Boats have started to arrive in Howth Yacht Club for the BNRG 1720 Eastern Championships to be hosted by the club this weekend. The event has 15 confirmed entries with teams from Dublin, Cork & Galway. Seven races will be sailed over the Saturday and Sunday and racing is expected to be tight in this one design sportsboat fleet.

Under strict class rules teams must weight in before the start to ensure they do not exceed the maximum weight of 450kg and risk disqualification. This means that crews are limited to between five and six on each boat. As the first open event for the class this year is expected to be exciting as the teams have been waiting to get the season started for some time.

While Rob O’Leary on Dutch Gold is tipped as event favourite, there are a number of former Olympians and National Champions in the fleet aiming to give the current National Champion a run for his money. Local Howth talent includes Dan O’Grady’s Wet N’Ready, Ross McDonald on Atara and David Maguire helming BNRG. This trio will hope that a little local knowledge may give them the edge. A training event is scheduled for 2pm on the Friday when most of the fleet is expected to test their starts against one another. With such tight racing expected and the first race for some time, there may be some close encounters.

Good luck to all participants, we look forward to seeing some good racing fun being had by all