After a short break over Christmas and New Year, the 420 sailors are back out on the water at various clubs around the country.

The 420 class has a reputation for providing top-quality coaching, both through the clubs and at a national level.

The first of the 2023 open class training dates will be over half term week and hosted by Kinsale Yacht Club, with Graeme Grant leading the coaching team. As well as the daily training it is proposed to host some evening events so that everyone, parents and sailors, can socialise together whilst enjoying some food with talks on sailing.

This year the half-term training week will also see a number of the young 420 coaches looking to close out their coaching qualifications. This is an initiative the association started back in the Autumn in order to have a pool of certified coaches around the country that are available for any club to host their own club training during the year.

The final domestic race event of 2023 was the Ulster Regional Championship held at Malahide Yacht Club. But the association did see Max Sweetman of WHSC and Roisin Mitchell Ward of GBSC join forces to take part in the Christmas Regatta at Palamos in Spain. This is a hotly contested event on the continental 420 circuits and with the fantastic assistance of the GBR 420 association, it made participation run very smoothly. Max and Roisin were treated to the full range of conditions in an ultra-competitive fleet and logged a lot of excellent experience at this level of competition.

The first 420 domestic regional event of 2023 will be the Munster Championships on Friday, 17th to Saturday, 18th February 2023 at Kinsale Yacht Club, this will be followed by the National Youth Nationals that are hosted this year by Howth Yacht Club on Thursday, 13th to Sunday 16th April 2023.