There’s something special about a large organisation which is so attuned to the needs of the many services it quietly provides that it can - naturally and confidently and without fuss - move into action each year in a distinctly low key way.
For although Dublin Bay Sailing Club is into Year 140 this season, far from trying to clutter up the programme with another razzmatazz-laden Saturday anniversary-celebrating regatta, its well-proven race organising machine simply starts to whirr gently next Tuesday evening, April 23rd, when dinghies and smaller keelboats have their weekly evening racing, as it seems they have been doing since time immemorial.
Is this on-water steeple-chasing? The Water Wag ODs have been racing since 1887, with the present class – which has expanded with classic new builds in recent years – sailing the version designed in 1900 by Maimie Doyle. Their long-standing two-race programme at late afternoon and early evening every Wednesday is central to life in Dun Laoghaire Harbour
Then on Wednesday the 1887-founded Water Wags have the first duo of their two time-honoured in-harbour races on 24th April, while on April 25th, it’s time for what is effectively the first weekly regatta, as the regular mid-week Thursday evening turnout of larger cruisers racing their way in Dublin Bay involves boat and crew numbers that many an annual regatta elsewhere would be very proud to match.
PROGRAMME SHAPED TO SUIT WAY WE LIVE TODAY
Finally, the setup is complete with Saturday racing resuming a week hence, on April 27th. And thus with the mutually satisfactory sponsorship of AIB and their friendly CEO Colin Hunt, the DBSC show is on the road for another summer, seeming to stay the same while quietly changing all the time, and usefully reflecting the times we live in.
The DBSC “cruisers” race in Dublin Bay every Thursday evening, regularly achieving mid-week turnouts that many fully-fledged weekend regattas would be very pleased to reach. Photo: Afloat
Thus it is an effect of those changing mores, duly acknowledged, that there are often more boat racing mid-week than on Saturdays, with the Thursdays being something very special to Dublin Bay. It’s a harbinger of the approaching weekend, and is best experienced by going straight from work in town to one of the club changing rooms, then on to the boat to race – possibly with shipmates you only see this one Thursday evening of the week - before finally finding the evening’s sustenance (and maybe celebration) at one of the traditional club Sailing Suppers – you’ve four venues available - as night descends.
DBSC HAS BECOME PART OF THE SCENERY OF DUBLIN BAY
It’s an overall picture of supply meeting demand so neatly that it’s maybe tempting fate to analyse it all too closely. In fact, many sailors find it best to find the reassuring presence of the Dublin Bay SC services as something that is just comfortably present around Dublin Bay, like Dalkey, Killiney Hill, the spires of Dun Laoghaire, the historic awareness of nearby Dublin Port, and the Hill of Howth surprisingly unspoilt to the north.
The familiar setting of Dublin Bay. Dublin Bay Sailing Club’s programme is now so much part of it that some think it goes with the scenery
This attitude of being taken for granted is so much part of DBSC’s “goes with the territory” attitude and modus operandi, that I was tempted to say that the Club’s motto should be “No Fuss” in Latin, but have so far failed to find a satisfactory Latin version – all suggestions welcome, and if you can include the translation to Latin of “Doing Good Work By Stealth”, it would also be much appreciated.
THE ‘CORPS OF VOLUNTEERS’
Yet so accepting is the large but quietly functioning corps of 80 or so volunteers, and so busy getting on with the job, that when I asked current incumbent DBSC Commodore Eddie Totterdell what position he held in the Commodorial listings way back to 1884 and Richard Fry (who seems to have combined the role of first Commodore with Honorary Secretary until clearly made Commodore in 1890), Commodore Totterdell cheerfully said he didn’t know and would have to ask.
Commodore Ed Totterdell with multi-prize-winner Tim Goodbody, a successful former Commodore of the Royal Alfred YC which is now incorporated into Dublin Bay SC
He personally has been much involved with DBSC since 1980 (you do the maths), and actively involved in the race management for the past dozen years. This is while also being a high input member of the National Yacht Club, and additionally the Operations Manager for the RNLI Dun Laoghaire Lifeboat in that very busy southeast corner of Laoghaire Harbour centred around the National Yacht Club, currently MG Motor Club of the Year, whose members are especially generous in donating personnel and effort to the DBSC cause.
CENTENARY REGULARISATION OF COMMODORES’ SERVICE TIME
Typical of this is DBSC Honorary Secretary Rosemary Roy, who was able to come up with the info on the Commodores of times past. In I40 years, there have only been 22 in all, for some served for very long periods. But at the Centenary in 1984 when Michael O’Rahilly – he is The O’Rahilly for those who are deeply into Irish history – was Commodore, it was decided to rationalize it to two year periods, for Dublin Bay sailing was entering a period of mega-expansion, and DBSC was providing such a good service that running it all was increasingly demanding – two years was enough for anyone.
