The Royal St. George Yacht Club Laser dinghy fleet hit the headlines at the weekend as the class also prepares to release a new video to promote solo sailing at Dun Laoghaire Harbour.

2020 was a record season for the Dublin Bay Laser Class, and by all accounts, they’re expecting an even bigger season in 2021.

While continuous sailing has been difficult for all fleets since the start of the pandemic, the single-handed Laser fleet has fared better than most, and as a result, its popularity has surged.

As Afloat reported previously, for the 2020 Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) summer series, the Laser had the highest number of entries compared with any other fleet, with over 90 boats registered. Entries were split across the Standard, Radial and 4.7 rigs with both adult and junior sailors taking part. 

Now the fleet, under class captain Brendan Hughes, is on the promotional trail with a new Royal St. George YC video for the class ready expected for release shortly.

80 Laser sailors are involved at the RStYGYC, according to Hughes, where all year round sailing is on offer. Club boats are also available to rent. 

The video also features interviews with youth sailors Alannah Coakley, Oisin Hughes and the junior class captain at the club, Robbie Walker.

Meanwhile, Irish Times video journalist Enda O'Dowd featured the class prominently at the weekend in a feature around sailing during Covid here but we're not entirely sure how memberships of sailing clubs have "almost doubled" over the last year as claimed but of the rise and rise of the Laser, there is no doubt.

The Olympic Games Sailing Qualification system's "what if" scenarios may be called in to play if pandemic related cancellations continue to ravage the high-performance sailing scene.

There are particular implications for the two classes in which Ireland still has reasonable hopes of achieving qualification - the Men's one-person dinghy and the Men's skiff.

Afloat has mulled through the complex paperwork to provide a guide to the qualification system.

Men's one-person dinghy (Laser)

The remaining event for European qualification is the Hyeres regatta in France in April. For Ireland to qualify, an Irish sailor would have to finish in the top two of those European countries that have yet to qualify.

The main contenders for these slots, based on previous form, are Switzerland, Spain, Holland, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Denmark and Poland.

However, should the qualification regatta not go ahead, and there is some doubt as organisers review the attendance quotas in the light of increased French government restrictions, then it is possible that World Sailing will revert to the reallocation list.

Ireland is currently 4th on that list which is based on results at the 2019 Worlds. As there are only two slots available for Europe, Ireland's chances of qualifying this way are slim.

However, there are also two slots available for Asian countries who have not yet held a continental qualifier. Should this event not take place and if World Sailing opts for using the reallocation list, those places are allocated, regardless of continent, according to the stated pecking order, which could benefit Ireland.

Men's Skiff (49er)

Much the same situation exists here. Although the remaining European qualifier (Palma) is cancelled, the European Championship is scheduled for Greece in May and could be substituted as a qualifier.

In this case, Ireland has to be the top of the unqualified European nations to win the remaining slot. The key contenders are Ireland, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Estonia and Russia.

In the event that a qualifier can't be sailed, the reallocation list puts Ireland second in line after the USA.

Should World Sailing decide to use this method, then Ireland may have to rely on the Asian and African qualifiers being cancelled also as Ireland's status on the list puts them ahead of the other unqualified nations.

Should any nation that is qualified or has yet to qualify, choose not to take up their slot, then the re-allocation list is used. This is a long shot but is still in play.

Clarification on this process is expected from World Sailing later this week.

The National Yacht Club's Finn Lynch, Ireland's top hope for an ILCA 7 berth in Tokyo this July, stays sixth overall after six races sailed in a breezy second day of the Lanzarote Winter Series but neither of his Irish teammates competed in today's three tough races in 20-knots and big waves. 

Howth Yacht Club's Ewan McMahon was forced to retire from racing following an eye injury in race four this morning. Exact details are not known but it appears the UCD third-year engineering student was struck by a boom end at a gybe mark in the first race. The injury was bad enough to rule him out of racing for the day but it is understood McMahon is 'ok' and should be able to race tomorrow.

Royal St. George's Tom Higgins also counted three 'DNCs'.

