Howth Yacht Club is the home of the World’s oldest one-design racing keelboat class, the ‘Howth Seventeen Footer’. This still thriving class of boat was designed by Walter Herbert Boyd in 1897 to be sailed in our local waters. The original five ‘gaff-rigged topsail’ boats that came to the harbour in the spring of 1898 are still raced hard from April until November every year, competing against the other boats of this historic class that have been built since the original five arrived. The Club has a 250-berth marina in front of the clubhouse and a further 60 swinging moorings in the harbour area, primarily for use by keelboats that do not have engines.