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Displaying items by tag: Shane Hughes

The National Yacht Club's Will Byrne and Howth's sailmaker Shane Hughes (from North Sails Ireland) are racing on Mathilde in the Club Swan 50 division, one of the four racing classes at the Swan One Design World Championships in France.

Fitful easterlies rewrote the Swan class leaderboards in St Tropez with ClubSwan36 led by G Spot; ClubSwan42 - Natalia; Swan45 - From Now On and ClubSwan50 led by Hatari.

Sitting in fourth place, four points off the podium and six off the lead, it is all very close and, Dun Laoghaire's Byrne says there's "lots to play for" going into the final day of racing today. 

The Gulf of Saint Tropez kept the surprises coming for the third day of the Swan One Design Worlds, with the wind swinging right round to the east again.

Signs of a good sailing breeze early on were scuppered as the winds began to drop. But there was still time to get all the classes away for one good race under blue skies.

It proved a day for upsets – the special magic of day three has struck. Leaders in every class put in mid-order finishes in the day’s race, giving hope to those snapping at their heels. It largely came down to whether the boats chose to go left or right off the start. 

Club Swan 50 racing in Saint Tropez Photo: Studio BorlenghiClub Swan 50 racing in Saint Tropez Photo: Studio Borlenghi

Published in National YC

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.