Displaying items by tag: J80s

22nd May 2022

Robert Dix Leads 1720 East Coasts at Royal Irish's Sportsboat Cup on Dublin Bay

The Royal Irish Yacht Club hosted four-class Dun Laoghaire Cup for sports boats with racing for 1720, SB20, J80 and Beneteau First 21 classes got off to a slow start on Saturday due to unstable winds on Dublin Bay.

In a fine turnout of nearly 50 boats, just one race was possible in each class with RIYC Sailing Manager Mark McGibney telling Afloat: "Fickle and unstable wind direction led to a very frustrating day for the race management team".

The 1720 East Coast Championship, the J80 East Coast Championship and First 21 National Championship are all being staged as part of the Cup.

For the SB20s, in an 11-boat fleet, it is the first opportunity to 'cross swords' in what promises to be a very exciting season in the build-up to September's class World Championships being staged at the same venue. Michael O'Connor leads from Niall O'Riordan. Tadhg Donnelly is third.

In the 21-boat 1720 class, Howth's Robert Dix leads from Rory Lynch. Third is Robert O'Connell.

The 11-boat B21s who are racing under both scratch and ECHO are led (on scratch) by Peter Carroll with Jimmy Fischer second and Hugh Kelly third.

In a five boat J80 fleet, 1 GBR 605 Vincent Lattimore leads Declan Curtin. Royal St George's Mark Nolan lies third.

Racing continues on Sunday with the prospect of more breeze. Results are here

As regular readers of Afloat will know, Ireland's only dedicated sportsboat regatta was postponed in 2021 due to COVID.

Published in Royal Irish Yacht Club

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14th April 2021

O'Neill to Defend J80 National title at Howth Yacht Club This October

The J80 National Championships returns this autumn to Howth Yacht Club.

A fleet of 14 boats contested the 2020 Championships at Dun Laoghaire with Howth's Pat O'Neill emerging as Irish Champion.

Previously the fledgeling championships sailed at Howth in 2019 and 2018 as part of the club's Wave Regatta.

This October 2/3, O'Neill can expect competition not only from his own HYC Club Mates Dan O'Grady and Robert Dix but also 2020 runner up Jonny O'Dowd of the Royal St. George Yacht Club.

There was a Wicklow tint to the O'Neill winning team with Shane Hughes, Aaron Jones and Conor Cleary all active Greystones SC members teaming up with former Class President O'Neill for the 2020 challenge.

The Irish J/80 Class Association is a relatively new class and formed in 2017 to represent owners, sailors, associated clubs and to help develop J/80 racing here.

Published in J80

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15th June 2011

Post-DL Regatta Event for Ultimate Bragging Rights

Competitors in this year's Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta are set to race for the ultimate bragging rights in a new bonus event.

http://www.afloat.ie/sail/events/volvo-regatta/

The Royal Irish Yacht Club is proposing the one-day event on Sunday 31 July modelled on the ISA All Ireland Sailing Championship, where up to 16 teams will compete in a winner-takes-all contest with the prize of a significant voucher to go against their annual Dublin Bay Sailing Club subscription.

http://www.afloat.ie/resources/irish-sailing-clubs/royal-irish-yacht-club/

http://www.afloat.ie/sail/sailing-clubs/dbsc/

The best helms from Cruisers 1, 2 and 3, White Sails, Sigmas, Dragons, 31.7s and SB3s will compete using the symmetrical kite J80s in a round-robin fleet racing format.

Each participating DBSC class will have one team, selected by being the highest ranked DBSC boat in the Dun Laoghaire Regatta. Each class can decide if the team is chosen on a design, IRC or ECHO basis.

More details will be available in due course from the Royal Irish Yacht Club.

http://www.riyc.ie/

Competitors in this year's Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta are set to race for the ultimate bragging rights in a new bonus event.

The Royal Irish Yacht Club is proposing the one-day event on Sunday 31 July modelled on the ISA All Ireland Sailing Championship, where up to 16 teams will compete in a winner-takes-all contest with the prize of a significant voucher to go against their annual Dublin Bay Sailing Club subscription.

