SAILING: DUBLIN BAY'S multiple talents as a venue for maritime events will be on show this weekend, as the Tall Ships festival ends it's stop-over with a three-hour parade of sail from the city's docklands to open sea on Sunday.
The 50-strong fleet, ranging from the spectacular Class A square-riggers to the smaller sail-training yachts, will parade through the East Link, beginning at 11.00am.
Three of the largest vessels will be moved early on Sunday morning to avoid congestion while another two will remain on Dublin’s river Liffey dockside.
The LE Emer of the Irish Naval Service will lead the boats from the Dublin Port channel along a marshalled corridor to Dún Laoghaire before they turn back towards the Baily Lighthouse at Howth and their departure.
Both piers at Dún Laoghaire, plus Howth Head, will offer ideal vantage points for spectators.
Meanwhile, the remainder of the bay will still be busy with the Irish National Championships for both the Squib and Laser classes being run from the Royal St George and National yacht clubs.
It’s going to be a busy bay and in one sense, it’ll be good to have all corners fully utilised this weekend rather than in two weekends from now when as much sea-room as possible will be needed for another spectacle.
Currently en route to Kiel in Germany, the latest generation of multi-hull racing yacht known as the MOD 70 – multi one-design 70 feet – is in it’s first full season of competition featuring a fleet of five boats racing at high speeds for both offshore stages and inshore demonstration courses.
Dublin Bay had a preview of the class just over a year ago when Roland Jourdain visited Dún Laoghaire over four days in preparation for the Fastnet Race on Veolia Environnement.
However, he won’t be in Ireland this summer due to cutbacks by his sponsor.
In times past, the TAG Round Europe Race featured slightly bigger predecessors to the MOD when traffic around the coast of the bay was brought to a standstill by the sight of the huge multi-hulls at speed.
Irish interest may be limited to hosting a stop-over of the 5,000-mile race from Germany that will eventually finish in Genoa but there are plenty of familiar names in the French-dominated class.
Chief amongst these is Franck Cammas, skipper of Groupama 4 that won the Volvo Ocean Race earlier this summer on his first attempt. He will be crewing for Swiss skipper Steve Ravussin on Race for Water.
The names of Michel ‘Prof’ Desjoyeaux and Foncia will be instantly familiar to followers of trans-oceanic yacht racing as the winner of the last Vendeé Globe single-handed round the world race while Foncia are now backing the MOD circuit with an entry.
Groupe Edmond de Rothschild is skippered by Séb Josse who previously set a world monohull 24-hour speed sailing record on ABN AMRO 2 during the 2005 Volvo Ocean Race.
Spindrift racing, skippered by Yann Guichard and Musandam-Oman Sail with Sidney Gavignet including Britain’s Brian Thompson, completes the line-up for the stop-over that will be based at the National YC.
The five-boat fleet is expected to arrive into Dún Laoghaire sometime on Wednesday, September 5th. After a rest day, three races daily on the Friday and Saturday, beginning at 1pm in Scotsman’s Bay, are planned, followed by the start of the next leg of the race to Caiscais in Portugal.
