Sailing: Dublin Bay's most successful one-design sailor in 2003 has made an end-of-season appeal to club officials to rethink policies on junior sailing because of the "vacuum" that exists between youth and adult leagues.
Tim Goodbody will pick up Dublin Bay Sailing Club's (DBSC) top one-design prize, the George Arthur Newson Memorial Cup, for the most successful performance next Friday, but he has warned the sport in the capital that to develop it needs teenagers to be kept involved.
Ironically, DBSC has tweaked courses at senior level because of congestion with the sheer volume of boats converging at marks. It has even been suggested that mid-week racing needs an additional night to cope with the 331 boats and a record membership of 1,605.
Sadly, these problems don't exist at youth level, where, together with dinghy sailing, fleet sizes have fallen away.
"There is plenty of support for top youth sailing at Olympic level but little else," says Goodbody of the Royal Irish Yacht Club.
He says the Royal St George YC (RStGYC) have identified this weakness and now other waterfront clubs must follow its lead.
The RStGYC runs a fleet of well-maintained Firefly dinghies at the disposal of youth sailing, and this, says Goodbody, keeps students involved without a big financial commitment.
Students do return to the sport in later life, but team racing, in club-owned boats, is one way of keeping them involved because it exposes them to another aspect of the sport.
Other premier DBSC awards this year include the Dún Laoghaire Harbour Trophy for Voodoo Chile (Eamon Crosbie) for the most successful new yacht in DBSC races.
The Waterhouse Shield for the most successful yacht in handicapped classes goes to Two Step (Ross Doyle), and The Brendan Ebrill Memorial Cup to Ruff N' Ready (Brian Cullen, Ciara Brown, Ann Kirwan).
The Viking Award goes to Hal Sisk for his contribution over the years to history of sailing and his work in keeping alive the skills of the wooden boat builder.
The 121st season DBSC prize-giving takes place in the the RStGYC next Friday.
Fintan Cairns of the Irish Cruiser Racer Association (ICRA) has invited a panel of top designers to address the association's inaugural conference in Kilkenny at the Newpark Hotel on November 29th.
International designers Ed Dubois, John Corby, Jason Ker and Mark Mills have been given the opportunity to put their views to the first national cruiser-racer audience as the ICRA maps out its plans for next year's Commodore's Cup selection procedure and national rating bands.
Providence, the white, 1997 Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 34.2, valued at €89,000, which went missing from Crosshaven marina at the beginning of November, turned up in Newlyn on the south coast of Britain last night following the air sea rescue of one occupant who had called the Coastguard for assistance following an injury.
The Coastguard, according to Donal McClement of Crosshaven boat yard, reported that the boat was en route from Cork to Portugal, and following the airlift the 34-footer was towed from the Scillies to Newlyn, arriving there last night.
The newly-formed Irish Marina Operators Association (IMOA), which represents 20 coastal marinas, had joined in the search for the 34-foot yacht by alerting a European marina network.
Off Portugal, the 14 Open 60 multihulls in the Transat Jacques Vabre entered the Atlantic by Wednesday night, with Kerry's Damian Foxall teamed up with Karine Fauconnier, on Sergio Tacchini, placed in the middle of the fleet in the dash across the Atlantic.
