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Tralee Bay Sailing Club Announce Dual Scoring Element to ICRA Nationals & WIORA Regatta

5th April 2013
Tralee Bay Sailing Club Announce Dual Scoring Element to ICRA Nationals & WIORA Regatta

#cruiserracing – The town of Fenit in County Kerry is getting ready to host a combination of national and regional sailors when it stages both the Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) National Cruiser Championship & Corinthian Cup along with the WIORA Regional West Coast Championships & White Sails event this June.

As it is a combination of two events, the Regional West Coast Championships commences on Wednesday, June 12th and finishes on Friday, June 14th with the ICRA National Cruiser Championships commencing on Thursday, June 13th and finishing on Saturday, June 15th, for two days out of the four there will be dual scoring for both events.

The Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA), together with the West of Ireland Offshore Racing Association (WIORA) and host club Tralee Bay Sailing Club (TBSC) have been very busy over the winter months organising the ICRA National Cruiser Championships / Corinthian Cup and WIORA's Regional West Coast Championships / White Sails which will take place from the 12th – 15th June 2013.

With the ICRA National Cruiser Championships been a NON DISCARD event for the first time in its history a lot of competitors have also entered the regional event (WIORA) to get their boats up to speed the day before the Nationals commences. WIORA have opted to keep with their traditional stance on Discards - one discard will apply, if six or more races are sailed and in their White Sails division one discard will apply, if five or more races are sailed.

On the water Alan Crosbie, David Lovegrove, Peter Moore and teams will be ensuring the course will be of the highest quality and varied to satisfy the competitors with Mike Butterfield officiating as chairperson in the protest room and Denis Kiely & Peadar Murphy looking after the prompt posting of the results.

Tralee Bay Sailing Club boasts views of Tralee bay, with spectacular race courses easily followed from various spectator spots along the shore line. The organising committee under Brian O'Sullivan are finalising an exciting and varied racing programme over the four days, along with an excellent social programme of shore side activities including a crew tug of war sponsored by Walsh Brothers Shoes of Tralee. With ten weeks to go to first gun and over fifty confirmed entries to date, it will be a very special event both on and off the water. For non-sailors joining the event, they will be interested to know that there is a lot to see and do locally, and the organisers are running a fashion show in aid of the RNLI on Friday afternoon in the club.

Tralee Bay Sailing Club has partnered with the Brandon Hotel (Please call reservations on (066) 7123333 and Quote ICRA) to bring a very special accommodation deal for the duration of the event and reservations are open until 19th April. Also, locally there are houses available to rent - for more information please go to www.traleebaysailingclub.com. The committee advises to book accommodation early, as availability of houses is not limitless!

Entries for the National Cruiser Championships, West Coast Championships, and ICRA Corinthian Cup & WIORA White Sails can now be made on line at www.traleebaysailingclub.com. Entry fee for combined events is €225 – single event €175. To encourage early entries a discounted entry fee for combined events of €175 – single event €125 applies until the 27th April 2013. Entry closes 04th June 2013.

 

Published in ICRA
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The Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) Information

The creation of the Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) began in a very low key way in the autumn of 2002 with an exploratory meeting between Denis Kiely, Jim Donegan and Fintan Cairns in the Granville Hotel in Waterford, and the first conference was held in February 2003 in Kilkenny.

While numbers of cruiser-racers were large, their specific locations were widespread, but there was simply no denying the numerical strength and majority power of the Cork-Dublin axis. To get what was then a very novel concept up and running, this strength of numbers had to be acknowledged, and the first National Championship in 2003 reflected this, as it was staged in Howth.

ICRA was run by a dedicated group of volunteers each of whom brought their special talents to the organisation. Jim Donegan, the elder statesman, was so much more interested in the wellbeing of the new organisation than in personal advancement that he insisted on Fintan Cairns being the first Commodore, while the distinguished Cork sailor was more than content to be Vice Commodore.

ICRA National Championships

Initially, the highlight of the ICRA season was the National Championship, which is essentially self-limiting, as it is restricted to boats which have or would be eligible for an IRC Rating. Boats not actually rated but eligible were catered for by ICRA’s ace number-cruncher Denis Kiely, who took Ireland’s long-established native rating system ECHO to new heights, thereby providing for extra entries which brought fleet numbers at most annual national championships to comfortably above the hundred mark, particularly at the height of the boom years. 

ICRA Boat of the Year (Winners 2004-2019)