Displaying items by tag: club sailing

6th May 2017

ISA Predicts Team Racing Is Set To ‘Go Viral’

#TeamRacing - Last weekend’s Student Yachting Worlds selection in Howth shows the health of team racing among the collegiate set, especially among those sailing for fun.

But team racing as a discipline is more than just an opportunity for lapsed or lower-skilled sailors to get their jollies on the water — it’s an untapped pool of potential club members with the itch to sail on a regular basis.

Indeed, the Irish Sailing Association says team racing “is an excellent format to promote more sailing” and notes that more and more clubs are procuring boats for precisely this purpose.

The short racing format and potential for regular intra- and inter-club meets also cultivates the elusive ‘fun factor’ that could keep younger sailors as active club members for years to come.

To this end, the ISA is holding a team racing development meeting at the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire from 7pm on Wednesday 24 May to discuss the potential of building team racing within Ireland’s sailing clubs and help the concept ‘go viral’.

Interested clubs should contact [email protected] by Friday 12 May.

Published in Team Racing

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Howth Yacht Club Launches 2011 Sailing Programme

Howth Yacht Club will launch its programme of open sailing events for 2011 at the club house tomorrow evening.

In addition to running club sailing throughout the year, and both junior and adult sailing courses to get more involved in the sport, HYC will also be hosting more than 20 open events this year.

These are set to include local, provincial, national and international championships, which are hopes to attract visitors from all over Ireland and beyond.

For more details visit the Howth Yacht Club website at www.hyc.ie.

Howth Yacht Club will launch its programme of open sailing events for 2011 at the club house tomorrow evening (Thursday 31 March).

In addition to running club sailing throughout the year, and both junior and adult sailing courses to get more involved in the sport, HYC will also be hosting more than 20 open events this year.

These are set to include local, provincial, national and international championships, which are hopes to attract visitors from all over Ireland and beyond.

For more details visit the Howth Yacht Club website at www.hyc.ie.

Published in Howth YC

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About the 29er Skiff Dinghy

The 29er is a one-design double-handed, single trapeze skiff for youth sailors.

There is an active class in Ireland, just one of the 38-countries from across all continents now racing the high-performance skiff.

The 29er is one of the latest dinghy classes to arrive in Ireland and has a 50/50 split between boys and girls.

The class like to describe the boat as "The most popular skiff for sailors who want to go fast!".

Derived from the Olympic class 49er class and designed by Julian Bethwaite the 29er was first produced in 1998.

Two sailors sail the 29er, one on trapeze.

The 6.25-metre high rig features a fractional asymmetrical spinnaker; a self-tacking jib decreases the workload of the crew, making manoeuvres more efficient and freeing the crew to take the mainsheet upwind and on two-sail reaches.

The 15.00 m2 spinnaker rigging set-up challenges crews to be fit and coordinated, and manoeuvres in the boat require athleticism due to its lack of inherent stability and the high speed with which the fully battened mainsail and jib power up.

The 74kg weight hull is constructed of fibreglass-reinforced polyester in a foam sandwich layout.

The fully battened mainsail and jib are made from a transparent Mylar laminate with orange or red Dacron trimming, while the spinnaker is manufactured from ripstop Nylon.

The mast is in three parts - an aluminium bottom and middle section, with a polyester-fibreglass composite tip to increase mast bend and decrease both overall weights, and the capsizing moment a heavy mast tip can generate. Foils are aluminium or fibreglass.

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