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The 2026 ILCA 7 Worlds in Dublin Bay from 23rd to 30th August, hosted by the National Yacht Club of Dun Laoghaire with full logistics support from the neighbouring Royal St George YC, is by all official ratings the most important sailing event in Ireland this year.

Sailing being what it is, there’ll be many a salty individualist of very specialist interests who won’t give a hoot for The Establishment’s viewpoint of what is important. But the fact is that sailing’s difficult position in the Olympics as a vehicle sport is at its least aggravating with the minimalist and universally popular Bruce Kirby-designed ILCA/Laser.

“The Bolt from the Blue” – double Olympic Gold Medallist Matt Wearn of Australia demonstrating that racing an ILCA7 at the top level is an extremely athletic activity, very worthy of Olympic inclusion Photo: Facebook

SAILING’S USEAIN BOLT

Thus the Olympic Gold Medallist in the men’s ILCA 7 is as near as we get to the sailing equivalent of the quintessential Olympic athlete, the magnificent sprinter Useain Bolt. This position of “The Bolt from the Blue” is currently held by Australia’s Matt Wearn, and he is among the 141 entries already listed in a Dublin Bay event given added significance by being exactly halfway between the 2024 Paris/Marseilles Olympiad, and the 2028 Los Angeles games.

Welcome to Dun Laoghaire. Three Lasers, three nations, and many more to come. Photo: Afloat.ie

WELCOME GAP IN SAILING PROGRAMME

There has been a brief gap in the sailing programme this past week, which has allowed some mental space to take on board the full meaning of Con Murphy and his team staging the ILCA7 Worlds in Dublin Bay, to which we’ll return after a quick overview of most other things that will be going on in the second half of the 2026 season.

Hosting an event of the magnitude of the ILCA 7 Worlds sees a re-utilisation of Carlisle Pier in Dun Laoghaire.

IDEAL TIME TO PAUSE

From a sailing point of view, our changing climate could not have chosen a better week to pause for breath in mid-season, with Patrick Kavanagh’s “tremendous silence of mid-July” lying somnolently across an over-heated and often virtually windless Ireland. Of course, there were breezes here and there during this past week. But they were made more conspicuous by their absence elsewhere. Anyone trying to stage something big and of several day’s duration, such as June’s Round Ireland Race from Wicklow or early July’s Cork Week, would have found it a frustrating business.

LOGGING THE MAJORS

As it is, in filing the roundup for Cork Week in Sailing on Saturday a week ago, it was almost a surprise to note the posting date was only 11th July. The peak month of ultra-summer was barely into double figures, yet the Irish sailing calendar had already ticked off majors such as Kinsale’s Inishtearaght Race, the Scottish Series, Howth’s Lambay Races, the Round Ireland race from Wicklow, the RIYC’s 195th Anniversary Classics Regatta at Dun Laoghaire, Bangor Regatta in Belfast Lough, the history-laden K2Q from Dublin Bay to Cork Harbour, WIORA’s Golden Jubilee West Coast Championship at Tralee Bay SC, Cork Week itself, and several dinghy championship titles, both regional and national, plus the Wright team’s podium success in the demanding Aegean 600 2026.

Earning their welcome. Dublin Bay 21s and Howth 17s have some brisk sailing for the final couple of miles to the Clontarf At Home. Photo: Jonathan O’Rourke

AT HOME WITH CLONTARF

Most appropriately, we’re emerging gently from the brief but welcome mid-season lull with today (Saturday) and tomorrow’s almost-folksy At Home Regatta focused around the very tidal inner reaches of Dublin Bay and the 151-year-old Clontarf Yacht & Boat Club. The entrants from Dun Laoghaire will be streaming across the bay with the flooding tide under them, while the 1898-vintage Howth 17s will have a fair wind to beat the adverse tide round Howth Head with its Faroes-reminiscent bird cliffs.

Come to think of it, there couldn’t be a greater contrast in sailing than that between the venerable and complex Howth 17s, sailing close under their neighbourhood fuglabjorg to dodge the tide, and that provided by the crisp out-of-the-box ILCA fleet a month ahead, sailing in waters of a hoped-for equally spread tidal stream.

Yet both approaches flourish, with the Howth 17s certainly on a roll at the moment, as they provided the biggest fleet at the RIYC Classics last month, and their popular Family Day last weekend saw senior skipper Ian Malcolm win the single-handed race with the 1898-vintage Aura, a remarkable achievement as he was not only obliged to sail solo, but successfully did so despite a left leg which is only a shadow of its former self thanks to a youthful motorbike accident.

LEINSTER OPTIMISTS ATTRACT 154 BOATS

The Seventeens’ spending of their day getting to and from Clontarf, with a spot of celebration at the venue, leaves a bit of extra space back home for Howth YC to stage the Leinster Optimist Championship ’26 over the weekend, with 154 boats entered at the most recent tally.

