Classes

See HERE to see all the OPEN Regional and National event Calender Listing for Irish Sailing and Affiliated Classes and Clubs

If you are an affiliated class or club please ensure you register your open events on this link HERE. Thank you

If you’re new to organising a Class, you can get in touch with us by one of the following ways:

1. Contact our racing manager to discuss your specific requirements and how best Irish Sailing may be able to support you.
2. Sign up for our Irish Sailing Newsletter and our Newly launched ‘Sailsmart’ Newsletter which is designed to give practical advice to all clubs and training centres on a range of issues. This can be done by emailing communications@sailing.ie. 
3. Join our annual Irish Sailing Classes Forum. This takes place in Spring of each year for classes to network and discuss issues most pressing to them, and a chance for your voice to be heard;
4. If you are looking for Race Officials for your class event, get in touch with racing@sailing.ie.

The Classes and Racing Policy Group is to support Irish Sailing and its affiliated classes in areas such as development, participation and activity levels.

This group is one of eight groups representing the broad range of participation and activities within Irish Sailing, see them all HERE.

Group Members include ...

Stephen O Shaughnessy , Racing Manager – Irish Sailing.

Katie Dwyer, Board Member– Katie is currently a member of Sutton Dinghy Club and sails a GP14. She has secured several Top 3 results in the Irish Fleet and in 2018 at the GP14 World Championship Katie won 1st female helm and was part of the 1st all female crew. Katie is passionate about supporting women in the sport. In 2021, she was invited to speak the RYA dinghy show - “Women Win Too”, and as part of World Sailing’s Women Sailing Festival on the subject of women helms.

Mary McCormack – Foynes Yacht Club, J24 sailor for 5 years,  skipper on under 25 team. Grew up sailing Mermaids and lasers, Foynes is more of a yacht club than a dinghy club so she took the keelboat path after training courses. Mary hopes to encourage more youth teams to build membership numbers and believes that keelboat should be a progression option after dinghy courses.

Dave Love – A member of Royal Cork Yacht Club but living in Dublin. Dave began by sailing optimists and followed with racing ILCA dinghies for years. He is the currently sails in the 1720 class and races IRC boats with lots of international experience.

Cathy MacAleavey – A passionate sailor , famously as an Olympic sailor in Seoul 1988. But she’s also an apprentice boat builder, Water Wag racer, World Sailing equipment committee member, and mother to Olympic silver medallist Annalise Murphy.

Aoife English – An experienced and accomplished sailor, currently competing in the 1720 class with significant success.  
 

Group focus areas:

• Support the sharing and collaboration of ideas across the affiliated classes
• Act as a support resource for classes, awareness that the support is there, social media build-support for classes
• Develop classes page on Irish Sailing website and consider a news feed around class activity
• Establish co-operation for multi-class events
• To collaborate with Classes to provide competitive fun and accessible racing programmes
• Identify and deliver core supports for Classes to increase participation in competitive activities for all
• Explore and develop Coach development paths and resources
• Investigate youth attrition prevention – develop links to provide transition paths (extend life in a class or transition to another class)
• Develop an awareness of the supports available to events, clubs and classes
• Communicate clashes in calendars, support and build the event calendar resource
• Support for classes nominating Champions’ Cup nominees
• Updates of new committees within classes and events
• Develop support materials for Clubs and Classes bidding and hosting international events
• Build a news feed around class activities and events
• Explore what can be done to support Inclusion and Diversity racing
• Explore new initiatives for class and event development

Handicapping