Howth Yacht Club’s 2025 Autumn League got off to a lively start on Saturday last, September 13th, with an entry of eighty boats across eight Classes and two race areas.  After the extended period of Summer weather, Saturday’s fresh and gusty westerlies quickly blew away the memories of sunny days and oilies left in lockers. While generally westerly, the gusts brought big changes in direction and reached 29 knots on the Committee Vessels.

An innovation for this year’s event is that three of the six days feature two shorter races for some of the Classes, generally over a Windward Leeward course configuration, while the other days offer the more traditional single races.  The Howth 17s and the two White Sails Classes opted to sail a single longer race on the two-race days, which on Saturday saved them the experience of heavy weather and allowed their crews to admire - from a distance - the antics of their spinnaker carrying brethren tackling the runs.  The entertainment included a memorable display of broaches and spinnaker control battles as the wind and the waves increased and the gusts challenged the ability of all to keep the hull in the preferred position under the rig.

The bigger keelboats are assigned to the Offshore course and divided into five fleets, Class 1, 2 and 3 with spinnakers and Class 4 and 5 being White Sails only.  The 5 boat Class 1 fleet was dominated by the Evans brothers’ The Big Picture, which won both races on IRC and on HPH, with Simon Knowles’ Indian taking second.  In Class 2 on IRC Mata (Wright & DeNeve) won the first race while Jeremy Beshoff’s J70, Jawesome III, won the second but the consistency of the two second places taken by Impetuous (Noonan & Chambers) leaves them at the top of the leaderboard.  Pepperbox (Cormac Farrelly) scored a 1, 2 on HPH to lead the HPH standings.  In Class 3, Stephen Mullaney’s Sigma 33, Insider, revelled in the demanding conditions and made a clean sweep on both IRC and HPH in the two races while Alliance 2 (V Gaffney) holds second overall on IRC and Malahide YC visitor Shenanigans (Douglas & Keane) and Alliance 2 share the HPH runner-up slot.

White Sails Class 4 sailed one race and the winner on IRC was Splashdance (Beckett & George) while Amuse II (Jenny & Niall O’Leary) took the HPH honours with Out and About (Terry McCoy) and Changeling (Kieran Jameson) the respective runner-ups.  White Sails Class 5 does not have an IRC competition and, under HPH,  Leeuwin (Burke & Murray) took the win by just four seconds from the mighty Bandersnatch (Kyran O’Grady), which must have chalked up more Autumn Leagues over its long career than any of the other competing boats.

The 39 boat Inshore fleet comprises the Howth 17s, Puppeteer 22s and Squibs, all of them racing in conditions for the relatively small boats that challenged even the most experienced crews on Saturday.  After demonstrating their heavy weather skills to take the National Championship back in August, Deilginis (Massey, Toomey & Kenny) dusted them off again to secure a two-minute win over Erica (Davie Nixon) and take both the Scratch and HPH victories in the Class’s only race of the day, a two-hour marathon.  The Puppeteer 22 Class, with 17 boats entered, enjoys the biggest entry of the event and Nimon (Nigel Biggs) took first place on scratch in both races with Shiggi Shiggi (Paul & Laura McMahon) second, while Honeybadger (Garrett May) scored a two, one to lead overall on handicap.  In the Squib Class, the two races were won by Tears in Heaven (Tom McMahon) with Tears for Fears (Niall Monks) taking second on scratch but also scoring a two, one on HPH to lead that category after day one.

Racing continues every Saturday until October 18^th.

Click for full results

Race Report Neil Murphy

Feature image, credit Harry Gallagher - first 3 boats coming to the finish in race 2. NIMON, Shiggy Shiggy, WeyHey.

Other images, credit Judith Malcolm