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Displaying items by tag: LSSIF

The proposed National Watersports Campus for Dun Laoghaire has received a major boost in the form of a €410,000-plus top-up grant under the Large-Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund (LSSIF).

Sport Minister Catherine Martin and Minister of State Thomas Byrne made the announcement on Wednesday (6 December) of some €37.6 million in additional funding that will benefit 27 individual projects.

The new funding is being provided in response to delays experienced by grantees arising from the pandemic and construction inflation, following engagement with the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform.

Dun Laoghaire’s planned watersports campus gets an additional €410,952 on top of its original €441,893 allocation under the LSSIF in 2020 to fund a feasibility study, for a total of €852,845.

In other watersport-related projects, the National Rowing Centre in Inniscarra, Co Cork receives a top-up of €66,562 after its initial allocation of €613,049.

The ministers have also confirmed that a new round of the LSSIF will open for applications in the first half of 2024.

And for the first time there be a requirement for all successful applicants to publish their Similar Access Policies, in respect of men and women having access to the facilities on similar terms, in order to be eligible for a “top-up” allocation drawdown.

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Esailing & Virtual Sailing information

The concept of e-sailing, or virtual sailing, is based on a computer game sailing challenge that has been around for more than a decade.

The research and development of software over this time means its popularity has taken off to the extent that it has now become a part of the sailing seascape and now allows people to take an 'active part' in some of the most famous regattas across the world such as the Vendée Globe, Route du Rhum, Sydney Hobart, Volvo Ocean Race, America’s Cup and some Olympic venues too, all from the comfort of their armchair.

The most popular model is the 'eSailing World Championship'. It is an annual esports competition, first held in 2018 and officially recognised by World Sailing, the sports governing body.

The eSailing World Championship is a yearly competition for virtual sailors competing on the Virtual Regatta Inshore game.

The contract to run the event was given to a private company, Virtual Regatta that had amassed tens of thousands of sailors playing offshore sailing routing game following major offshore races in real-time.

In April 2020, the company says on its website that it has 35,000 active players and 500,000 regattas sailed.

Virtual Regatta started in 2010 as a small team of passionate designers, engineers, and entrepreneurs gathered around the idea that virtual sailing sports games can mix with real races and real skippers.