The locals will tell you that the September sailing from the New York YC's Newport, RI summer base at Harbour Court is the best of the year, but either way, it's unimaginably different from December off Howth.
Nevertheless, the Howth YC squad of would-be contenders for the NYYC International Inter-Club Invitational next September have been very much in training and testing, racing one of the HYC J/80s in the 2024 stage of the 2024-25 HYC Brass Monkeys, which concluded at the weekend.
Though they were rotating crews and crew positions, the squad being organised by Darren Wright came out of it smelling of roses, as they won the Lorna Townsend Trophy for best boat overall.
That said, while the handful of the new Melges 15 class that grabbed the brief weather window had a proper scratch race with Kareena Knaggs taking the win, the keelboat racing was a number cruncher's dream. There seemed to be so many handicap systems thrown at it that quite a lot of the fleet found their way into some frame or other.
But one particularly popular win in the final race was by the TOGs, aka Terry's Old Geezers, otherwise Terry McCoy of Skerries with his veterans on the vintage First 38 Out & About.
Results below
