I SAW THREE SHIPS

A glorious late-summer’s evening in Dublin Bay. Three identical boats race each other in fading sunshine and a gentle but steady breeze. With multiple place changes and with on-water camaraderie which would later be accentuated ashore, this is one-design racing at its very best. But these are by no means ordinary one-designs. They are the first three reconstructed boats of a revived class that originally sailed over a century ago: the Dublin Bay 21 Footers.

At the turn of the 19th century there were already three one-design classes in Dublin Bay: the 1887 Water Wags (still active today and generally considered to be the world’s oldest one-design class), the 1897 Colleens and the 1898 Fife-design Dublin Bay 25s. Then in October 1902 at a general meeting of the Dublin Bay SC, a new cruiser/racer class was discussed, to be “intermediate in size between the 25-footers and the Colleens” according to the agenda. Although a ketch rig was first proposed, after much debate a gaff cutter rig was agreed.

DBSC’s committee then commissioned Alfred Mylne to produce a design, the result of which was not dissimilar to Mylne’s 1899 gaff sloop Belfast Lough Star class. predicted that the