Royal St George YC Dominate Irish ILCA Masters 2026 At Howth

25th May 2026

WM Nixon

Second Life? Competitors in the ILCA Masters 2026 arrived in Howth to find a club with clean crisp flags celebrating many things, including Eve McMahon’s U23 ILCA European gold medal, and a prominent message inviting sailors to begin a new sailing path Credit: Howth YC

The “Suncream Special” ILCA 2026 Masters at Howth over the heatwave weekend not only had an impressive domination by sailors from the Royal St George YC in Dun Laoghaire, but having been celebrating their Golden Jubilee at various Irish sailing centres in recent years (mostly as “the Laser”), the class is now at the maturity level of seeing second and even third generation ILCA/Laser sailors from noted nautical families taking the silverware in the Masters events.

Thus, although it’s not the first time the name Craig has been top of the Masters listings, it’s the first time that Roger Craig of the George has been sufficiently stricken in years to qualify as a proper Master, and he celebrated by winning handsomely in the ILCA 7 Division.

In fact, handsomely doesn’t do it justice. It was more on the Rockstar performance scale of things, for after a fourth in the let’s-suss-things-out first race, he recorded five straight bullets in a row to run away with it, bringing it home on 5 points to the 9 of second-overall clubmate Conor Byrne, with another RStGYC performer, Ross O’Leary, taking third on 18 points.

FIVE HELMS FROM “GEORGE” IN TOP TEN

In all, there were five helms from the George in the top ten, with Grand Master Patrick Hamilton of East Down YC being the first to break through the Kingstown hegemony at 4^th OA, followed by Hugh Delap, Gavan Murphy and John Marmelstein of RStGYC before another GM, Conrad Simpson of Ballyholme, made his mark at 8^th, with Andrejs Samoilovs of Malahide at ninth and mountainy man Davie Carr of Blessington in tenth.

ROYAL CORK MAKES IMPACT IN ILCA 6

Three sailors from Royal Cork made the journey to race in the ILCA 6 division, and were rewarded with second, third and eighth overall. But yet again it was Royal St George in the pole position, with Conor Clancy winning overall on a solid scoreline of 3,2,1,1,2. This gave him 9 pts to the 12 of Royal Cork’s Conor Barry, whose clubmate RobertJeffreys registered 18, followed by Darrell Reamsbottom of the host club on 19, just one point ahead of Shirley Gilmore (RStGYC), who competes as a Grand Master.

Results from the ILCA 2026 Masters can be found here.

Published in Laser, Royal Cork YC, Howth YC

@ CH Marine website

@ CH Marine Facebook

@ CH Marine NI Facebook

@ CH Marine Twitter

Published in Laser

Tagged under

About The Author

WM Nixon

Email The Author

William M Nixon has been writing about sailing in Ireland for many years in print and online, and his work has appeared internationally in magazines and books. His own experience ranges from club sailing to international offshore events, and he has cruised extensively under sail, often in his own boats which have ranged in size from an 11ft dinghy to a 35ft cruiser-racer. He has also been involved in the administration of several sailing organisations.

We've got a favour to ask

More people are reading Afloat.ie than ever thanks to the power of the internet but we're in stormy seas because advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news sites, we haven't put up a paywall because we want to keep our marine journalism open.

Afloat.ie is Ireland's only full-time marine journalism team and it takes time, money and hard work to produce our content.

So you can see why we need to ask for your help.

If everyone chipped in, we can enhance our coverage and our future would be more secure. You can help us through a small donation. Thank you.

You might also want to read...

About the ILCA/Laser Dinghy

The ILCA, formerly known as the Laser, is the most produced boat in the world, with 220,000 units built since 1971.

It's easy to see why the single-handed dinghy has won the title of the most widely distributed boat of all time.

The Laser is a one-design dinghy, the hulls being identical but three rigs that can be used according to the size and weight of the sailor.

The class is international, with sailors from 120 countries. The boat has also been an Olympic class since 1996, being both the men's and women's singlehanded dinghy.

Three rigs are recognised by the International Laser Class Association (ILCA):

ILCA 4: sail of 4.70m2
ILCA 6: sail of 5.76 m2
ILCA 7: sail of 7.06 m2

ILCA 2026 Calendar

Apr 04–05 — Munster Championships — Baltimore SC
Apr 09–12 — Irish Sailing Youth Nationals — Ballyholme YC
May 09–10 — Ulster Championships — East Antrim BC
May 23–24 — Masters National Championships — Howth YC
Jun 27–28 — Leinster Championships — Skerries SC
Jul 24–26 — National Championships — Royal St. George YC
Sep 11–12 — End of Season Championships — Waterford Hrbr. YC

2026 ILCA World Championships

Men ILCA 7: Aug 23 – Aug 30
Women ILCA 6: Sep 04 – Sep 12
Royal St. George Yacht Club & National Yacht Club (Dublin Bay)

At A Glance – Laser Dinghy Specifications

Designer Bruce Kirby & Ian Bruce

Year 1969

Crew 1
Draft 0.787 m (2 ft 7.0 in)
Hull weight 58.97 kg (130.0 lb)
LOA 4.2 m (13 ft 9 in)
LWL 3.81 m (12 ft 6 in)
Beam 1.39 m (4 ft 7 in)
Mainsail area 7.06 m2 (76.0 sq ft)

Racing D-PN 91.1 RYA PN 1088 PHRF 217