Cork sailors will converge in force on Galway Bay for the European 1720 championship regatta this weekend.
Almost half of the entries for the event hosted by Galway Bay Sailing Club (GBSC) hail from Cork clubs.
However, Howth Yacht Club’s Ross McDonald, helming Rope Dock Atara, is due to defend the title he retained at last year’s championships during Volvo Cork Week.
It is proposed to sail nine races of three days – a minimum of three must be sailed to constitute a series for the Vakaros Racesense system.
As the class website explains, the concept of the 1720 sportsboat arose as a result of the demise of handicapped rating systems as a basis for providing quality club-level and international keelboat racing.
Conceived by a group of committed racing members of the Royal Cork Yacht Club (RCYC), the boat, designed by Tony Castro in 1994, was named after the year in which the RCYC was founded as the oldest yacht club in the world.
Over 100 of the keelboats have been built, and there are active racing fleets in Ireland, Britain and the Netherlands.
Boats will be launched from the pier at Renville on Thursday evening, May 8th, and racing will take place in inner Galway Bay from May 9th to 11th.
It is the first time a European sailing event has been hosted at GBSC in its 40-year history.