Winds are forecast to be lighter for today's racing.

Results here.

Ireland's Olympic silver medalist sailor Annalise Murphy returns to action in the Canary Islands this morning, her first regatta since the European Championships in Poland last October.

The only Irish sailor so far qualified for Tokyo 2021 will compete for 14 races (including a medal race) in her boat 'Ricky Bobby'  in the Lanzarote Winter Series til Thursday.

With 25 weeks to Tokyo, the Canarian regatta has attracted a fleet of 45-boats including one or two of Murphy's main rivals for July's Olympic Regatta. The presence of Denmark's 2015 World Champion Anne Marie Rindom, for example, means it is unlikely the National Yacht Club ace will have things entirely her own way.

Murphy is not the only Irish Radial sailor in action on the Spanish archipelago either with Howth Yacht Club teen Eve McMahon entered for the series that sees four races scheduled today.

Irish Laser men in Lanzarote

Some of Ireland's Olympic men's Laser team including the National Yacht Club's Finn Lynch, Howth's Ewan McMahon and Royal St. George's Tom Higgins are also entered but there is no entry in the 48-boat fleet for Ballyholme's Liam Glyn who posted a personal best last October in the Laser Europeans in Poland.

As regular Afloat readers know, the Irish men are in a scramble for one of the last Laser berths for Tokyo that will be decided in Hyeres in April. Ireland is close to the standard required to qualify the nation but at the same time with rivals Spain, Italy, Belgium and Greece all neck and neck, the challenge is clear.

Afloat understands other IRL sailors are on the Spanish Island this week and may yet decide on a last-minute entry, boosting the Irish presence.

No doubt this morning's dinghy park chat will be around the recent denial of the reports that the Tokyo Games are to be cancelled due to COVID. 

As Afloat reported previously, the Irish sailors have not been based at their Dun Laoghaire performance HQ but instead on the continent, winter training in the warmer climes of Portugal and Malta.

All sailors were required to sign a covid declaration for this week's regatta.

The schedule for the ILCA 6 (Radial) & ILCA 7 (Laser) event is: 

• 4 races (Monday)
• 4 Races Tuesday
• 4 Races Wednesday
• 2 races on Thursday including a medal race

2020 was a record season for the Dublin Bay Laser Class, and by all accounts, they’re expecting an even bigger season in 2021.

While continuous sailing has been difficult for all fleets since the start of the pandemic, the single-handed Laser fleet has fared better than most, and as a result, its popularity has surged. For the 2020 Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) summer series, the Laser had the highest number of entries compared with any other fleet, with over 90 boats registered. Entries were split across the Standard, Radial and 4.7 rigs with both adult and junior sailors taking part.

Lasers are proving to be a very versatile boat, especially in these turbulent times. Local active sailors range in age from teenagers as young as 13 right through to adults in their 50s and 60s. The fleet is also very well balanced between female and male sailors with both genders across the ages competing as equals, particularly in the Radial and 4.7 rigs.

"with the constant changes in COVID restrictions, the Laser is providing a more consistent sailing experience"

Local class captain Brendan Hughes explained why there is an expectation of even bigger numbers in 2021; “We’ve seen interest in the fleet continue to grow especially amongst adults. Many of these already sail cruisers but with the constant changes in restrictions, the Laser is providing a more consistent sailing experience. We’re the only large fleet that has been able to get out on the water in nearly all levels of lockdown.”

As a competitive single-hander, Hughes acknowledges that the Laser can be perceived by some as a challenging boat to sail. “In 20 knots, the Laser can be a challenge for sure! However, there has been a lot of effort put into training across Dun Laoghaire. Right throughout the year, there is coaching taking place for beginners and competitive sailors at both junior and adult level.” The increase in coaching availability over the past number of years is acknowledged by many new sailors as being critical in making this class more accessible.

