Fintan Cairns of Dun Laoghaire is disarmingly modest about his many achievements in cruiser-racing organisation, based as they are on his extensive experience as an active sailor, his own innovations, and his readiness to acknowledge when he has taken an idea from other centres and adopts it to suit Dublin Bay’s needs. November would not normally be the month of sailing choice for many top boats.
Yet when Fintan Cairns introduced his DBSC Turkey Shoot series to provide seven successive Sunday mornings of brisk racing between late October and mid-December, his own determination to get out there in the Committee Boat and set an interesting course provided inspirational sailing leadership which, towards the end of 2018, saw 78 boats of top quality getting some of the best racing of the year.