Sailing In Dublin: Racing

DMYC Frostbites

SID Frostbite Involvement

Frostbites are winter dinghy races run in Dun Laoghaire by the Dun Loaghaire Motor Yacht Club(DMYC).
Racing is every Sunday for approximately one hour with the starting gun at 1.30. Racing runs from the start of November to end of March.
Sailing In Dublin Club enters a number of boats and encourages all members to take part. The nominal entry fee is split between those taking part, and crew positions as assigned on a rota. Less experienced crew are paired with old hands, so everybody gets to take part. The frostbites are a relaxed fun event and a great introduction to dinghy racing.
Participants are honorary members of the DMYC for the day so you can have a hot shower, hot soup and even hot port after racing. Racing is limited to one hour so it's just a case of wearing a little more gear than you would in Summer.
For more details please see our Frostbite Racing Guide

DBSC Racing

Ruffian Class

DBSC racing runs on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from May to September. The club Ruffian is usually entered, those who wish to take part contributing to the entry fee and the class registration fee. Racing is on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6.00pm and Saturday afternoons A rota is organized with 5 crew on the boat for each race. No previous racing experience is reqired so this is an ideal introduction to racing.
Entry is organized in April but If you joined the club mid season and wish to take part then please contact the keelboat sailing secretary.

PY Class

DBSC racing runs on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from May to September. Participants would need to have done level-3 dinghy training or have equivalent experience. Those who wish to take part share the cost entry fee and a rota is organized.
Entry is organized in April but if you joined the club mid season and wish to take part then please contact the dinghy sailing secretary.

Portsmouth Yardstick

In dinghy racing there is usually a seperate class(i.e. race) for the larger one-design fleets e.g. Fireball , Laser.
The Portsmouth Yardstick (PY) is a handicap system that allows the remaining boats boats of different designs to compete against one another in a single race. e.g. 420s, Laser-2, IDRA, Magnos. Most (but not all) dinghy regattas will provide a PY class, as do the DMYC frostbites.(in which there are 3 classes in frostbites, Fireball, Laser-1 and PY).
The SID boats compete in the PY class.
Each design if given a rating which is used to adjust their elapsed time around the course, to get their corrected time on which results are based. A
rating of 1000 is parity (like playing off scratch in golf) so adjusted time will be = elapsed time. Otherwise your elapsed time is divided by 1000/Rating.
For instance a Magno has a rating of 1200, so if it finished in 60 minutes, its time would be adjusted to 60 * (1000/1200) = 50min.
A 420 has a rating of 1087, so if it finished in an elapsed time of 60min it would be corrected to 55min-12sec
Some extra high performance boats such as a Laser 4000 have a rating less than 1000 (908), which means that their corrected time would actually be greater than their elapsed time.
The ratings are set by the RYA for the class based on international results, so if you have an old slow boat you are out of luck.

Other Regattas/Events

Entry to other regattas is typically organised in the week before. if you need more details on a particular event or have a proposal for participation then please contact the appropriate sailing secretary.