Killaloe Sailing Club was founded in 1970’s by a small group
of Laser sailors.
Initially, the club had no land or no facilities, so it
started out by using the then Country Club which was beside
the Lakeside Hotel. Indeed there are stories of people
practising sailing their Lasers in the Country Club swimming
pool. Soon afterwards the club approached Clare County council about acquiring a site
further up the lake. They were given about a 10th
of an acre by the council (where the scout sailing centre is
now).
Despite the miniscule site and the fact that there was no
land access to it for boats, the club thrived. At one stage
the club had close to 100 members. The lasers and the
mirrors had to be racked 4 – 5 boats high.
As most of the founding members were
Laser sailors, that continued to be the strongest class.
Race nights were Tuesdays and Thursdays, and these were
always the best and the busiest times in the club.
Week-end sailing was never as popular, I suppose as Laser
sailing wasn’t as conducive to family days out as say mirror
or enterprise sailing would have been.
The
club used to host sailing events including the Laser
Westerns and the annual Laser Team Racing which was very
popular and attended by teams from as far away as Scotland
.
The
club was very active and could have up to 20 boats on the
water for an evening’s sailing, these would be mostly
lasers. The club ran junior sailing classes which were very
popular.
In
the early eighties, we were turning away members because of
space constraints, so the committee began to look for an
alternative site to develop. The decision was made to
purchase 4.5 acres which is now the existing club site. Much
work was done to raise the capital for this including
running 300 club draws and other activities. The club ran
into planning problems which ended up at a bórd planála
hearing with the club hiring senior barristers costing a lot
of money. Between the long drawn out planning delays and
the energy that went in to fund raising, the committee was
burnt out. Sailing itself had taken a back seat by now, and
the whole club suffered a long period of dis-interest and
lack of enthusiasm.
Sadly, it took years for the club to recover from this
decline.
In
the last year or two we have seen a renewed interest in
dinghy sailing and with a drive towards promoting class
sailing we have exciting plans for the future and intend to
build a vibrant club.
