The Irish National Sailing School has produced end of the year summary of its sailing highlights at Dun Laoghaire Harbour in County Dublin, a season like no other due to COVID-19.
"We don't want to forget 2020, the goodwill, support and friendship from staff and customers that can never be diminished", says the centre's Glynn Williams.
Unfortunately, COVID restrictions meant that participation figures fell dramatically in 2020 at the country's biggest sailing school.
The INSS says it has seen around half of the 2019 participation levels of 8,000 students and while that obviously has been a financial challenge, the level of appreciation we have for each of our participants in 2020 is unmeasurable.
The INSS also says it regards itself as 'beyond lucky' because, as an outdoor operator, they’ve been able to safely operate more of our courses and programmes than most would imagine. However, this wouldn’t have been possible without the overwhelming support of all our customers and students, who fully cooperated with every measure, change due to restrictions and direction. Read Williams full report here.
INSS Video
The go-ahead school and club located at the town's West Pier have produced a video again but this year centre Principal Kenny Rumball says the theme of 2020 is on 'giving a huge thank you to the INSS staff, for all the work they have put in, and to the INSS customers for their understanding, cooperation and trust during the COVID-19 pandemic'.
"We're looking forward to getting your afloat in 2021 when its safe to do so" he adds.
Check out the vid below
2021 Restrictions
Meanwhile, with the extension to Level 5 measures running until the end of January INSS says, unfortunately, it is unable to run quite a number of programmes but is hoping to do in the near future when government guidelines permit it and it is safe to do so.