Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Dublin bay will fill with sails this afternoon (Thursday, July 12th) when a huge fleet leaves Dun Laoghaire harbour to compete in the capital's biggest ever sailing regatta that runs until Sunday.
From the Baily lighthouse to Dalkey island, the bay will accommodate eight separate courses for 25 different classes when racing starts at 3pm today.
In assembling this afternoon’s record-breaking armada, Volvo Dun Laoghaire
regatta (VDLR) has become, at its second staging, not only the country’s biggest sailing event, with 3,500 sailors competing, but also one of its largest participant sporting events.
One of the reasons for this, ironically, is that competitors across Europe have become jaded by well-worn venue claims attempting to replicate Cowes and Cork Week.
‘Never mind the quality, feel the width’ has been a criticism of modern day regattas where organisers mistakenly focus on being the biggest in an effort to be the best.
Dun Laoghaire, with its own local fleet of 300 boats, never set out to be the biggest. Its priority focussed instead on quality racing even after it got off to a spectacularly bad start two years ago when the event was becalmed for four days.
The idea to rekindle a combined Dublin bay event resurfaced after an absence of almost 40 years, mostly because of the persistence of a passionate race officer Brian Craig who believed that Dun Laoghaire could become the Cowes of the Irish Sea if the town and the local clubs worked together.
Although fickle winds conspired against him in 2005, the support of all four Dun Laoghaire waterfront yacht clubs since then (made up of Dun Laoghaire Motor YC, National YC, Royal Irish YC and Royal St GYC), in association with the two racing clubs of Dublin Bay SC and Royal Alfred YC, gave him the
momentum to carry on.
There is no doubt that sailors have also responded with their support from all four coasts. Entries closed last Friday with 520 boats in 25 classes, roughly doubling the size of any previous regatta held on the Bay.
Running until Sunday (15th), the regatta is (after the large mini-marathons) the single biggest participant sports event in the country, requiring the services of 280 volunteers on and off the water, as well as top international race officers and an international jury to resolve racing disputes representing five countries.
Craig went to some lengths to achieve his aims including the appointment of a Cork man, Alan Crosbie, to run the racing team; a decision that has raised more than an eyebrow along the waterfront.
A flotilla of 25 boats have raced from the Royal Dee near Liverpool to Dublin for the Lyver Trophy to coincide with the event. The race also doubles as a RORC qualifying race for the Fastnet. Sailors from the Ribble, Mersey, the Menai Straits, Anglesey, Cardigan Bay and the Isle of Man have to travel three times the distance to the Solent as
they do to Dublin bay. This, claims Craig, is one of the major selling points of the Irish event and explains the range of entries from marinas as far away as Yorkshire's Whitby YC and the Isle of Wight.
Until now, no other regatta in the Irish Sea area could claim to have such a reach. Dublin Bay weeks such as this petered out in the 1960s and it has taken almost four decades for the waterfront clubs to come together to
produce a spectacle on and off the water to rival Cowes. "The fact that we are getting such numbers means it is inevitable that it will be compared with Cowes," said Craig. But there the comparison ends.
"We're doing our own thing here. Dun Laoghaire is unique and we are making a very special effort to welcome visitors from abroad," he added.
The busiest shipping lane in the country – across the bay to Dublin port – is to close temporarily to facilitate the regatta and the placing of eight separate courses each day.
A fleet total of this size represents something of an unknown quantity on the bay as it is more than double the size of any other regatta ever held there.
The decision to alter the path of ships into the port was taken in 2005 when a Dublin Port control radar image showed an estimated fleet of over 400 yachts sailing across the closed southern shipping channel.
Ships coming in to the bay, including the high speed Stena service to Dun Laoghaire, will use the northern lane instead.
With 3,500 people afloat at any one time, a mandatory safety tally system for all skippers to sign in and out will also operate.
The main attraction is undoubtedly the appearance of four Super Zero class yachts, with Dun Laoghaire’s Colm Barrington’s TP52 ‘Flash Glove’ expected to head the ‘big boat’ fleet. At the other end of the technology scale, the traditional clinker-built Water Wags will compete just as they did at a similar regatta over 100 years ago.
The arrival of three TP 52s and a Rogers 46 to Dun Laoghaire regatta is a feather in the cap of organisers because it brings Grand Prix racing to Dublin bay and the prospect of future big boat fixtures on the East Coast.
With 38 entries, the new Laser SB3s are set to make a major impact although the White Sail Class five almost rivals them numerically. The Fireball is the biggest dinghy class, with 27 entries, while there are 25 entries for the Ecover Half Ton Classics Cup which began on Monday.
Class 0 is expected to be the most hotly contested, if the recent Saab IRC Nationals, Scottish Series and Sovereign’s Cup are any indication. Three Cork boats ­- Jump Juice (Conor and Denise Phelan), Antix Dubh (Anthony O’Leary) and Blondie (Eamonn Rohan) - are expected to lead the fleet.

What you need to know:

Who: All four Dun Laoghaire Waterfront Yacht clubs

What: Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta

Why: A combined regatta to make Dun Laoghaire the Cowes of the Irish Sea.

When: Thursday, July 12th to Sunday, July 15th 2007

Where: Ashore at Dun Laoghaire and afloat at eight separate race courses on
Dublin bay. Good views from both Dun Laoghaire piers, Sandycove and Seapoint.


Heritage afloat

It's not just new boats that are racing - organisers are very much aware of the heritage of an event that stretches back to the early 1900s.
Dun Laoghaire's Royal Alfred YC is the oldest amateur yacht club in the world but the absence of a club house over its 150-year existence has not stopped it from being a major force in world sailing. It was the prime mover behind the establishment of the Yacht Racing Association (now the RYA), the world's first yacht racing authority. The RAYC also claims that its own club rules of 1857 formed the basis of the racing rules of sailing today. The
RAYC is using Dun Laoghaire week to celebrate its sesquincentennial anniversary.
A keelboat class ­- the Howth 17 ­- which was first sailed from Kingstown 100 years ago, and which is now based exclusively in the north Dublin port of Howth is returning to mark its important birthday.
The world's oldest one design dinghy class, the Waterwags, has been competing on Dublin Bay since 1886 and the fleet has attracted 22 boats, one of the biggest turnouts of any of the five competing dinghy classes at the event.