The hard work of Wicklow Sailing Club's 2022 Round Ireland Race committee is bearing fruit with the early entry for this summer's race of the new Class40 yacht Influence by Italian skipper Andrea Fornaro.
The VPLP design is the first such Class40 into the race since the 700-miler Irish ocean classic was added to the Class40 International calendar, just one of 25 world-class offshore fixtures on the list.
It's a feather in the cap for organiser Kyran O'Grady who has added the former Irish Volvo 70 Green Dragon last week for the Wicklow startline on June 18.
It may well be that O'Grady's pioneering efforts at the Paris Boat Show in December 2018 and again earlier last month are finding favour on the continent.
Class40 Italian skipper Andrea Fornaro will race round Ireland
It brings the entry to 12 so far in a race where O'Grady expects over 60 boats given the cancellation of the 2020 edition due to COVID.
The accomplished Fornaro will have competed in April's RORC's Caribbean 600, and May's Normandy Channel Race before coming to Irish waters.
Fornaro is not the first Class40 to have completed the Irish course. As regular Afloat readers will recall, top Figaro sailor Nicolas Troussel in the Mach 40 Corum made a blistering start to the 2018 race.
Class 40 is a monohull sailboat primarily used for short-handed offshore and coastal racing.
In other Round Ireland race entry news, French skipper Laurent Charmy has signed up the J111, SL Energies Groupe Fast Wave.
