#mirrorworlds – International competitors got all four seasons in one day in County Tipperary yesterday for the practice race and opening ceremony of the first ever staging of a Mirror dinghy world championships on Irish inland waters at Dromineer, Lough Derg yesterday.
Simon Coveney, Minister of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, officially opened the Championship last night. As a former Mirror Dinghy Champion, Minister Coveney maintains a keen interest in the sport. The Mirror World Sailing Championships in association with IPB Insurance and Waterways Ireland, is one of the leading sporting Gathering events for the Tipperary Region.
The championships are held every two years, in 2011 they were held in Australia, and in 2015 they will be held in South Africa. Up to eighty boats will compete with sailors travelling from the UK, Australia, the Philippines, South Africa, Canada, Denmark, and all parts of Ireland.
Lough Derg Yacht Club has a long association with the Mirror Class; Club members Peter Bayly and his cousin William Atkinson won the Mirror World Championships held at Howth in 2001. Ireland has won the Mirror Worlds in South Africa in 1999, in Tasmania in 2003, and in 2011 Ross Kearney and his crew Max Odell from the Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club, won the World Championship in Australia, having achieved the European title the same year.
