DUBLIN BECOMES a city of sails this afternoon when a racing fleet of 450 yachts leave Dún Laoghaire harbour to compete in the country’s biggest regattas.
From the Baily lighthouse at Howth Head to Dalkey Island on the south side, the bay will host six courses for 21 classes when racing starts at 3pm. One of the busiest shipping lanes in the country is to temporarily close to facilitate the regatta and the placing of courses each day.
No other regatta in the Irish Sea area has claimed such numbers in recent times. The nearest, the Scottish series on the Clyde, had 170 boats in May. Bangor Week on Belfast Lough is no longer held. Last July’s Cork Week on the south coast at Crosshaven attracted 380.
This week’s event echoes what happened 40 years ago on the bay before race weeks such as this petered out.
It has taken almost four decades for the waterfront clubs to come together again and produce a spectacle on and off the water to rival the world’s top regatta at Cowes, on the Isle of Wight.
In assembling the record-breaking armada, Volvo Dún Laoghaire Regatta (VDLR) has become, at its third staging, not only the country’s biggest sailing event, with 3,500 sailors competing, but also one of its largest participant sporting events.
Ironically, organisers never set out to stage the biggest regatta, but with its local fleet of 300 boats and over 150 visitors, it is easy to see how the numbers have swelled.
“We were focusing on quality racing and it has just got bigger,” says regatta chairman Phil Smith.
The popularity is not in doubt even after it got off to a spectacularly bad start four years ago when the event was becalmed for four days.
The idea to rekindle a combined Dublin Bay event resurfaced after an absence of almost 40 years, mostly because of the persistence of a small group of Dún Laoghaire sailors. They saw the advances made in Cork and elsewhere and believed that Dún Laoghaire could become the “Cowes of the Irish Sea” if the town and the local clubs pulled together.
Although fickle winds conspired against them in 2005 and again for a time in 2007, the support of all four Dun Laoghaire waterfront yacht clubs since then (Dún Laoghaire Motor YC, National YC, Royal Irish YC and Royal St George YC), in association with the two racing clubs of Dublin Bay SC and Royal Alfred YC, gave them the momentum to carry on.
Running until this Sunday, the regatta is – after the marathons – the single biggest participant sports event in the country, requiring the services of 280 volunteers on and off the water, as well as top international race officers and an international jury drawn from five countries to resolve racing disputes.
A flotilla of 31 boats have raced from Holyhead to Dublin for the Lyver Trophy to coincide with the event. The race also doubles as a RORC qualifying race for the Fastnet.
Sailors from the Ribble, Mersey, the Menai Straits, Anglesey, Cardigan Bay and the Isle of Man have to travel three times the distance to the Solent as they do to Dublin Bay. This, claims Smith, is one of the major selling points of the Irish event and explains the range of entries from marinas as far away as Yorkshire’s Whitby YC and the Isle of Wight.
“The fact that we are getting such numbers means it is inevitable that it will be compared with Cowes,” says Smith.
But there the comparison ends.
“We’re doing our own thing here. Dun Laoghaire is unique and we are making a very special effort to welcome visitors from abroad.”
