Howth Yacht Club will launch its annual Autumn League on Saturday, September 12th, beginning six consecutive weeks of racing off the north Dublin coast. The series runs every Saturday until October 17th, with eight classes competing and more than 20 trophies up for grabs, headed by the Heineken Trophy for the best overall performance.
Among the boats setting the benchmark from last year is Nigel Biggs' Royal Irish Yacht Club Puppeteer 22 Nimon, helmed by Howth's Andy Sargent, which dominated its class in 2025 and went on to claim the Heineken Trophy as overall Autumn League winner.
Nimon completed a clean sweep of its 2025 Puppeteer races, even having the luxury of discarding a first place, in a comeback season that also included victory in the Puppeteer 22 National Championships.
Defending Champion – Nigel Biggs’ Puppeteer 22 Nimon, helmed by Andy Sargent, took the Heineken Trophy as overall winner of Howth Yacht Club’s 2025 Autumn League
Nine Races for Five Classes
This year's programme provides nine races for Classes 1, 2 and 3, Puppeteers and Squibs, while the Howth 17s and Classes 4 and 5 are scheduled for six races.
Puppet Show – Howth’s Puppeteer fleet will contest an expanded nine-race programme in the 2026 Autumn League, one of five classes scheduled for nine races
First guns are planned for 1 pm each Saturday, an earlier start intended to help the fleets avoid more difficult tidal conditions later in the afternoon.
Competitors will face a mixture of courses over the six weekends, with the Heineken Trophy and the Olympus Trophy among the principal prizes. The Olympus competition again involves teams of three boats drawn from different classes.
Howth Autumn Tradition
The Autumn League traces its origins to 1979, when Howth's growing Squib fleet began autumn racing just a few years after the class became established in Ireland. It became an official part of the HYC calendar in 1982, coinciding with the opening of the club's marina, which allowed a much wider selection of keelboats and cruisers to remain afloat beyond the traditional summer season. The event has since developed into one of Howth's largest annual racing programmes.
League Action – Cruiser-racers battle for position off Howth, with more than 20 trophies to be contested across eight classes during this year’s Autumn League
Sailors from Dublin Bay and further afield were soon drawn to Howth at a time when autumn keelboat competition was considerably less common than it is today.
Although the Irish sailing season has expanded significantly since those early years, the league still attracts a cross-section of cruiser-racers and one-design fleets.
Six Saturdays On and Off the Water
The racing will again be accompanied by a weekly après-sail programme beginning on September 12th, including food and drink offers and prize-givings after racing. The series concludes with the End-of-Season Dinner on Saturday, October 17th.
Autumn Mix – Cruiser-racers compete off Howth, where the Autumn League returns for six consecutive Saturdays of racing from September 12th to October 17th
Event organiser Gary Cullen said the series' weekly format was central to its appeal.
“Given it’s a series, everyone shows up week after week, and the community around it is unmatched,” Cullen said. “If you’re going to do any sailing this year, do the Autumn League.”
For HYC, that mixture of competitive racing and a strong shore-side programme remains central to an event which has become an autumn fixture for successive generations of sailors.
