The 2024 Autumn League a highlight for sailors kicked off with 82 entries. New this year was the start time of 3pm. The wind felt strong while ashore but with a SW direction and a flat sea, sailing conditions were ideal once everyone went afloat. David Lovegrove as principle race officer on the offshore fleet started the series with a nice long race around the cans to maximised the time available on the water.

In Class 1, Simon Knowles sailing Indian took the spoils in the Class by 11 seconds from Stephen Quinn's Lambay Rules in a blustery 15 to 20 knots southerly wind. Storm came home in third while training up the next generation of young sailors.

Class 2 had 8 of the 11 entrants on the starting line for the inaugural 2024 Autumn League race this year in blustery but warm and dry conditions. PRO David Lovegrove set the approximately 90-minute course to match the conditions with a great windward/leeward round-the-cans course providing from some fun on the downwind legs and challenging lengthy upwind ones. Reveling in the heavier conditions, it was Dux that rounded the weather mark in first spot followed by No Excuse closing by the others, with the X’s clearly loving the bigger breeze. Jeremy Beshoff’s new J70 took off out of the traps giving Pat O’Neill’s J80 Mojo a great run for his money and with Nobby’s new J70 joining the fun next week, the battle for best J commences. Whilst the race was reasonably close for the majority, Gore-Grimes' Dux managed to hold off the other competitors maintaining her lead for the entire race, and finishing in some 6 minutes ahead of the Noonan/Chambers’ Impetuous who romped in in 2nd place ahead of Pat O’Neill’s Mojo in 3rd.

In Class 3, 6 of the 8 entries took to the start line due to some racing in Dun Laoghaire. It was Vincents Gaffney’s Alliance II that came out on top in IRC with a comprehensive win over Kevin Darmody’s Gecko and Malahide’s Running Wild, Anton Korshunov. In HPH, the Malahide visitors on Shenanigans, Lee Douglas & Aidan Keane took the spoils from Alliance II and Running wild.

The Non Spinnaker classes was the largest in the offshore category and it was great to see 18 boats the starting line, divided into Class 4 and 5. Raced on a great course, well chosen by a very experienced RO , the finish line really demonstrated his fiendish expertise: short in a strong flood tide and pin end set temptingly forward. It set a trap from a distance out for those on port tack, as they were swept across and away and were forced to tack onto starboard to cross right on the line. The final long beat made skippers choose between going out to sea on port but into tide and increasing waves, or trying inside less tide and shorter waves . Great experience trying to negotiate such subtleties. In Class 4, the strong steady southerly made for a fast race of just over an hour for the 10 racers. IRC saw Splashdance continue her good form with line honours, followed by Bite the Bullet about 4 minutes behind, with Dermott Skeehan and Toughnut in 3rd place closing their race 3 minutes later. In HPH Spellbound emerged as the winner followed by Out & About, with Splashdance third. In Class 5 IRC, the experienced Windsor and Steffi on Demelza got the gun followed by Leeuwin 30 seconds behind. In HPH, Leeuwin closed the race 3 minutes ahead of Pepsi, and handicap adjustments placed Demelza in the 3rd spot, which she took from Mary Ellen and Kevin O’Byrne who were relegated to 4th place.

Video by @decmcmanus

The inshore course had Harry Gallagher as race officer setting the courses for 18 Puppeteers, 8 Squibs and 14 Howth 17’s: the largest fleet in the Autumn League 2024. With a flood tide keeping boats well behind the line, 3 clean starts took place and with a dying breeze and strong tide the 90 min race was finished by the Cush mark.

Puppeteers were first off the line. On Scratch, the race was won by Trick or Treat, Shiggi Shiggi was 2nd and Gold Dust was 3rd.

Next to start was the Squib Class. Only 4 Squibs made it to the racecourse for week 1 and this meant there was plenty of room on the starting line. The beat was a tight fought contest with all four boats reaching the weather mark within seconds of each other. Kerfuffle helmed this week by Rob Stanley was first to weather mark, followed closely by Tears in Heaven. With 3 long beats Tears in Heaven (Tom McMahon & Jill Sommerville) gained a decent lead to win from Kerfuffle, followed by Fantome with new owner Caroline O’Kelly on board and with veteran squib sailor Fergus O’Kelly crewing. We hope to see all 8 boats out next week.

The last Class to start on the inshore course were the Howth 17’s with 13 yachts on the start line. They had a beat SW to the z mark with a reach to the Island Mark, a run to the Hub followed by a long beat to the Cush back to the Hub, then the fleet headed back to the Cush Mark where the committee boat was situated. First across the finish line was No 18 Erica helmed by David Nixon, followed by No 21 Orla helmed by David Cagney and third across the line was No 9 was Hera helmed by Matthew Cotter – All 13 yachts returned to port safely.

Photos by @karolinabadz