The best helms from Cruisers 1, 2 and 3, White Sails, Sigmas, Dragons, 31.7s and SB3s will compete using the symmetrical kite J80s in a round-robin fleet racing format.

More details will be available in due course from the RIYC website.

Published in Volvo Regatta

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1st July 2010

Dun Laoghaire Women on the Water Day in July

The National Yacht Club in partnership with the ISA would like to invite women of all ages and all levels of sailing and other water sports to come sailing on Sunday 11th July from 13.00 - 17.00 hrs.

This is a great opportunity to join fellow female sailors for an enjoyable afternoon of sailing in the ISA's fleet of eight J80s, beautiful 8 metre long one-design racing sailboats. We hope to get as many women as possible out sailing on 11th July, followed by a few drinks up in the bar afterwards.

Each J80 will have 4 or 5 crew on board of whom 2 will be experienced crew who will explain all to those guests on board. Lifejackets or buoyancy aids will be supplied and are mandatory for all participants on the water.

If you are keen to join us and sail in the J80s on Sunday 11th, please contact Pamela Smithwick at [email protected] or Cathy Mac Aleavey on 0879480801.

Published in Boating Fixtures

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18th May 2010

Junior Race Training in HYC on J80s

Sixty-four of Howth Yacht Club's junior sailors were treated to an evening of race training in the ISA Sailfleet J80s on a fresh Monday evening, under the guidance of Laura Dillon.

A host of support vessels and RIBs facilitated the running of the evening which saw all the children (ranging in age from 9 to 15) taking part in two short windward-leeward 'races' with two senior volunteers on each of the eight J80s.

The moderate southerly wind facilitated exciting conditions in the flat waters of Howth Sound and gave many of the children their first taste of one-design keelboat racing. More than thirty-five volunteers escorted the exhilarated sailors back to the club after their experience.

Published in J80

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14th May 2010

RSGYC take on Cumberland Cup

A Royal St George YC team will be the sole Irish representatives at the Royal Thames YC Cumberland Cup, the oldest perpetual trophy in yacht racing, with racing kicking off today at Queen Mary SC. The event is a two-boat team racing event sailed in J80s with the home team, Royal Thames, the current holders. The RSGYC team, headed up by John Sheehy and Nick Smyth, will face off against teams from Australia, Monaco, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and the USA. The Cumberland Cup dates back to 1775 and was established some 76 years before the America’s Cup

Two-boat team racing is best known in Ireland through the 'random pairs' format, where the team with a boat in last place loses the race. The result is highly tactical and combative, aggressive sailing, with the final beat to the finish line becoming particularly frantic.

Sheehy and Smyth come off a weekend that saw the pair finish in the last eight at the presitigous Wilson Team Racing Trophy in West Kirby SC, and Sheehy is also Ireland's top-ranked match racer at present.

Racing kicks off this morning, and you can catch some glimps of the action on the reservoir on their website's live webcam.

ROYAL THAMES CUMBERLAND CUP

Published in Racing

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Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta

From the Baily lighthouse to Dalkey island, the bay accommodates six separate courses for 21 different classes racing every two years for the Dun Laoghaire Regatta.

In assembling its record-breaking armada, Volvo Dun Laoghaire regatta (VDLR) became, at its second staging, not only the country's biggest sailing event, with 3,500 sailors competing, but also one of Ireland's 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 to be the best. Dun Laoghaire, with its 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 wrong start when the event was becalmed for four days at its first attempt.

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. Running for four days, the regatta is (after the large mini-marathons) the single most significant 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. A flotilla of 25 boats regularly races 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.

No other regatta in the Irish Sea area can 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 is compared with Cowes," said Craig. However, there the comparison ends."We're doing our own thing here. Dun Laoghaire is unique, and we are making an extraordinary effort to welcome visitors from abroad," he added. The busiest shipping lane in the country – across the bay to Dublin port – closes temporarily to facilitate the regatta and the placing of six 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.

Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta FAQs

What is Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

Dun Laoghaire Regatta is Ireland's biggest sailing event. It is held every second Summer at Dun Laoghaire Harbour on Dublin Bay.

When is Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

Dun Laoghaire Regatta is held every two years, typically in the first weekend of July.

Where is Dun Laoghaire Regatta held?

As its name suggests, the event is based at Dun Laoghaire Harbour. Racing is held on Dublin Bay over as many as six different courses with a coastal route that extends out into the Irish Sea. Ashore, the festivities are held across the town but mostly in the four organising yacht clubs.

How big is Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

Dun Laoghaire Regatta is the largest sailing regatta in Ireland and on the Irish Sea and the second largest in the British Isles. It has a fleet of 500 competing boats and up to 3,000 sailors. Scotland's biggest regatta on the Clyde is less than half the size of the Dun Laoghaire event. After the Dublin city marathon, the regatta is one of the most significant single participant sporting events in the country in terms of Irish sporting events.

How old is Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

The modern Dublin Bay Regatta began in 2005, but it owes its roots to earlier combined Dublin Bay Regattas of the 1960s.

How many boats compete at Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

Up to 500 boats regularly compete.

How many yacht clubs are represented at Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

Up to 70 different yacht clubs are represented.

Where do the yachts come from to compete at Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

The Channel Islands, Isle of Man, England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Ireland countrywide, and Dublin clubs.

How many boats are visiting boats at Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

Nearly half the sailors, over 1,000, travel to participate from outside of Dun Laoghaire and from overseas to race and socialise in Dun Laoghaire.

What type of yachts race in Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

21 different classes are competing at Dun Laoghaire Regatta. As well as four IRC Divisions from 50-footers down to 20-foot day boats and White Sails, there are also extensive one-design keelboat and dinghy fleets to include all the fleets that regularly race on the Bay such as Beneteau 31.7s, Ruffian 23s, Sigma 33s as well as Flying Fifteens, Laser SB20s plus some visiting fleets such as the RS Elites from Belfast Lough to name by one.

What famous sailors race in Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

Some sailing household names are regular competitors at the biennial Dun Laoghaire event including Dun Laoghaire Olympic silver medalist, Annalise Murphy. International sailing stars are competing too such as Mike McIntyre, a British Olympic Gold medalist and a raft of World and European class champions.

How much does it cost to enter Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

There are different entry fees for different size boats. A 40-foot yacht will pay up to €550, but a 14-foot dinghy such as Laser will pay €95. Full entry fee details are contained in the Regatta Notice of Race document.

Where can spectators view Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

Spectators can see the boats racing on six courses from any vantage point on the southern shore of Dublin Bay. As well as from the Harbour walls itself, it is also possible to see the boats from Sandycove, Dalkey and Killiney, especially when the boats compete over inshore coastal courses or have in-harbour finishes.

How does Dun Laoghaire regatta compare to international regattas?

Very favourably. It is often compared to Cowes, Britain's biggest regatta on the Isle of Wight that has 1,000 entries. However, sailors based in the north of England have to travel three times the distance to get to Cowes as they do to Dun Laoghaire.

Why is Dun Laoghaire Regatta so unique?

Dun Laoghaire Regatta is unique because of its compact site offering four different yacht clubs within the harbour and the race tracks' proximity, just a five-minute sail from shore. International sailors also speak of its international travel connections and being so close to Dublin city. The regatta also prides itself on balancing excellent competition with good fun ashore.

Who organises Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

The Organising Authority (OA) of Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta is Dublin Bay Regattas Ltd, a not-for-profit company, beneficially owned by Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club (DMYC), National Yacht Club (NYC), Royal Irish Yacht Club (RIYC) and Royal St George Yacht Club (RSGYC).

What does Dun Laoghaire Regatta contribute to the local economy?

The Irish Marine Federation launched a case study on the 2009 Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta's socio-economic significance. Over four days, the study (carried out by Irish Sea Marine Leisure Knowledge Network) found the event was worth nearly €3million to the local economy over the four days of the event. Typically the Royal Marine Hotel and Haddington Hotel and other local providers are fully booked for the event.