well, as this past weekend – the last in September yet with summery weather – experienced some of the best racing conditions ever seen in the almost forty years of the annual Howth Autumn League. At the same time, in major championships at each end of the south coast, it was the Junior All-Ireland Championship at Schull that saw Howth's 15-year-old star Rocco Wright declared the winner, while the 1720 Europeans at Dunmore East had Howth YC's Ross McDonald take the gold as the silver went to veteran clubmate Robert Dix. And Dixie, it should be noted, was winning majors even before he took the title of All-Ireland Champion in 1970, which is 51 years ago if you don't feel inclined to do the sums yourself on a Monday evening.
Double and treble jobbing is another Howth characteristic, and we are indebted to HYC's Vice Commodore Neil Murphy, who has somehow found the time - while being a senior and very active flag officer and one of the most successful Puppeteer helms – to put together this analysis of Saturday's racing:
The day began with the brightest sunshine as the Puppeteers shaped up for their first start. Photo Annraoi Blaney
With four races completed at Howth YC, the 2021 Beshoff Motors Autumn League reached its halfway stage on Sept 25th writes Neil Murphy
The sunshine made it a great day for late September sailing and the steady south-easterly breeze greeted the fleet with a gentle 10 knots and climbed to 16 as the afternoon progressed. The Race Officers made full use of the 'pet' conditions to set Windward Leeward courses and complete two races on both the Inshore and Offshore race areas, catching up on the scheduled second race lost the previous Saturday when the more variable conditions limited the fleets to a single race.
With eight classes spread over the two-course areas, those looking from Portmarnock beach would have seen what looked like walls of sails sliding across a flat sea but, within the Classes, there was lots of intense competition, particularly at the starts with the ebb tide pushing the boats across the lines and the excitement being added to by words of 'encouragement', a few gentle coming togethers, and some early starts and recalls.
Race 4 saw the Series discard introduced and allowed everyone to shed their worst score to date. However, in a few of the classes, there is already a settled order developing and some of the leaders are putting scoreboard distance between themselves and their opposition.
Nigel Biggs' classic Half Tonner Checkmate XVIII continues to lead IRC I. Photo: Annraoi Blaney
On IRC, in the 12 boat Class 1 fleet, Nigel Biggs Checkmate XVIII bagged its third win of the series and now enjoys a six-point lead over Checkmate XV and Jeneral Lee. Similarly, in Class 3 the Mullaney's Sigma 33, Insider, has three wins to its credit and a three-point margin over Scandal with Kilcullen in third place. Both Scandal and Kilcullen are J24s and are being raced by members of the HYC K25 Squad so keen competition for bragging rights is assured over the rest of the series. As opposed to the relative comfort enjoyed by the Class 1 and 3 leaders, in Class 2, the X302 No Excuse (Wormald, Walsh, O'Neill) enjoys a single point lead over Impetuous but with there are three X302s chasing the pair and only a margin of 1.3 points between first and fourth places.
Paddy Kyne's Maximus on the run. Photo: Annraoi Blaney
The Club Shamrock Demelza (extreme right, Steffi Ennis & Windsor Laudan), has called the non-spinnaker Class to perfection, and currently leads with a clean sheet. Photo: Annraoi Blaney
Suits you sir! Demelza's Windsor Laudan with the latest of his many winner jackets, and Jeremy Beshoff of Beshoff Motors with a rather elegant Bentley coupe. Photo: Annraoi Blaney
Tiger (Harris / Hughes) has established itself as the boat to beat in Class 4 with the battle for 2nd being fought between Bite the Bullet and Spellbound. In Class 5 Demelza, the now venerable Shamrock of Windsor Laudan and Steffi Ennis, is the only boat in the event with a clean sweep of first places on IRC.
On ECHO, Class 1 sees the much-photographed Soufriere (Stephen O'Flaherty) of James Bond fame showing that it has speed as well as style and its two race wins from the four sailed to date leaves it tied for first place with Jeneral Lee (C&K Kavanagh). In Class 4 Toughnut (D Skehan) is leading while in the other Cruiser Classes the same boats share the lead on both IRC and HPH.
In the Puppeteer 22's second race of the day, Paul McMahon's Shiggi-Shiggi was looking good on starboard. Photo: Annraoi Blaney
With a first and a fifth on Saturday, Scorie Walls (right, seen here with Jeremy Beshoff) retained the overall lead in the large class of Puppeteer 22s. Photo: Annraoi Blaney
In the one design fleets the Puppeteer 22s are the most numerous with 17 boats battling it out and Gold Dust (Walls / Browne) lead the pack on scratch by - in Pup terms - a comfortable three point margin. The Howth 17s are the Class where the bookies may find it hardest to predict a winner with only two points spanning the first three boats, Deilginis (Massey/Toomey/Kenny) being chased hard by Isobel (B&C Turvey) and Oona (P Courtney) and with no boat having more than a single race win to date. The Squib fleet sees Kerfuffle (E Dalton) maintaining the form that saw him taking the recent Squib Easterns and it secured a first and a second on the WL courses to add to its victory in the first race of the series while Crackertoo is just 2 points behind. On the handicap results, Odyssey (P&R Byrne) leads the Puppeteers, Tears for Fears (N Monks) tops the Squibs and Bobolink (Doyle/Finnegan/Walsh) holds first in the Howth 17s.
The second race brought livelier starting conditions for the Howth 17s. Photo: AnnraoiBlaney
Sailing into eternity. The Howth 17 Leila (built 1898, Roddy Cooper) and the 1900-built Pauline (Shane O'Doherty & partners) provide a timeless image. Photo: Annraoi Blaney
The two races sailed gave the crews a good work out and left many a thirst to be quenched under the sunshine, in a socially distanced way, when the fleet came ashore. The prizegiving for the first two Saturdays was carried out on the Club deck, in the midst of some of the sponsors very desirable motor vehicles, with Jeremy Beshoff presenting the first of the hard-earned 2021 Beshoff Motors jackets to the race winners.
The Hill of Howth continues to keep the fog at bay as a Puppeteer 22 makes to windward in the freshening breeze. Photo: Annraoi Blaney
Full results here
