#Lecture- "Dublin Bay, the Cradle of Yacht Racing-Rewriting the Story of our Sport", a public lecture by Hal Sisk, yachting historian is to be held next Thursday 3 April (8pm) at the Poolbeg Boat and Yacht Club, Ringsend in Dublin 4.

This is the final lecture of the Members of Glenua & Friends 2013-14 series held in the Ringsend venue from where there is a lecture entrance fee of €5 in aid of RNLI. For further details contact: 087 2129614.

The current series was very well attended and the organisers wish to thank you for your valuable support in that regard. Lectures will return in October and no doubt bringing more fascinating topics in the cosy surroundings of the Poolbeg clubhouse and bar.

Returning to the final lecture of this season, the topic of the amateur sport of sailing, as we know it, first emerged, not in Holland, not in Cowes, and not even in Cork, but right here in Dublin Bay!

Earlier "yachting" episodes used entirely professional crews, and the yacht owners and friends were little more than passengers. But from the 1850s in Dublin Bay the sport developed with active leisure sailors actually learning to sail and race their yachts themselves, as we all do today. And for two decades, 1855 to 1875, Dubliners led the world in shaping the sport, including setting the original rules, and also introducing such innovations as offshore and singlehanded racing.

With many illustrations from the paintings and photographs of the period, yachting historian Hal Sisk will show how much of a challenge it was to be the pioneers, and in what kind of yachts they sailed.
Hal's restorations of the classic yachts Vagrant and Peggy Bawn are exemplary in authenticity, and he has entertained audiences in five continents with his enthusiastic presentations.