A calming presence. DBSC Hon Sec Rosemary Roy has long years of experience, active afloat and ashore on the club’s Race Management Team. Photo: Robert Bateman
COMMODORES SINCE 1984
Thus the Commodore List for the past 40 years gives a memory-jerking reminder of those (some alas no longer with us) who gave service way over and above the call of duty to keep Dublin Bay sailing smoothly on course
- 1985-88 C Denis Kelly
- 1988-91 Roger O'Meara
- 1991-93 Richard Hooper
- 1993-96 Dr Donal Mc Sorley
- 1996-99 Margaret Woods
- 1999-02 Fintan Cairns
- 2002-05 Jim Dolan
- 2005-09 Tim Costello (DBSC Sailing Cub of year)
- 2009-12 Anthony Fox
- 2012-15 Pat Shannon
- 2015- 18 Chris Moore
- 2018 -20 Jonathan Nicholson
- 2020-22 Ann Kirwan (DBSC MG Motor Sailing Club of Year)
- 2022- Ed Totterdell.
The DBSC Centenary Regatta in Scotsman’s Bay in 1984 had light conditions that allowed members to interpret at leisure the message on Commodore Michael O’Rahilly’s Glen OD, cleverly created so that can be re-used at any future anniversary of significance. Photo: W M Nixon
COMMODORES 1890-1984
Before that, going beyond the Centenary, the previous Commodores (hidden away in the mountain of info which is the online DBSC Yearbook), are listed as:
- 1890 Richard Fry
- 1899 Viscount Crichton
- 1919 Dr.W.M.A. Wright
- 1941 J.B.Stephens
- 1944 Prof. J.T. Wigham
- 1952 S.M. Smalldridge
- 1960 George D. Craig
- 1967 F. Derek Martin
- 1971 John H. Walker
- 1975 G. Harold Bleakley
- 1979 Harry Boyd
- 1981 Michael O’Rahilly
Modest beginnings – the DBSC fleet of 1886 in racing mode
EARLY CLUB EXPANSION
The first period of hectic years of DBSC development came between its foundation in 1884 in order to provide racing for small craft not catered for by the big clubs, and its quietly dominant role – reached within twenty years - as the overall racing authority and racing organiser for all the clubs in Dun Laoghaire, as well as the harbour’s One-Design classes.
My word, haven’t they grown in just 12 years? The new Fife-designed Dublin Bay 25s starting through the harbor mouth in 1898
The bricks_and_mortar clubs, of course, host their own special events – local, regional, national and international – but it is all done with the support structure of the DBSC in the background. It could be argued that were such a key organisation being created today, it would probably be called an association. But you could equally assert that its key to the spirit of DBSC that it is a club with its own membership and thus its own essential core of volunteers sharing a very special ethos.
DBSC RIGHT UP TO SPEED WITH MINDFULNESS
DBSC is all mindfulness. They live in the present, and if they think beyond that, it’s of the future rather than the past. Thus every so often there’s an attempt to write another history to continue from longtime Honorary Secretary Donal O’Sullivan’s A Century of Sailing published in 1984, copies of which are today so rare that it’s an endangered species.
Keep it under lock and key. Donal O’Sullivan’s history of DBSC at the Centenary in 1984 is now a collector’s item.
Maybe a new history book about DBSC can be created by AI. For so many facts, involving so many classes since 1984, have to be included that an ordinary humanoid brain would surely explode with the effort.
CONTINUOUS CHANGE
Thus changes in 2024 will include a proper programme for the new Melges 15 class, and during the season there’s be a replacement committee boat – currently nearing completion by boatbuilder Gerry Smyth in Kilkeel – arriving on station.
Hard-worked vessels. Dublin Bay SC will be taking delivery of a new Committee Boat during the 2024 season. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien
DUBLIN BAY 21s RETURN TO LIFE
But for the more traditional, the real thing to anticipate keenly for Season 2024 is that the restoration of the 1903-vintage Dublin Bay 21 class, by Hal Sisk and Fionan de Barra, has now passed the tipping point to become a viable reality. Work on the seven boats for restoration by Steve Morris of Kilrush has been progressing steadily since 2018, and this year the National YC has seen to it that all seven will have highly visible moorings close along the East Pier, with the first three taking them up in style last Saturday.
Here’s a pictorial history of their story:
The new DB21 Garavogue about to be launched by builder James Kelly at Portrush in 1903. Photo: Courtesy Robin Ruddock
The Dublin Bay 21 class in their prime under their original rig, with Naneen (no 6, built Dun Laoghaire 1905) in the foreground
Garavogue under her original rig, cutting a dash when races still started and finished in the harbour
From 1964 until 1986, the DB21s sailed under Bermudan rig, as seen here on Innisfallen. Photo: Facebook
After the destruction of Hurricane Charley in 1986, the deteriorating Dublin Bay 21s were stored for many years in a farmyard at Redcross in Wicklow.
Beyond perfect…..the restored Garavogue after a world class paint job in Steve Morris’s boatyard in Kilrush in 2022. Photo: Steve Morris
A dream finally fulfilled – Garavogue sails again on Dublin Bay under her third rig
Back where they belong. The restored Dublin Bay 21s start to take up their allotted moorings in Dun Laoghaire, Saturday April 14th 2024. Photo: Afloat.ie
ANTICIPATING THE SESQUICENTENNIAL
The comprehensive DBSC 2024 Yearbook
Maybe they’re playing it really cool for the 140th, but perhaps in 2034, the commissariat in Dublin Bay, SC, will let their hair down a bit for a proper celebration of the DBSC Sesquicentennial. Just so long as some of us are allowed to call it the 150th, rather than exhausting ourselves by trying to enunciate that word clearly without requiring everyone nearby to have an umbrella.
