11th July 2021
High density labour-intensive sailing……the 1720s racing the first day of their BNRG Easterns 2021 in Saturday s sunshine at Howth
Credit: Annraoi Blaney
When the Royal Cork Yacht Club unveiled the fresh concept of the Tony Castro-designed 1720 Sportsboat back in 1994, one of the tongue-in-cheek suggestions was that finance in developing the class could be through some grant scheme for Job Creation, as it was envisaged that each of these 26ft boats would be raced by a crew of five, and this was something which could surely be monetised.
Thus it means that any club hosting an event for this currently regenerating class can expect a good turnout of hungry and thirsty enthusiasts even when there s a modest entry list. And with a healthy entry of 15 boats sweeping into Howth on Friday for their BNRG-sponsored Eastern Championship, the pandemic-modified HYC hospitality machine was delighted to find that around a hundred extra consumers were grafted on to a home cust
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Galway s Yannick Lemonnier Aims for Mini Transat 2021 in September
25th February 2021
The new look for Yannick Lemonnier s Mini 6.50. Original designer Sam Manuard has done away with the single canard daggerboard, and replaced it with two asymmetrical foils
Quite a few of us still think of Yannick Lemonnier as the keen young French guy who came to Galway by way of Dingle, and in time became the Irish branch of Quantum Sails, with a new loft in the City of the Tribes. But he turned 50 last July, and was thinking of unfinished business, even though he and his son Sean – they re a formidable team – were on their way to winning the Cong-Galway Race for the second year running.
16th December 2020
Summer evening sunshine greets the Galway Bay Sailing Club fleet as they welcome home the Transatlantic-voyaging ketch Danu (at centre) at Kilronan in the Aran Islands at the end of July 2020
Credit: Vera Quinlan
Galway Bay Sailing Club, comfortably ensconced in their fine clubhouse at Renville New Harbour near Oranmore at the head of Galway Bay, can look back at many ups and downs during the fifty years of sailing development they ve experienced from small beginnings in the city in 1970, until now they re one of the pre-eminent clubs on the West Coast in all areas of sailing.
Yet even the most sadistic theatrical director would scarcely have green-lighted a storyline in which – just as the final details for a year s long Golden Jubilee celebration in 2020 were being put into place by Commodore John Shorten and his committee – the Black Beast from the East, otherwise the Pandemic, crept into place to dominate everyone s lives and blast lovingly-crafted pro