The 2024 university team racing season has started with a bang for Trinity College’s Sailing Club. On the 10th of Feb, the club made a remarkable showing by dispatching three teams to three separate events, dubbing the weekend ‘Super Saturday’.

After inviting Oxford to Trinity’s annual alumni event hosted in the Royal St. George, the favour was returned with a spot in Oxford’s esteemed Top Gun Invitational Trophy event. While sailing at Oxford, the Trinity Firsts team beat each individual team over the duration of the event, gaining another top position in a collegiate sailing competition.

(Above and below) The Trinity Sailing Club Firsts Team in Oxford: (left to right) Toby Hudson Fowler, Harry Twomey, Emily Arrowsmith, Emma Gallagher, Finn Walker, Morgan Devine (Team Captain and Sub) Marcus Boggan

While the Firsts Team was sailing in Oxford, the Trinity Seconds Team was invited to attend another BUSA event, The Imperial Icicle, hosted by Imperial College London. This event brought together fourteen teams, comprising a mix of college and alumni teams from around the UK, alongside Trinity Sailing. The team won the round-robin stage, positioning them in first place heading into the semi-finals. Unfortunately, TCD was bested by the eventual winners of the regatta, Plymouth Alumni.

(Above and below) The Trinity Sailing Club Team in London: (left to right) Tim Norwood, Rian Geraghty McDonnell, Simone Daranyi, Ella Dempsy, Max Goodbody, Trevor Bolger

The Fresher's Team represented Trinity at home as the top two teams were engaged in international competitions. Despite it being their college sailing event, the Fresher’s team secured a commendable third place overall at the UCC Alumni Sailing Event. It is an impressive feat when considering they sailed against some of the best competitors in the IUSA.

(Above and bellow) Trinity Sailing Club Freshers Team in Cork: Oisin Hughes, Sam LeDoux, Becky Lowney, Kei Walker, May McGlew, Luke Johnston

The sailing club has gained great confidence, which is due to the new training regime created by this year’s sailing captain, Finn Walker. Teams are now sailing consistently four days a week: two days midweek, one Saturday training session, and a Sunday training for the top teams in the club. Additionally, this year the club has focused more on theory sessions and bringing in coaches before events to broaden their knowledge base and skills set.

In addition to the theory and regular training sessions, the team has introduced a new set of programs to encourage women at the helm. Once a month, the team hosts women at the helm theory and training session to promote gender diversity within the sport, specifically within Trinity Sailing.

Last weekend Trinity Sailing competed in the IUSA Southern’s at Dingle Sailing Club, with 21 teams from colleges around Ireland competing. After completing the required number of races in the round-robin, TCD1 and TCD2 found themselves in the Semi-Finals, taking on UCD1 and UCC1, respectively. After hard-fought battles in both semis, it was an all-Trinity final, with TCD1 taking on the leaders of the round-robin, TCD2. In a best-of-three format for the finals, it was TCD1 who came out victorious, winning 2-0 in two nail-biting races to finish off a fantastic event, organised by the University of Galway Sailing Club and Trinity Sailing. This is the first IUSA event Trinity has won in more than 5 years.

The final is available to watch on the Trinity Sailing Instagram here

Trinity Sailing would like to thank Oxford, BUSA, UCC, and Dingle Sailing Club for making these events possible and look forward to competing in these events again.

The Dublin University Sailing Club is hosting the first of four Dublin Team Racing League Events in Dun Laoghaire this Saturday, 7th of October. As discussed at the ISA meeting earlier in the year, the goal of the League is to grow team racing in the Leinster region.

Although the league will be held in Dublin, anyone from around the country is welcome to enter a team regardless of age or ability. We are trying to develop sailors, jury and race organisers. These events should be seen as an opportunity for beginners and more advanced team racers to learn.

The League aims to build on last month's Elmo Cup momentum at the Royal St. George Yacht Club and bridge the gap to college team racing.

Teams will be selected to compete in the league on a first come first served basis. Teams can sign up by filling out this google form here.

The number of teams we can accommodate depends on the number of boats we can sail, so if there are fireflies available to use in your club that would benefit the league, please let us know. Any help with this league is greatly appreciated.

The League will run through the winter and should finish up around March/April. As addressed in the meeting earlier in the year, the main issue with team racing is that the majority of racing is done by college sailors who then spend the summers abroad. The idea behind this league is that once it finishes up early next year, the sailors and race organizers that have benefited from racing with us can continue to team race in a summer league. And the league can continue all year round, building year on year.

As the weekend after next is the first Event of the League, we will also be running a team racing talk next Wednesday evening in Trinity College. This talk will be free of charge and prepared and given by some of the sailors from its top team. It is an opportunity for sailors who are not heavily practiced team racers to bring their TR strategy up to speed prior to the first league event (this is also open to anyone who is interested, whether they are racing or not).

More information for the evening, event format, costs, and location will be available in the next couple of days. If you have any immediate questions about the event please contact: Jack Kennedy – [email protected] or Mark Bolger – [email protected]

Dublin University Sailing Club (DUSC) team will represent Ireland this summer at the Laser Performance Collegiate Cup (LPCC), an international team racing events to be held in Lake Garda, Italy. The event, hosted in 2015 by Yale Corinthian Yacht Club in Connecticut and won by the USA Women’s team, attracts college sailors from all around the globe and is raced in Z420 dinghies. Last year’s competition saw eight teams from seven countries compete, including representation from Oman and Japan.

Last year’s Irish team contained four Trinity sailors, one UCD sailor and one sailor from UCC. 2016 will see a full team of six sailors and two subs from Trinity representing Ireland.

Those who will travel to Lake Garda are 2012 London Olympian Scott Flanigan, Lucy Bolger, Dan Gill, Lindsey Watters, Mark Bolger, Maeve Lavelle, Dan O’Beirne, and Charlotte Bowen.

The event takes place from 23-27th August.

Dublin University Sailing Club, more commonly known as Trinity Sailing, is the largest student sailing club in Ireland with over 200 active members, 75 of whom compete regularly.