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ICRA Nationals To Race as Part of Cork Week 2022

6th March 2021
ICRA National Championships racing in 2017 in Cork Harbour. The ICRA fleet returns to Crosshaven in 2022 as part of Cork Week Regatta
ICRA National Championships racing in 2017 in Cork Harbour. The ICRA fleet returns to Crosshaven in 2022 as part of Cork Week Regatta Credit: Bob Bateman

The Irish Cruiser Racing (ICRA) National Championships returns to Cork Harbour as part of Cork Week Regatta in 2022.

The venue was announced at this weekend's ICRA 2021 Conference online. 

The cruiser-racer fleet had planned to race in Cork in 2020 as part of Royal Cork's Tricentenary event that was not held due to COVID, so the decision to return in 2022 was an easy one, according to ICRA Commodore, Richard Colwell. 

ICRA Racing returns to Cork Harbour after a six year gap in 2022ICRA Racing returns to Cork Harbour after a six year gap in 2022

The 2022 racing is expected to offer a variety of inshore and coastal courses both inside and outside the harbour.

This year the ICRA Championships races or national honours on Dublin Bay at the National Yacht Club in September.

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)