High winds cancelled the Irish East Coast Championships in Howth in September so the first two races at the Lough Derg keelboat event were designated for the award of that trophy, in addition to the overall Inland Championships event being held over the whole weekend. As it happens only two races were sailed in the testing conditions so the East Coast championship title and the Inland Championships title both go to the deserving Kerfuffle, sailed by Emmet Dalton and Neal Merry from Howth Yacht Club.
Lough Derg Yacht Club as always hosted the Squib fleet in style for the final open event of 2025.
No wind on Saturday meant the fleet all had a nice potter about on the lake and despite attempting a race the wind died off again causing its abandonment. There were at least 8 different versions of who was leading that race at the time of abandonment!
Sunday mornings wind was also elusive and after an hour’s AP the fleet headed out in the hope of getting some racing in. Race 1 was held under a very, very gentle north easterly , Ruby Blue 35 with Aiden O Connell and Lauren Donnelly emerged victorious,
Irish Inland Champion 2025 – Emmet Dalton
finishing ahead of Kerfuffle. Atomic deserves a mention: she sailed the almost perfect race getting back upto 5th after returning to the startline to exonerate an OCS.
Race 2 was won by the local Derg hotshots in Femme Fatale 24 (Vincent Delany and Joe O’Byrne) with second place going to Kinsale’s Flora 634 (Bobby Nash and Una Leader) showing that some salty sailors can read the light airs on a lake too.
The trophy was won by the consistent, and that was Kerfuffle 37 with Emmet Dalton and Neil Merry claiming the Irish Squib Class Trophy for Howth. Second overall went to Kinsale’s Atomic (Ian Travers and Keith O Riordan) with Howth YC also claiming third with Kaizen (Ronan Macdonall and Noel Coakley).
Top Visitor was Dick Batt who was also this year’s winner of the Travellers Trophy.
The Silver fleet winner was Beesknees (Frank McGowan and Ritchie Callanan).
The Irish Squib Class would like to thank Lough Derg Yacht Club , the race management team and everyone in the club for a great weekend. The Squib swarm has now dispersed back to their respective winter pampering sheds we will see you all again in 2026, dates of the respective events will be posted in the next couple of weeks.
Dick Batt receives the Irish Travellers Trophy