Everyone sails an Optimist at one stage. This is a very young Rocco Wright, star helm of last week’s Aegean 600, getting ahead in an Opty. Photo: North Sails

But it’s in a week’s time that full mainstream adult sailing is cranked back into top gear, with the 2026 Grant Thornton ILCA Irish Championship hosted by the Royal St George YC on Dublin Bay with racing for ILCA classes 4,6, and 7, while down Cork way, Crosshaven springs back to international life with the British & Irish National 18 Championship from July 24th-27th.

THE CHALLENGING NATIONAL18s AT CROSSHAVEN

Whatever form she may come in, the 1938-introduced National 18 is a magnificent beast. But she’s not for the faint-hearted. This may explain why the fleet in Cork Harbour – at the forefront of the class’s design development – can only expect visitors next weekend from the few but decidedly elite fleets in the UK, as no other Irish centre still sails them despite there once being classes at Portrush, Skerries, Clontarf and Howth, the latter once upon a time being the original home port of Tinkerbelle, the oldest National 18 still in full sailing commission.

The restored National 18 Tinkerbelle is the oldest National 18 in full sailing commission, having originally been built for Bobby Mooney of Howth and Dun Laoghaire in 1938

CALVES WEEK THEN KINVARA

Moving into August, the Bank Holiday Monday (August 3rd) will see a continuation of the moves to restore Baltimore Regatta in West Cork, but on Tuesday the focus moves very positively to Schull and its Calves Week from 4th to 7th July, as “weeks” come in bite sizes in West Cork. And then for those with a taste for the traditional, the searchlight move rapidly up the Atlantic seaboard for Cruinnui na mBad at Kinvara at the head of Galway Bay from 7th to 9th August.

“Older than time itself” – traditional hookers racing at Kinvara.

GP 14 WORLDS AT CULTRA

Meanwhile, another sailing World Championship will be under way with the International GP14 Worlds at Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club at Cultra on Belfast Lough from Saturday 8th August until Friday 14th August.

The Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club at Cultra on Belfast Lough will be hosing the International GP 14 Worlds from 8th-14th August

GP 14s racing at Cultra on Belfast Lough 

Celebrating 75 years of the Geeps, and with Ken Carthy of Rush Sailing Club the first to throw his hat into the ring, entries have already reached the 100-boat cap with a formidable lineup of stars from both the GP 14s and other leading dinghy classes. Such is the demand that – like the Fastnet Race or any fashionable restaurant – they have opened a waiting list, but quite who would be in the key position of maître d’ is anyone’s guess.

COMMITTEE OF ALL THE TALENTS

There will be many other sailing events going on at August’s height, but by this time Con Murphy and his Committee in Dun Laoghaire will have taken centre stage for the ILCA 7 Worlds 2026, and the still-open entry list is already formidable.

The buck stops here. The ILCA 7 Worlds 2026 Organising Committee are Left to right - Peter Bowring (Shore), Don O’Dowd (Media), Kate Fogarty (Event Sec), Colin O’ Brien (Finance), Sarah Gorman (Ceremonies), Ian Bowring (Results), Heather King (Race Office), Con Murphy (Chair, PRO), Brian Craig (Vice Chair, Shore Director), Cathy MacAleavey (Ceremonies), Peter Sherry (Sponsorship), Sean Craig (Equipment Inspection), Ronan Adams (Logistics).

As mentioned, defending Gold Medallist Matt Wearn of Australia is well in, in fact he’s at Entry 13, but only superstitious Europeans would allow such a loaded number to affect their performance. Currently, there are 41 nations represented in the still-increasing entry list of 141 – it’s expected to go to 160 - and the furthest north is either Sigurdur Haukur Birgisson, the only Icelandic entrant, or one of the four Finnish entries, while furthest south is probably between one of the five New Zealand entries and Francisco Guaragna Rigonat of Argentina. As for exoticism, Sultan Khalid Mohamed Alowaus of the United Arab Emirates is surely in a league of his own.

ENTRY LIST

SUPERSTAR OPPOSITION

Olympian Finn Lynch of the hosting National YC leads the six-boat Irish challenge which includes former junior champion Ewan McMahon of Howth. But there’s no escaping the fact that our ILCA 7 sailors will find that the world’s best have arrived on their doorstep with a fiercely acquisitive glint in their eyes.

For in addition to double Olympic Gold Medallist Matt Wearn, double Olympic Silver Medallist Pavlos Kontides of Cyprus – currently rated World No. 1 in the ILCA 7 – is in the lineup, as is Olympic Medallist Tonci Stipanovic of Croatia.

Return of the Wild Geese? Marc O’Connor of Mallorca (centre) receives his trophies as ILCA7 Spanish Champion 2026.

OUR MAN IN MALLORCA?

Spanish ILCA7 National Champion 2026 Marc O’Connor of the Balearics – his home club is the hospitable Real Club Nautico de Palma – will also be present. He’s not to be confused with rising offshore star Mark O’Connor, but whether he’s in the line of the Wild Geese or from a more recent Irish migration to Mallorca we can only guess. However, if there’s any friction we can restore harmony by calling on the services of Johan Schubert of Denmark, Entry No 37 in the ILCA 7 Worlds 2026 in Dublin Bay. Let the music roll.