The opening ceremony and practice races for the Mirror dinghy World Championships were held in Sligo on Monday.

Sligo Yacht Club hosts the 19th Championships for the Mirror class, a traditional two-handed sailing boat popular among young people.

This marks the second time that Sligo has hosted the Championships, with the first coming in 1987.

Sailors from Japan, South Africa, Australia and the United Kingdom will compete alongside a strong contingent of Sligo and Irish sailors over the course of the week.

At Monday’s opening ceremony, delegates from Sligo County Council, including Caithaoirleach Gerard Mullaney and Mayor Declan Bree. Cllr Mullaney formally opened the event.

Sligo sailors will be buoyed by positive results in last weekend's Mirror Irish National Championships, which were also held at Sligo Yacht Club.

Sligo’s David Evans and Andrew Ryan were the first Irish boat in the event finishing an impressive 4th, closely followed by clubmates Jessica Greer and Myrtle Bamber in 5th. Rounding out the top ten from an Irish and Sligo perspective was Caroline Coulter and crew Lucy Coulter who finished 8th.

With eyes now turning to the World Championships, there is great cause for optimism following the practice race. Jessica Greer and crew and David Evans and crew finished second and 5th, respectively.

Some fifty boats will compete across the Championship, with Volvo Ocean Race race officer Bill O’Hara in charge of race officiating for the week. O’Hara was Race Officer for the GP Worlds in Skerries last year.

2023 Mirror World Championships Official Opening at Sligo Yacht Club Photo Gallery

In his welcome address, Commodore of Sligo Yacht Club Karl Kerins pointed out that this is another milestone for the club fresh off the back of being Irish Sailing Club of the Year in 2022.

He said: “We in Sligo have a long heritage of maritime activity. It is in every fibre of our being. Sligo Yacht Club has played its part in this proud heritage, not only to Sligo and Ireland, but to world sailing, which includes the world’s oldest sailing cup, the ‘Ladies Cup’ was presented in 1821 by the Ladies of Sligo, hence the name, ‘for the encouragement of fast sailing boats on Lough Gill’. This trophy, which predates the Americas Cup, is sailed for by our J24 fleet each year.”

Kerins went on to mention when Sligo last played host to the event. “It is truly an honour and great to see this event back in Sligo. I hope the winds and weather are kind to you all, Sligo Bay is known to provide challenging racing due to strong tides, but although I am biased, there is no bay like it for competitive racing on these shores,” he said.

This year’s Mirror World Championships in Sligo Yacht Club have been postponed due to the ongoing travel restrictions around the pandemic.

“The backdrop of COVID-19 presented so many challenges in terms of the organising and logistics for such a large scale event,” says Mirror Sailing Ireland’s Emmet Duffy.

“With sailors, their families and friends expected from many countries, travel restrictions and uncertainty would have limited participants.

“A Mirror Worlds needs the global Mirror family from both near and afar to make it such.”

Duffy adds: “I know that behind the scenes, Sligo Yacht Club and Irish Sailing have put in a lot of work and planning to date which will still benefit the rescheduled event.

“We now watch for restrictions to ease and for sailing, be it training and events to happen again soon. The plan is to get our own regional events in over the summer and we will have an events calendar out soon.”

Mirror Worlds Sligo 2021 may be some time away yet, but as Mirror Sailing Ireland writes, for those looking to travel from abroad early planning is necessary.

To make the journey easier and to entice more to our shores to participate, the availability of Mirrors to charter would be very appealing.

However, there is a shortage of good second-hand Mirrors within Ireland — many Mirrors are sitting in garages and gardens over the last number of years that are potentially race-ready.

For those looking to travel from afar, chartering a Mirror would be more cost effective than transporting by container. It also gives the opportunity for entrants from other countries that typically are not on the Mirror Worlds scene.

Within Ireland also there is demand for Mirrors for sale as new faces look to enter the Mirror fleet.

It would be great to see these boats back on the water and encouraging sailors to embrace the spirit of the Mirror dinghy.

If you are interested in chartering or indeed selling your Mirror, contact Emmet Duffy at [email protected] or +353 86 852 3230 for further details.

#Mirror - Eoghan Duffy of Lough Ree Yacht Club and crew Cathal Langan of Clontarf Yacht and Boat Club/Sutton Dinghy Club are on a mission to make their mark at the Mirror Worlds in Australia this winter.

Their preparation included packing their boat and bags straight after achieving second place in the Mirror Westerns at the Double Ree last week, and travelling out to Ullswater Yacht Club for the UK Mirror Sailing Nationals this past weekend.

Duffy and Langan had a good, steady performance with their boat A Close Shave throughout the event in the Lake District, and return home today (Monday 30 July) with a second in the youth category and 13th place overall in a fleet of 44 boats.

The dynamic duo are training hard to fly the flag for Ireland and will be seeing in the New Year at the Mirror Worlds in Sydney from Monday 31 December.

And they could potentially be travelling with a bigger Irish contingent as Mirror fleet numbers have seen a slight increase this year, perhaps thanks to new initiatives like the Double Ree.

#Mirror - Caolan Croasdell and Alexander Farrell of Lough Ree Yacht Club were the best of the Irish at the Mirror Worlds in Falmouth this week, placing 13th overall in the 51-boat fleet.

Highlights for the Irish contingent over the five days of sailing from Monday 31 July to Friday 4 August included a best finish of fifth in Race 2 by Ben Graf and Hannah Smith of the same club, who placed 15th overall.

Graf and Smith also scored a top-ten finish in Race 7 alongside Croasdell and Farrell.

Of the other Irish pairs in competition, Sarah White and Eoghan Duffy of Sligo Yacht Club finished 20th, Oscar Langan and Lughaidh Croasdell (Clontarf Y&BC/Lough Ree YC) weren’t far behind at 24th, while  Matthew White and Isaac Marsden (Sligo YC) were 37th in the fleet.

Next year’s Mirror Worlds will take place in Sydney, Australia from 31 December 2018, giving Ireland’s hopefuls an extra few months to train for even better results.

#mirror – After a successful staging of the Mirror dinghy world Championships on Lough Derg in August 2013 the biennial championship is underway again this week but this time at a South African venue and sadly without any Irish boats racing.

After four races sailed the home entry Mirrorjuana sailed by defending champions Michaela and Ryan Robinson are leading after a long postponement to allow winds to settle. 

Two years ago the Lough Derg Yacht Club championships attracted 91 boats from seven countries. This week the Theewater Club hosts have an entry of 59–boats from five countries, including single entries from France and Japan. 

Having won the 2013 Worlds in style the African Mirror Champs Recalled their Lough Derg Victory for Afloat readers here.

The next big event on the Mirror dinghy calendar will be the UK Mirror National Championships from Saturday 15 August 2015 to Friday 21 August 2015.

The event will run alongside Abersoch Mirror Week and be hosted by South Caernarvonshire Yacht Club on the Irish Sea.