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#modelboatracing – Further to the IOM model yacht class development in Northern Ireland thanks to Brian O'Neill who joined the fleet about 3 years ago and who has rallied other people from the North to our activity, a new club has emerged over the winter of 2013 in Belfast Waterworks writes Gilbert Louis.

This location is not new to model boats as the activity started in 1933 and lasted until the mid 1960's when a fire burned down the club house. But now model boats are back sailing on this man made pond. It is entirely purpose build for Belfast County needs in concrete. It is flat bottom and with a depth of around 1.2m it is plenty for our model boats.

This was made possible by the support of the Belfast Council who welcomed the request, happy to see activity on this pond once more – A big thank you to the Council for their support !

I hope this will be the first of more inland ponds open to our activity to come. For now most of our sailing is on the sea but we are tight to the tides whereas on a pond we could schedule sailing well in advance.

Fair play to Bill, Wayne and Brian for making this a reality and adding to our sailing venues.

You can find all the information about the Belfast waterworks model boat club on their website 

For now they are sailing RG65 and in particular Drafon Force 65, IOM and occasionally A class too.

Published in Model Boats

Esailing & Virtual Sailing information

The concept of e-sailing, or virtual sailing, is based on a computer game sailing challenge that has been around for more than a decade.

The research and development of software over this time means its popularity has taken off to the extent that it has now become a part of the sailing seascape and now allows people to take an 'active part' in some of the most famous regattas across the world such as the Vendée Globe, Route du Rhum, Sydney Hobart, Volvo Ocean Race, America’s Cup and some Olympic venues too, all from the comfort of their armchair.

The most popular model is the 'eSailing World Championship'. It is an annual esports competition, first held in 2018 and officially recognised by World Sailing, the sports governing body.

The eSailing World Championship is a yearly competition for virtual sailors competing on the Virtual Regatta Inshore game.

The contract to run the event was given to a private company, Virtual Regatta that had amassed tens of thousands of sailors playing offshore sailing routing game following major offshore races in real-time.

In April 2020, the company says on its website that it has 35,000 active players and 500,000 regattas sailed.

Virtual Regatta started in 2010 as a small team of passionate designers, engineers, and entrepreneurs gathered around the idea that virtual sailing sports games can mix with real races and real skippers.