230 visiting boats from a fleet of nearly 500 made up nearly half the 2019 Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta fleet and this year organisers are reporting strong visitor interest again for 2021’s COVID-formatted event on Dublin Bay.
Interest is coming both from the one design and IRC divisions, six months ahead of the first gun.
The first 2021 entry was received from Northern Ireland, Jay Colville’s First 40, Forty Licks.
Colville, a regular visitor to the Bay, was a runner up in 2019’s Class Zero of the ICRA National Championships also held on Dublin Bay. The Royal Ulster YC and East Down YC entry performs well across the wind range and also finished second at VDLR 2019.
Confirmed from across the Irish Sea are IRC visitors, Ruth Adams Charisma 22, ‘HRT’ from West Lancashire Yacht Club and Jonathan Fawcett’s She 31 ‘She Too’ from Wales.
As Afloat reported earlier, VDLR’s offshore class will also have some UK interest with the arrival of the Cowes-based Fast 40, Arabella, sailing under the burgee of the Royal Irish Yacht Club.
Although the 230 yachts from outside the bay area took away only 11 trophies in 2019 (up from seven in 2017), the bulk of the Dun Laoghaire Regatta silverware stayed in Dublin. Such early UK entries this time however, might be an indication of more international interest in the regatta and a bigger raid on the Irish prizes in 2021?
New format regatta for 2021
The Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta is a great festival of sailing across the waterfront and Dun Laoghaire town as four sailing clubs come together for the biennial event; Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club, Royal Irish Yacht Club, Royal St. George Yacht Club and National Yacht Club.
The 2019 Volvo Dun Laoghaire event was hailed an enormous success both afloat and ashore for a combined fleet of 498 boats in over 34 classes, the biggest on the Irish Sea. Over 290 races on five different courses were staged over four days.
For 2021, in order to facilitate social distancing and be Covid-19 compliant, a new regatta format will comprise a One Design Championship (2nd – 4th July 2021) specifically tailored for sailors in the one-design keelboat and dinghy classes. This to be followed by an Open Cruiser Championship (8th – 11th July 2021) catering for the full range of Cruiser Handicap classes.
Strong early VDLR entry
In liaising with classes, organisers estimate entry numbers are 'very good' and 'on a par with 2019', so it looks like both VDLR weekends will have a strong entry by the close of the early bird entry discount at the end March.