Irish Sailing announced last night that all organised sailing activity should cease with immediate effect. This is a consequence of difficulties for both organisers and indeed sailors themselves to adhere to the social distancing guidelines. See the full announcement from Harry Hermon (Irisih Sailing, CEO)
15/03/20 – Irish Sailing continue to monitor and follow the HSE advice on Covid-19 on a daily basis. As always, the health and safety of our members and the sailing community is of paramount importance. The Government has now asked bars and pubs to close from this evening until 29th March and we would advise that bars in clubs should conform with immediate effect.
Since the guidelines issued by An Taoiseach last Thursday, we have been in discussions with a number of stakeholders from both competitive and training backgrounds, and have concluded that social distancing is not only difficult to achieve on shore from an organisers’ perspective, but also difficult to achieve at a personal level on the water. For double handers and/or keelboats requiring two or more crew, it is not possible. Even for organised activities involving single handers requiring safety cover (with two people in the safety boat), it is not achievable.
For this reason, Irish Sailing advises that all organised sailing activity should cease with immediate effect and will be reviewed on 29th March. We will continue to monitor Government announcements and update the advice accordingly.
You can read the HSE guidelines here: https://www2.hse.ie/
Harry Hermon
Chief Executive