Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Royal St. George YC Announce Laser Radial Youth World Championships Sponsor

7th April 2016
35 countries are expected to compete in the KBC Bank sponsored Laser Radial Youth and Men’s World Championships 2016 off Dun Laoghaire 35 countries are expected to compete in the KBC Bank sponsored Laser Radial Youth and Men’s World Championships 2016 off Dun Laoghaire Credit: ISAF

KBC Bank Ireland has announced its title sponsorship of the ‘Laser Radial Youth and Men’s World Championships 2016’. This is the first time this sailing World Championship will be hosted by Ireland and supported by KBC Bank.

The 2016 ‘KBC Laser Radial Worlds’ will be held in Dún Laoghaire harbour from 23rd to 30th July 2016. Up to 400 competitors from more than 35 nations will compete in the World Championship series supported by over 1,000 supporters and volunteers from the local area. The event is expected to generate approximately €2.5m for the local economy.

Aidan Power, Director of Customer, Brand and Marketing at KBC Bank Ireland said, “KBC Bank is delighted to announce our title sponsorship of this world-class championship sailing event in Dún Laoghaire. As Ireland’s newest retail bank, we are passionate about the communities we live and work in and our sponsorship celebrates Dún Laoghaire’s vibrant sailing community on the international stage. It’s an exciting event that will showcase the skill and determination of the competitors, and KBC’s commitment to supporting community and youth initiatives. We look forward to a fantastic week for all involved”.

KBC to sponsor World Sailing Championships 11

Olympic Sailor, Annalise Murphy at the announcement of the KBC Laser Radial Worlds 2016 in her home port of Dun Laoghaire. Photo: Naoise Culhane

Welcoming KBC Bank Ireland’s involvement David Kelly, Chairman of the Laser Radial Worlds 2016 said, “We are delighted that KBC has come on board as title sponsor of this event. It is a significant achievement to be awarded the opportunity to host these Laser World Championships – it is a first for Ireland and we sincerely thank KBC for their support. Our goal is to make this event a successful and memorable occasion for competitors, volunteers and the local community in Dún Laoghaire”.

The ‘KBC Laser Radial Worlds’ are being hosted by The Royal St. George Yacht Club and Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company, supported by Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council and Fáilte Ireland. Ireland follows in the footsteps of Canada in 2015 and Poland in 2014 to host this prestigious event.

Published in Youth Sailing
Afloat.ie Team

About The Author

Afloat.ie Team

Email The Author

Afloat.ie is Ireland's dedicated marine journalism team.

Have you got a story for our reporters? Email us here.

We've got a favour to ask

More people are reading Afloat.ie than ever thanks to the power of the internet but we're in stormy seas because advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news sites, we haven’t put up a paywall because we want to keep our marine journalism open.

Afloat.ie is Ireland's only full–time marine journalism team and it takes time, money and hard work to produce our content.

So you can see why we need to ask for your help.

If everyone chipped in, we can enhance our coverage and our future would be more secure. You can help us through a small donation. Thank you.

Direct Donation to Afloat button

Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) is one of Europe's biggest yacht racing clubs. It has almost sixteen hundred elected members. It presents more than 100 perpetual trophies each season some dating back to 1884. It provides weekly racing for upwards of 360 yachts, ranging from ocean-going forty footers to small dinghies for juniors.

Undaunted by austerity and encircling gloom, Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC), supported by an institutional memory of one hundred and twenty-nine years of racing and having survived two world wars, a civil war and not to mention the nineteen-thirties depression, it continues to present its racing programme year after year as a cherished Dublin sporting institution.

The DBSC formula that, over the years, has worked very well for Dun Laoghaire sailors. As ever DBSC start racing at the end of April and finish at the end of September. The current commodore is Eddie Totterdell of the National Yacht Club.

The character of racing remains broadly the same in recent times, with starts and finishes at Club's two committee boats, one of them DBSC's new flagship, the Freebird. The latter will also service dinghy racing on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Having more in the way of creature comfort than the John T. Biggs, it has enabled the dinghy sub-committee to attract a regular team to manage its races, very much as happened in the case of MacLir and more recently with the Spirit of the Irish. The expectation is that this will raise the quality of dinghy race management, which, operating as it did on a class quota system, had tended to suffer from a lack of continuity.