The 2020s provide a remarkable decade of major sailing commemorations in world, national and local sailing. Between 2020 and 2030, the 300th Anniversary of the Royal Cork YC has already been marked, as has the 250th of Lough Ree Yacht Club, plus the Bicentenary of Dun Laoghaire Harbour, the Bicentenary of Cowes Week, the 150th of Clontarf Y & BC, the Centenary of the Strangford Lough River Class, the Centenary of the Shannon One Design, and the Centenary of the huge-entry Rolex Fastnet Race. And there’s more to come, with events as significant as the Bicentenary of Dun Laoghaire Regatta in 2028, and the Centenary of the Irish Cruising Club in 2029.
EQUAL GLORY FOR A 30th ANNIVERSARY
So in the midst of all this glittering cornucopia of major celebrations at home and abroad, how do we come to reckon that a 30th Anniversary should be included in 2026’s significant dates?
Well, the sailor involved – one of the most popular figures at the sharp end of international racing – reckoned that something which happened on 31st July 1996 was career-changing in a very positive way for his campaigning afloat. For it was on 31st July 1996 at the Atlanta Olympics that Robert Scheidt of Brazil received the first Gold Medal to be awarded to the newly Olympicised Laser Class.
History maker. The popular Robert Scheidt of Brazil won the first Olympic Gold medal to be awarded to the Laser Class on July 31st 1996 at the Atlanta Olympiad
RETAINING SAILING’S OLYMPIC PLACE
As a very evidently vehicle sport, sailing’s place in the Olympics had been coming under increasingly negative scrutiny. But when the two mighty minds of Canadians Bruce Kirby and Ian Murray got together for a coffee-time phone chat in early October 1969, sailing magazine editor and occasional boat designer Kirby and advanced boat-builder Murray shot the breeze on the possibilities of a handy little boat for solo sailing which would combine good looks and attractive competitive performance.
“The million dollar doodle” – Bruce Kirby’s first sketch for the Laser was scribbled in October 1969
Others became involved, with top Danish-originating dinghy sailor Hans Fogh looking after the unstayed rig. And when she first sailed early in 1970, as it was just ten years after the first laser beam had been scientifically created in a production laboratory, so the name Laser hit the spot for this new wonderboat.
UNIVERSAL APPEAL
Seldom can a new product have had such universal and immediate appeal, as she brought together many fresh ideas in friendly alliance with established viewpoints, and they just couldn’t build them quick enough to meet what became a global demand.
The ILCA/Lasers gussied up with fancy sail logos for their Medal Race at the 2012 London Olympics off the Dorset coast. The Photo is by the brilliant Carlo Borlenghi, whose recent death is much mourned by sailors and photo enthusiasts alike
All this was rocketing into marketing success from a standing start in the early 1970s. But it took twenty years before the inevitably slow-moving Olympic sailing organisers were forced to admit that a boat in which they’d had no creative input whatever was just the boat to make Olympic sailing much more relevant.
FACING REALITY
For this was at a time when sailing’s world body was having to face up to the reality that it needed the publicity glow of being an Olympic sport much more than the Olympics needed “official” sailing.
Meanwhile, outside all this messing about within the global establishment, the Laser was soaring merrily along in its own sociable world, needing neither official approval nor Olympic glitter in order to be the go-to boat for beginners and superstars alike.
Sails in the city….? Not quite, but this very urban image of ILCAs off the Royal St George YC on the Dun Laoghaire waterfront is offset (below) by this aerial image of the co-hosting neighbour National Yacht Club, which reveals that the green hills of Ireland aren’t too far away. Photo: Afloat.ie
FOUR YEAR EVENT CYCLE TOO LONG
The class organisers had long realised that the cumbersome four-year Olympic cycle – essential, it has to be said, for the validity of the Olympics themselves - was something which had to be more than equalled by their own annual World Championship. And thus tomorrow’s week-long ILCA 7 Worlds 2026 for the ILCA 7 – the big boy’s game, Senior Hurling if you prefer - is bringing Olympic standard racing right onto Dublin’s doorstep midway between the 2024 and 2028 Olympics, with Royal St George the co host with the National YC in what is a three week sailfest, with a week’s break in the middle, as the Women’s ILCA 6 Worlds then get going on 5th September.
Maintaining discipline for a major event – Royal St George YC control of ILCAs en masse in the bay. Photo: Afloat.ie
The fun boat. The ILCA is also ideal for more relaxed racing in club events. Photo: HYC
120 BOATS
With 120-boat entry caps on each event, we’re looking at multi-nation fleets of much larger size than you’ll get in an Olympic Regatta, and it’s only through town and waterfront co-operation at all levels in Dun Laoghaire that a successful staging is possible.
And of course, the larger numbers make prediction even more of a guessing game. Like it or not, it’s now a very long ten years since Annalise Murphy of the National Yacht Club won the Silver Medal in the ILCA 6 at the 2016 Sailing Olympics in the magnificent setting of Rio de Janeiro.
EMERGING TALENT
We now have proven new talent coming along with the likes of Eve McMahon (ILCA 6 Bronze from 2025) and Sienna Wright, also of Howth, for the ILCA 6, while established performers like the NYC’s Finn Lynch (Silver at Worlds 2021) and newer talents like Fiachra O’Donnell have been well up in the international frame.
Putting the fun back into their sailing – Finn Lynch and Annalise Murphy race to the win in a 1900-designed Dublin Bay Water Wag. Photo: Con Murphy
But if the Back Office at Sailing on Saturday could find the slightest excuse for not making predictions, we’d take it with grateful thanks. For the reality is that in any major series, Irish sailors tend to be great in the early races, but find the pressure of being marked men and women as the regatta proceeds sometimes very hard to take.
HONOURING BRUCE KIRBY
So we end on a more cheerful note. The happy fact is that Bruce Kirby’s achievement was well recognised by the time he died in 2021 at the age of 92. He was celebrated in a monumental pary in the New York Yacht Club, and he was inducted into the Sailing Hall of Fame in 2012. Although he moved to Stamford, Connecticut, as his design career developed, his home nation honoured him with the Order of Canada in 2017.
The great Bruce Kirby. Before designing the Laser, he was a champion International 14 sailor, and also sailed for Canada in the Olympics
ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME MARITIME THEATRICALS
And as to why the 30th Anniversary of the first Olympic Gold Medal for the Laser/ILCA Class passed us by, simply really. The 31st July 2026 saw the restored 1927 Fastnet Race winner Tally Ho being greeted in Baltimore Harbour at the conclusion of her Transatlantic passage by the highly-regarded Saoirse II, the exact replication of Conor O’Brien’s pioneering world girdler back in 1923-25. A once-in-a-lifetime bit of maritime theatricals like this does rather blot out every other anniversary.
Almost beyond belief – Saoirse greets Tally Ho in Baltimore Harbour, Friday July 31st 2026. Photo: Facebook