Dublin Bay's new Laser dinghy Class Captain Brendan Hughes

In addition, constant adjustments to racing formats have helped to ensure the Laser fleet remains vibrant. During 2020, the DBSC dinghy race officers introduced Saturday racing in addition to Tuesday evening racing for the Laser fleet. This proved to be extremely popular and the Laser fleet was eager to see this continued in 2021. The club has confirmed that the format will continue for the new season of the AIB DBSC Summer Series with the entry fee covering both Tuesdays and Saturdays for all sailors.

A number of headline events in 2021 taking place in Dublin Bay are expected to drive continued interest from new sailors. The Irish Laser Master Nationals event will be hosted in Dun Laoghaire’s Royal St George Yacht Club from 12th -13th June. This event is open to all sailors over the age of 35 and the organisers expect to have 50+ boats from across the country participate.

A recent survey of local Laser sailors revealed that over 120 boats intend to participate in the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta One Design Championship taking place 2nd - 4th July. “If even two-thirds of that number participate in this new format, it would be the largest one-design fleet on the water at this year’s event, which is very exciting.” says Hughes.

August sees the International Laser Class Association (ILCA) 4.7 World Championship coming to Dublin Bay. Local organisers are expecting several hundred youth sailors from across the globe to participate in this event. This event will be one of the biggest sailing events to take place in Ireland this year and is a great opportunity for our younger sailors to participate on the world stage.

Afloat also hears that planning has begun amongst the Masters fleet to send a delegation to Malta in November. EurILCA, the European Laser organisation is holding its Euro Masters Regatta at Royal Malta Yacht Club from 4th - 7th November.

With a mix of local, national and international Laser events taking place in Dublin Bay this summer, it sounds like another big year for the fleet. More information on Laser sailing in Dun Laoghaire is available by emailing [email protected]

In Japan, public opinion may be divided as to whether this summer’s already postponed Tokyo Olympics should be postponed even further, or indeed completely cancelled. But completely focused athletes such as Laser sailor Ewan McMahon of Howth have no choice other than to keep battling on to see if they and Ireland can secure a place in Tokyo in July, and this week he has been in high-powered action off Malta in some seriously big waves.

The plan is to go on to Lanzarote in the Canaries at the end of the month for more competition, and then there’s further diversion for a challenge on Croatia in the buildup to the final Olympic qualifier in Hyeres in April.

2018 Laser Grand Master World Champion and 1996 Olympian Mark Lyttle reflects on a lifetime sailing against his old rival and great friend Bill O'Hara, who was awarded an OBE in the Queen's New Year's Honours List 2021.

I first recall Bill at the 1978 Pimm's Irish Lasers Nationals at Lough Ree Yacht Club (actually sailed from Hodson Bay and yes, they did sponsor the Irish Laser class) but it wasn't on the race course. As a 15-year-old sailing what we now call a Standard rig as that's all there was, I was nowhere near the front of the fleet especially as a hurricane passed through during the regatta. But I do remember Bill was the centre of social activities ashore as a young university student.

Over the next couple of seasons, Bill emerged as one of the top Lasers sailors along with Gordon Maguire (turned professional skipper), Dave Cummins (twice all Ireland champion) and Colin Galavan. Following a fifth place in the light air Kinsale Nationals (1979) and the curtailed (with another gale) Dun Laoghaire Nationals (1981), Bill took the Irish titles in Ballyholme (1981 where I recall driving to the event in a Renault 5 with three Lasers) and Galway Bay (1982 with Australian and NZL visitors following us home after our extensive continental European tours).

But I remember the 1982 season as my first Laser Europeans, in Athens, where I stayed with Bill and Simon Brien (Dragon Edinburgh Cup winner from Royal North of Ireland YC) and was supported and encouraged all the way by Bill – a true mentor figure.

Bill sailed a brilliant regatta, coming second overall behind the even more brilliant Peter Vilby, a result that has never been beaten by an Irish Laser (Standard) sailor. Consistent with many other Laser sailors across the world in that era, Bill had to realise his Olympic dreams away from Lasers, in his case in the single-hander Finn class.

