The Royal Irish Yacht Club, in Dun Laoghaire Harbour is welcoming participants from as far as Australia, Singapore, Dubai and especially from Ukraine for what class pundits say may be the most open SB20 World Championship for many teams to claim victory.
Already, as Afloat reported earlier, last weekend's Irish regional championships that doubled as a Worlds Warm-up with a quality fleet of 30, saw an Irish victory from top Corinthian skipper Michael O'Connor as well as a third place from the host club's Ger Dempsey.
There will be six new boats delivered for this Provident CRM-sponsored World Championship. One of the newest boats in the fleet #3821 will be raced by Liam Pardy. With all the interest in new boats, the class manufacturer has prepared another two new SB20s that are ready to look for their new owners straight after the event.
Another one of the new boats, from the anniversary edition (#3819), will be delivered for the Ares Team from Tasmania. Will Sargent and his team are the 2020 national champions, having also claimed the Youth title and winning the 2022 Tasmanian trophy back in February this year. Sargent, sailing with Eddie Reid, Ed Broadby and Eirini Marios (same crew as for the Worlds), won nine points clear of Michael Cooper’s Export Roo and 13 points in front of sailing legend Nick Rogers on Karabos.
The Australian fleet is also represented by Brett Cooper, who was 5th at the 2019 SB20 Worlds in Hyères; he will be sailing again with Darren Jones and Sam Tiedemann as crew. We will also greet the 2021 Australian National champion - Tasmanian team Mind Games, skippered by Phil Reid, sailing with Rohan Langford, Andre Declerck and Esther Read.
The largest fleet, is a mixture of old and new faces from the hosting nation with 17 boats.
Racing for the SB20 World Championship 2022 starts on the 5th September and concludes on the 9th.
