Bray Sailing Club took another big step forward this week in their efforts to regenerate junior dinghy sailing in the North Wicklow club with their largest Junior Regatta fleet in many years. Strongly supported by their neighbours in Greystones SC, who sailed north with a fleet of 13 boats, the 43 boats and over 70 junior sailors enjoyed four races over approximately four hours of racing in a steady force 3 south-easterly breeze.
As with most junior regattas, the three fleets encompassed a wide range of abilities, ranging from complete newcomers to sailing to the old hands trying to bag one last victory in their final Junior event. However, what was not in short supply was enthusiasm and competiveness, as evidenced by two general recalls, and a number of individual recalls.
The courses comprised a mixture of windward-leeward and triangles, with different configurations for each race to keep the youngsters on their toes. Results are available to here.
Bray Sailing Club is running a nine week junior training programme this year and has a number of exciting initiatives in the pipeline to make sailing more accessible to members of their local community, including plans for an Irish language sailing course in early 2018. Despite the difficulties caused by the recent silting in Bray Harbour, the club has experienced a significant increase in adult membership in the last few years, many of whom are parents following their children into sailing.