Some of the 1982 Irish Laser Class supremos, with their mentor Ron Huthcieson on right, are (left to right) Simon Brien (later multiple Edinburgh Cup winner and other majors), multiple champion Charlie Taylor (still at it in the Laser Masters), Olympian Bill O'Hara, and Dave Cummins, All-Ireland Helmsmans Champion 1981 and 1982

I recall stories of him campaigning the Finn with Terry Nielsen (1982 Laser World Champion and eventual Bronze Medal winner) in 1983 in North America in the build-up to the Los Angeles Games in 1984.

Like many Olympic campaigners he returned for the Laser Worlds in Gulfport, Mississippi in October 1983 along with Frank Glynn, Con Murphy (better known now as Annalise's dad), John Simms and me. Most of us Irish stayed with nuns in a convent nearby but that is not what we most remember of the regatta. It was a no discard 14 race series in which Bill was doing brilliantly until a protest by the Jury for his boom allegedly hitting a NZL boat on his outside at the gybe mark. Both were disqualified and Bill ended the regatta knowing he would have been World Champion but for that.

It is often said that Juries stopped protesting boat on boat incidents because of that.

Bill went on to race at the Olympics and recorded a 4th, 10th, 9th and 8th in the first four of seven races and finished 13th overall in a very competitive fleet with sailing legends Russell Coutts and John Bertrand winning Gold and Silver. But Bill affirmed his status as role model and great supporter of Irish dinghy sailing by returning from the glories of the Olympics to race in the Irish Laser Nationals at the end of that summer.

These days Bill O'Hara is an international race judge and race officer

Of course, he was the man we all strived to beat at that event and subsequent seasons in the Laser (he didn't win that one but did win the Irish title three times in the nineties). I remember many great battles around the race course with Bill often ahead at the windward mark with his superior upwind speed and me trying to overtake him by the leeward mark with my superior downwind speed. Bill continued to combine his Laser and Finn sailing through the 1988 Games in Seoul, where he was joined by Peter Kennedy, the 1986 Irish Laser Champion, as David Wilkin's Flying Dutchman crew.

Afloat's 1983 Laser World's report from Gulfport, Mississippi

Many of us were envious of that given the limited opportunities to access Olympic sailing in those days but that changed with the introduction of the Laser in the 1996 Olympics. Although Bill started off as a competitor in the search for the single Irish place in Atlanta, he still provided advice and encouragement to me all the way. That is the thing about Bill, a fearsome competitor afloat but a true friend ashore. Nothing supports that more than in the 1994 Irish Laser Nationals when going into the deciding last race where I had a slender lead over Gary McCarthy, I had broken my tiller extension and Bill offered me his with the words "this title needs to be earned not won by default" - sorry Gary. Bill went to the 1996 Games as a coach and provided me with vital advice and encouragement throughout the Games.

Although our interaction has been more social than on the race course in recent years, I look back and say he has been a true motivator and influencer on my sailing journey but more importantly a true friend, which like many friendships based on so many years of shared experiences and the ups and downs of competition, will remain despite the passing of time. Bill is a man who knows loyalty and integrity and I am proud to be his friend. Well done, Bill on your OBE.

The Irish Laser class would remind you of a murmuration of starlings. They major in highly flexible shape-changing formations in which the actual moving around of the fleet is a matter of independent individual units somehow sweeping together with apparently telepathic communication and little hassle. A Laser skipper has no crew problems, and all they need to be part of the countrywide circus is a driving licence and a sufficiently robust car to take the boat and launching trailer on a roof rack.

Admittedly with some very talented juniors such as Eve McMahon making an impact before they’ve even got to the age of 16, the driving licence requirement may need an element of family and older friends support. But either way the class’s approach seems as modern as tomorrow, and it takes an effort to remember that these timeless classics have been in Ireland for nearly fifty years.

With their flexibility of fleet movement, they were sufficiently confident to publish their outline 2021 Events Calendar early in the weekend, and though any fixed post-pandemic programme planning must be in the balance with the developments of the past two days, at least it reminds us that as soon as there’s any possibility of sailing resumption, they’ll be ready and willing for a leaping of Lasers.

