Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) is one of Europe's biggest yacht racing clubs. It has almost sixteen hundred elected members. It presents more than 100 perpetual trophies each season some dating back to 1884. It provides weekly racing for upwards of 360 yachts, ranging from ocean-going forty footers to small dinghies for juniors.
Undaunted by austerity and encircling gloom, Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC), supported by an institutional memory of one hundred and twenty nine years of racing and having survived two world wars, a civil war and not to mention the nineteen thirties depression, it continues to present its racing programme year after year as a cherished Dublin sporting institution.
Dublin Bay Sailing Club's Committee Vessel, the Mac Lir. Photo: David O'Brien
The DBSC formula that, over the years, has worked very well for Dun Laoghaire sailors. As ever DBSC start racing at the end of April and finish at the end of September. The current commodore is Pat Shannon of the Royal Irish Yacht Club.
The character of racing remains broadly the same in recent times, with starts and finishes at Club's two committee boats, one of them DBSC's new flagship, the Freebird. The latter will also service dinghy racing on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Having more in the way of creature comfort than the John T. Biggs, it has enabled the dinghy sub-committee to attract regular team to manage its races, very much as happened in the case of MacLir and more recently with the Spirit of the Irish. The expectation is that this will raise the quality of dinghy race management, which, operating as it did on a class quota system, had tended to suffer from a lack of continuity.
There are one or two other changes to be noted. In 2012, with the ISAF Youth Worlds supervening, DBSC had to run coastal races to the Burford Bank and down into Killiney Bay. It was something DBSC had not done for years and members wrote saying what good idea it was and that the club should do so more often. Accordingly, there is provision in this year's sailing instructions to enable the race officer to avail of the coastal course option. At present DBSC visualise that this is likely to happen on the 31st August when the Laser Championships will occupy most of DBSC's normal racing area.
Another concerns Dragons who, for a variety of reasons, have used the Red Fleet Saturday courses only intermittently. Their thinking now is that the particular Sunday programme developed by the SB20 fleet would better meet their needs. Accordingly, they will join the SB20 on Sundays though not on the same course and not necessarily on the same days.
