SAILING:FINAL PREPARATIONS are underway in Schull today as the ISAF Team Racing Championships get underway on Sunday. Featuring 20 teams from eight nations, the town that has earned its own reputation as a centre for junior and youth sailing is staging its biggest event yet.
From the earliest days of the Fastnet International Schools Regatta that formed part of Schull Community College’s sport programme, a generation of young sailors have grown up through dinghy sailing and are now welcoming teams from around the world.
The Australian team that won last year’s youth world title were training off Schull yesterday while the Japanese squad is expected this morning.
All are in for a new experience.
Instead of the more usual Firefly dinghy that is in widespread use in Ireland and Britain for team-racing, a beefier version will be in action at Schull. Known as the TR3.6-metre, the two-person boat weighs some 25 kgs heavier than a normal Firefly.
The Schull organisers are thinking ahead.
“The Firefly is an excellent team racing boat but it was originally designed for the Olympics,” said David Harte, the organiser for the afloat side of the event.
The ISAF approved the boat with the main proviso being that all 25 dinghies to be used for the event are equal. No problem for Harte, a boat-builder who is a former international class measurer for the Optimist class.
“The wear and tear on these boats is huge which is all very well when you own the boat, you’ll keep it well,” he said. “But it’s a different story when people don’t actually own the boat.”
Harte has made various modifications to beef-up the basic Firefly design so the new fleet of boats can have a longer lifespan. Sharing boats for team-racing is regarded as a solution for keeping youth participation going in the sport after teenage and junior programmes.
There’s also a cost-benefit, almost €3,000 per boat, so the organisation has saved around €75,000 for the event budget though at the expense of “a little additional heartache”.
School principal Tim O’Connor is the shore manager for the championships while Denis Quinlan is looking after logistics for the ten-day event that begins racing Tuesday before the finals on Sunday week.
branigan@indigo.ie
