Fifteen SB20s are expected to be on the Dublin Bay startline for next weekend's Eastern Championships, which will experiment with a change of race format in the sportsboat class.
The Royal St. George Yacht Club hosted event will see shorter courses and more races – up to ten more – subject to time constraints.
"The courses will be tweaked for flexibility to run one, two or three rounds with a time deadline of 20 to 30 minutes per race", RStGYC Race Officer Barry O'Neill told Afloat.
As regular Afloat readers know, Irish SB20 fans got an early season boost with the news that leading boat TED were runners-up in the Cascais Grand Slam in Portugal this month.
While TED is now in transit to the Worlds in Holland, the crew of Michael O'Connor, David Taylor, and Ed Cook will still compete this weekend on home waters in a second boat, 'Ted Blue'.
April's runaway winners of the Northern Championships at Lough Ree were the Gold Digger crew from Royal Cork Yacht Club, of Mel Collins, Donie Hegarty, and owner Aidan MacSweeney and they are expected to be in Dun Laoghaire.
Also on the form is Richard Hayes, who leads the local DBSC club racing with five wins from six races this season in the AIB summer Saturday Series.