Dun Laoghaire clubs plan to amalgamate regattas

Sailing:  Dun Laoghaire's four yacht clubs are set to replace individual club regatta dates next summer in favour of a combined regatta series if plans hatched this week meet the approval of waterfront commodores.

The National Yacht Club, The Royal St George Yacht Club, The Royal Irish Yacht Club and the Dún Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club are to give up their summer regattas dates - a traditional social highlight of the club year - and contribute instead to the first-year costs of staging, what one official has described as "Cork week on the east coast" from Thursday, July 7th to Sunday July 10th, 2005.

If the trial regatta is successful the plan is to stage the event in alternate years to the Crosshaven event that could ultimately attract as many as 1,000 boats for the harbour-based event that now has the added facility of a purpose built marina.

The four rear commodores of the waterfront clubs, Owen McNally, Ronan Beirne, Pierse Toale and Tim Goodbody came up with the idea to add extra spice to bay racing and met last Wednesday to agree plans before next week's crucial fixture co-ordination meeting that decides dates for the 2005 season.

Given the working title of "Dún Laoghaire regatta championship" the proposers are working on the basis that over time the event could become an international fixture and an event of suitable stature for the east coast venue.

"It's logical that we have a focal point in our bay season and this event will provide it," said Goodbody of the Royal Irish YC.

If the idea gets the go-ahead, it will mark the start of a return to Dún Laoghaire week, a week-long regatta that flourished as a post-war format before petering out in the late 1960s.

The latest idea is being put forward to boost sailing in the capital and it's not the first time a Cork week copy has been mooted for Dublin.

However, it is made against a backdrop of changing sailing patterns where time afloat is often curbed by pressures of work and lack of volunteer assistance.

Organisers are acutely aware of the problems of crew shortage but it remains to be seen if the new event will attract entries for the three- or four-day regatta.

Crews will also be encouraged to come across the bay from Howth and Clontarf but invitations will also got out to all corners of the Irish sea too.

The group are seeking a chairman and will be appointing a full-time secretary in the build-up to the regatta.

Racing will be scheduled for all the bay classes from cruiser classes zero to five and for the one-design classes; the Sigma 33s, the 31.7s, Dragons, J24s, Shipmans, Ruffians, Glens, Howth 17s, Flying Fifteens, Squibs and the new Etchells class.

Typically each club regattas provide fleets of up to 200 keelboats and 50 dinghies but a combined event could muster much more than this.

Significantly, the pencilled-in July dates take into account the staging of the Sovereign's Cup in Kinsale at the end of June where a large Dublin fleet is expected as it incorporates the Irish Cruiser Racer National Championships.

In dinghy news, in Limerick, Neil Spain and Phil Lawton won the Fireball Munster Championships in a 37-boat fleet on Lough Derg hosted by University of Limerick Activity Centre last weekend. The event, the final in the Fireball calendar, went down to the wire with three boats on equal points going into the final race. Noel and Hugh Butler finished second overall ahead of Will Moody and Stephen Gill.

Staying with dinghies, Roger Bannon has completed a whirlwind tour of the leading Mermaid Clubs with his new fibreglass Mermaid. At least 100 people interested in the 17-foot clinker dinghies have had an opportunity to look at "Dolly" and get a feel for the construction process that was used.

It is his intention to put a proposal to the forthcoming class a.g.m regarding the adoption of the composite Mermaid as an approved construction process where older wooden boats currently prevail.