Although a few countries are still to ease their lockdowns, sailing is restarting around the world, including Ireland where a Coastguard advisory was lifted this morning and boating with social distancing made its debut as Irish clubs and marinas reopened to boat owners.

Sailing with a crew made up from the same household is now possible subject to the constraints of taking leisure pursuits within five km from a person’s home and returning to the harbour of departure.

As we see a return to the water, sailing clubs are looking at the next stages and the restarting of yacht racing.

With aggressive social distancing measures in place, running yacht races with a traditional race management set-up and lots of people crammed onto a committee boat is going to be difficult and so is conventional crewed racing. 

The UK based RestartSailing Group have been exploring simpler race formats and a number of GPS tracking apps are emerging that allows Simple Racing to be run automatically. It's a virtual format that has been tried with success by leading offshore body ISORA who have been using virtual courses for its offshore league racing since 2012. 

There is certainly a demand for racing with Dublin Bay Sailing Club members voting overwhelmingly for a return late last month.

Olympic sailor Mark Mansfield has already offered suggestions on how racing can restart by reducing crew numbers in a bid to comply with two-metre social distancing rules. 

As Afloat's WM Nixon said last Saturday, Irish sailors need flexible thinking and tolerance in their emergence from Covid-19 if we are to get the scene going again otherwise the 2020 sailing season will look like a desert.

A poll on the UK based RestartSailing Facebook Group indicated that 41% of clubs have opened, with 45% in the planning stages of opening shortly and 14% unable to open due to external factors.

The pressure group have set up a Simple Racing Group to consider this new format if you are interested in getting involved you can join here

#DublinBay - Peggy Bawn Press publisher - and Afloat.ie Sailor of the Month for March 2012 - Hal Sisk will give a lecture tonight Thursday 3 April titled 'Dublin Bay, the Cradle of Yacht Racing' at the Poolbeg Yacht and Boat Club in Ringsend.

The amateur sport of sailing, as we know it, first emerged, not in Holland, not in Cowes, and not even in Cork, but right here in Dublin Bay!

Earlier "yachting" episodes used entirely professional crews, and the yacht owners and friends were little more than passengers. But from the 1850s in Dublin Bay the sport developed with active leisure sailors actually learning to sail and race their yachts themselves, as we all do today. And for two decades, 1855 to 1875, Dubliners led the world in shaping the sport, including setting the original rules, and also introducing such innovations as offshore and singlehanded racing.

With many illustrations from the the paintings and photographs of the period, yachting historian Hal Sisk will show how much of a challenge it was to be the pioneers, and in what kind of yachts they sailed. Hal's restorations of the classic yachts Vagrant and Peggy Bawn are exemplary in authenticity, and he has entertained audiences in five continents with his enthusiastic presentations.

The lecture starts at 8pm tonight and entry is €5 in aid of the RNLI.