The club have received 32 entries to date and that is likely to swell to 40 before the July 1 start. Over half of the fleet is from Dublin and Cork. The balance of the fleet is made up from entries from the West coast, Waterford, several UK and two French entries.
A reduction of about 25 per cent in entries for the 2006 event will be seen as a disappointing outcome for a number of reasons but primarily because if it is – as so often it is claimed to be – one of the world's classic offshore races, then it's fleet could, as with Australia’s Sydney-Hobart or Britain’s Fastnet fixture, number in excess of 100 boats.
Cork's race veteran Eric Lisson was clear about this when he lifted his overall prize in 2002. He pleaded with offshore sailors to go out and canvass for it's future support.
Lisson, suggested that if each of the 30 skippers or so could attract one more boat then quite simply they would double the size of the fleet.
Two years later, 49 entries and a big breeze meant 2004 went down as a highlight of the race’s 28–year–history.
But now four years on, the exact reason for the fall back can most precisely be attributed to a clash of dates with the Commodore's Cup. Ireland is fielding three teams, all of which, incidentally are in action at this weekends UK IRC Nationals, and with a strong entry for the Cowes event this has had a direct effect on Round Ireland numbers and crew availability. But even this is too convenient an excuse for a race whose strength should be in foreign entries.
Some argue that a small harbour like Wicklow cannot cope with any bigger fleet size. And it has also been suggested, perhaps unfairly to Wicklow SC, that a bigger club (like one of four in Dun Laoghaire) might take over the running of the BMW sponsored race to more effectively promote it to an international audience.
But fleet number fluctuations, who runs the race or who hosts the fleet is little more than petty club rivalry. What really is at stake for Irish sailing is a lot more than a local yacht race. The entire sailing community headed by the Irish Sailing Association (ISA) or another body needs to get behind Wicklow and assist it in promoting this 704-mile offshore race as an icon of Ireland's summer sport.
Nowhere was this point more clearly made than this week when the world's top offshore sailors called in unexpectedly to our South and West coasts.
They came principally in search of wind in leg eight of the Volvo Round the World race. They found little wind, unusually, but before they left they wrote prose worthy of a Failte Ireland copywriter.
In his log Navigator Simon Fisher from ABN AMRO TWO wrote: “Our day started sailing in and out of the mist rolling down off the hills and, as the sun rose and the mist burnt off, it gave way to spectacular views of rolling green hills and a weather-beaten rocky coastline. With castles and towers stationed on each headland, it gives you the feeling of sailing through a scene out of Lord of the Rings.”
In other sailing news, there are 180 entries for this weekend’s Lambay Race from Howth Yacht Club. There are 13 classes involved. The Race is also Race number two in the five-race Fingal series.
Sligo Yacht Club was the biggest beneficiary of the ten yacht clubs that featured in Wednesday's annual National lottery sports capital grant allocation.
The West coast club, that hosts the GP14 world championships in eight weeks time, received Euro 80,000 for new changing rooms including disabled facilities at it's new clubhouse in Rosses point.
Another western club, Tralee SC, got Euro 50,000 for Boats and the development of a training area.
ENDS
Can this run in a box next to the sailing column?
Weekend fixtures
Friday
Lee Overlay RAYC/ISORA-Carlingford Howth YC
Saturday/Sunday
Lambay Race Howth YC
Oyster Pearl regatta Dundalk and Carlingford SC
Wayfarer Eastern Champs Skerries SC
J24 Northern Championship Portrush and Coleraine YCs
