1720 Sportsboat Class - A busy 2026 year ahead
by Dave Love 12 Mar 15:40 GMT
1720 Irish Championship at Baltimore Sailing Club © Deirdre Horgan
The 2026 season for the 1720 Sportsboat class is filling up nicely with 3 scheduled events.
The Royal Cork Yacht Club will be hosting an April league on each of the Saturdays in April to kick start the season for the 27ft class. With short and sharp races scheduled, crew hope to dust off any winter cobwebs and fine tune their boat handling skills in advance of the busy season ahead.
The club will also be hosting the Doyle Sails Ireland sponsored Southern Championships on the weekend of the 16th & 17th May. With a 7 race series scheduled off the waters of Cork Harbour, racing is expected to be hotly contested as a season opener. With early entries to date, the Class is expecting a strong 20 boat fleet with entries from Baltimore, Lough Derg, Galway Bay, Howth, Dunmore East and Kinsale.
With a quick turnaround, Baltimore Sailing Club will be hosting the National Championships from 12th to 14th June. 2026 marks the 30th anniversary from the first Nationals which was hosted by the class and the current class captain Robert Dix was quick to remind all current owners of the competition in the class in 1996 following his victory in the inaugural Championships. Baltimore offers 3 fantastic race courses within the waters of West Cork which were duly tested during the 2022 Nationals when all were utilised in varying weather conditions.
Baltimore Sailing Club will also be running club league racing in July & August with their well supported Baltimore Cup taking place on 1st & 2nd August. Held over 2 days, the series of racing offers an action packed events inside Baltimore harbour with a strong spectator crowd viewing from the square outside Bushe's Bar!
The European Championship will be held in the 4th to 6th Sept in Lough Derg Yacht Club. Following the success of the Southerns in 2024, the Dromineer club is hoping to target a competitive 25 fleet with close racing expected off the shores of the clubhouse. Testing lake conditions could be both a blessing and a cruse in a very short space of time.
The class has seen a recent injection of new owners over the last season which include Karl & Peter Fagan, Jonny Sargent, Emma Geary & James Kitt, Graeme Noonan and Marty O'Leary showing a healthy balance of single and co-ownerships making great value for racing. The class offers plenty for sailors regardless of age, fitness, shape & size with crews ranging from 5-6 sailors that often include multiple generations of families.
The class benefit from a strong mixture of gender in crews with the 2025 National Champions RopeDock Atara holding an impressive 50/50 crew with an average of 25-30% of crews being female across the fleet. To add to this, with helms including Mia Murphy, Aisling Keller and Emma Geary, female sailors in leadership roles on the boats continues to growth.
Since it's design inception in 1992, the class has always attracted the best sailors which have included Ben Ainslie, Dean Barker and Jimmy Spithill along with all of the top Irish sailors. Whilst it has seen a number of ups and down over the 34 year lifespan, with the recent influx of sailors and strongly supported events, two keys values of the class have always remained - Competitive and Fun racing.