IRISH LASER ASSOCIATION 2021 EVENTS

• 2/4 April – Munster Championship: Baltimore SC
• 8/11 April – Irish Sailing Youth Nationals: Royal Cork YC
• Dates TBC – Leinster Championship: Venue TBC
• 12/13 June - Masters National Championship: Roya St George YC
• 26/27th June – Ulster Championship: County Antrim YC, Whitehead
• 17/18 July – Connacht Championship: Wexford Harbour BC
• 19/22 August – National Championship, Royal Cork YC
• 2/3 October - End–of-Season Event (new): Kinsale YC

As Ireland tries to boost its Olympic sailing team from currently one dinghy (Annalise Murphy in the Radial) with two more (a men's Laser and a 49er), the final Olympic qualifier for the men's Laser class has been confirmed for France in April 2021 (French Olympic Week, April 17-24 in Hyeres).

There are still two nation places up for grabs and three Irish men are chasing a final berth. Ireland is up against Italy, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands so it is likely to go right down to the wire before we know who ultimately claims the place. 

Finn Lynch, Liam Glynn and Ewan McMahon are all looking for the single berth and whoever finishes on top in the Cote D'Azur will be deemed to have been selected.

Since late summer performance sailing has been back in regatta mode with the team competing across Europe in Poland and Italy. 

After training from the Irish Sailing Performance HQ in Dun Laoghaire all summer, once restrictions lifted the Lasers and Laser Radials headed to Lake Garda in Italy for training, and then on to the Italian National Championships – the first time the team had competed since Covid restrictions began. Murphy won this competition overall and from there the team headed to the European Championships in Gdansk, Poland.

As Afloat reported previously, Finn Lynch had a great regatta finishing in 13th position in Gdansk, a personal best for the Dun Laoghaire ace but there was a disappointment overall for Tokyo qualified Murphy. There was another personal best for Lynch's rival Glynn too, who finished 43 from 126.

Howth's Eve McMahon at only 16-years-old had her first senior European championships, qualifying for the Gold Fleet and finishing in 45th - a great marker of future potential.

More on Finn Lynch's plans here

November sunshine plays tricks with how we see things. Maybe it's because it's so rare. But at the weekend at Howth – with just a month to go to the shortest day of the year – a special coaching course being run in Lasers by international champion Aoife Hopkins was taking place with a low-slung sun so powerful – under a sky of a blue so utterly blue that it hasn't got a name yet – that an educational circuit of Ireland's Eye under the watchful Hopkins' eye did strange things to vision.

Be careful in looking at this photo – when you get hold of the thought that the boat is going away and the sail is coming back again, the brain just won't let itself be re-set correctly

Maybe it's just us, and maybe it's time we re-visited the pioneering HYC Brass Monkey Winter Series creator Pat Connolly in his day job as an optician. But if you look at the pic above of the trainee flotilla of Abby Kinsella, Una Connel, Fiachra Farrelly and Charlie Keating heading eastward towards the Martello tower and the cliffs along the north coast of Ireland's Eye, there's no doubt that the nearest boat is going away, but the strong low light somehow makes it look as though the sail is coming back again…….

Either way, in the idyllic circumstances a circuit of Ireland's Eye provided an ideal opportunity for a multi-layered day of training, as there was pilotage, navigation and useful wildlife observation added to the mix, even if The Stack on the northeast corner – a summertime Gannet Central since 1989 – was winter silent, with just one gannet watchman left behind.

Closing in on The Stack on Ireland's Eye. In summer, it's Gannet Central...

……..but off season, just one lone gannet has drawn the short straw to be The Winter Watchbird

It was difficult to imagine the place in a harsh grey easterly, which in some Novembers is the default weather condition around Ireland's Eye. But in Howth, nothing is allowed to go to waste – as Aoife observed after winning the Laser U21 Euros 2017 at Douarnenez in Brittany in a week of extra-fresh westerlies, determined days of sailing in strong easterlies off Howth will set you up for anything, Breton westerlies included…..

Aoife Hopkins winning the Laser Euro U21s in strong westerlies at Douarnenez in Brittany