The Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) and the National Yacht Club are taking steps to minimise the need for close contact during next month's ICRA National Championships.

As Afloat reported earlier, 63 boats have already entered the September 3-5 championships ahead of Friday's deadline.

Taking learnings from June's Sovereigns Cup and Cowes Week, one and two-turn penalties will be replaced with a scoring penalty. By flying a yellow flag at the time of an incident, a boat can take a two-point penalty.

Arbitration will be available, and hearings can be attended by Zoom.

In keeping with the zero-paper approach, requests for hearings will be made via the racingrulesofsailing.org APP or website (event 2363).

ICRA Umpires and Jury Officials will be led by Ailbe Millerick and Bill O’Hara, who will be afloat, witnessing racing as in 2019.

Thursday evening’s ICRA Nationals briefing will be held on Zoom. A Q&A is now available.

Please contact the ICRA technical delegate (Ric Morris, [email protected]) if you have any questions.

There will be no need to register in person at the start of the event. ICRA will work directly with the rating office to confirm IRC ratings for the event, so please ensure they have the correct details on their database. 

ICRA says the 27th will be the final day changes can be processed before the cut-off.

63 boats have already signed up for September's ICRA National Championships ahead of the entry closing date this Friday.

ICRA is expecting more to come by the deadline as some new on-form boats including Mike and Richard Evans J/99 Snapshot and Robert Rendell’s’ Samaton, both successful at June's Sovereign's Cup, are already confirmed. 

As regular Afloat readers know, the event will be hosted by the National Yacht Club on Dublin Bay and the hope is that the final entry will reach 2019 entry levels when the championships were last staged on the Bay.

As Afloat reported earlier, DBSC is supporting the ICRA event by not holding Dublin Bay Cruiser Racing on Saturday, 4th September. 

Race divisions have yet to be finalised subject to final entries but it is great to see each of the classes is featuring a competitive lineup including the Half Tonners, Dux, the sharp J109s together with some top non-spinnaker boats.

Entries close at 5:00 pm on Friday and you can enter here 

Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) is not holding racing for cruiser-racer classes 1 – 5 on Saturday, 4th September in order to accommodate the Irish Cruiser Racer Association (ICRA) National Championships that are being staged on Dublin Bay. 

The annual championships being staged by the National Yacht Club have already received 60 entries and with the collaboration of DBSC, the national cruiser body anticipates an even bigger entry from Dun Laoghaire Harbour's four waterfront clubs. 

DBSC Commodore Ann Kirwan said “DBSC is pleased to support ICRA for this National Championship event next month and in order to encourage our members to participate we will not be holding racing for Cruisers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 on Saturday, September 4th’.

Kirwan also told Afloat ‘there will be racing for B31.7s, Shipmans, Glens, the Green Fleet and DBSC Dinghies that weekend. Only Cruisers 0-5 will not have DBSC racing’. 

ICRA Commodore Richard Colwell commented, “we are delighted that DBSC is supporting and encouraging members to participate in this year’s National Championships”.

Colwell says "we have a good range of yachts across the likely classes, the Championships is gearing up to be a great event and the combined ICRA/National Yacht Club teams are currently working on options for social activities, subject to COVID restrictions with more to follow on this". 

Further details and online entry can be found here

The 2022 IRC European Championship will be held at in Breskens, Netherlands alongside the Breskens Sailing Weekend.

The seventh edition of the IRC European Championship will take place over four days of racing in late August 2022. The championship is expected to attract a record fleet of highly competitive IRC rated boats vying for the overall win and class honours.

Breskens is in many ways the sailing gateway of the Low Countries. The port is strategically located between the Netherlands and Belgium, but is also on the edge of the Scheldt Delta and the North Sea.

The 2022 IRC European Championship will have 70 years of regatta organisation behind it on one of the most challenging sailing waters in Europe. Changing but testing weather conditions and variable currents are always on the menu. The area also offers sheltered water in severe weather situations and undisturbed wind on the open sea. The marina, with an open connection to the sea - the Scheldt estuary - is between the sandbanks and endless sailing areas far from the deep-water shipping lanes and is centrally located.

Breskens Sailing Weekend Foundation offer exemplary race management on inshore and offshore race courses, with an international network of talented race-officers, jury members and race and rescue services. All these elements contribute to the reputation that Breskens has earned as an international sailing competition centre.

The Vlakte van Raan, Walvischstaart, and Rassen are sailing areas where the most intensive sailing competitions have taken place. Even now, this is reserved competition water thanks to the excellent relationship the Foundation has built up with all nautical authorities over the years. Breskens is a relatively short distance for many European countries.

The championship is expected to attract a record fleet of highly competitive IRC rated boats vying for the overall win and class honours © Wacon Images/2019 Breskens Sailing Weekend

Centrally located Breskens has good services and facilities for yachtsmen, plus is known for its good social life. The area also has plenty of tourist attractions, once off the water. These include shopping in the fashionable Knokke, excursions to historic areas such as Bruges, and offers exquisite restaurants in town and in the immediate vicinity, such as the gastronomic epicentre of Zeeuws Vlaanderen.

Breskens is ready and waiting to welcome competitors to the 2022 IRC European Championship. Information will be available in the coming months for the 2022 IRC European Championship and will include Notice of Race, Sailing Instructions and details of the exciting and varied social events programme.

Royal Cork's Grand Soleil 40 Nieulargo (Denis and Annamarie Murphy) has strengthened her position at the top of the Irish Cruiser Racing Association's Boat of the Year rankings thanks to a solid second place in the Coastal Division of Kinsale's Sovereigns Cup at the end of June.

See full points table below

Class wins in June's Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race puts the Sun Odyssey 37 Desert Star (Irish Offshore Sailing) and the J99 Juggerknot II (Andrew Algeo) jointly in second place.

J99 Juggerknot II (Andrew Algeo)

Attention now turns west for August' regattas at Calves Week at Schull and WIORA in Tralee for the next scores in the cruiser-racer annual award.  

ICRA Boat of the Year Points Update

• Nieulargo 9
• Desert Star Irish Offshore Sailing 6
• Juggerknot II 6
• Coracle VI 4.5
• Samatom 4.5
• Shillelagh 4.5
• Slack Alice 4.5
• Snapshot 4.5
• YaGottaWanna 4.5
• Freya 4
• Humdinger 4
• Indian 4
• Rockabill VI 4
• Artful Dodger 3
• Gunsmoke 2 3
• King One 3
• Prince of Tides 3
• Supernova 3
• YOYO 2
• Gambit 2
• Miss Charlie 2
• Valfreya 2
• BonJourno! Part Deux 1.5
• Cortegada 1.5
• Jump Juice 1.5
• Storm 1.5

Points supplied by ICRA - July 9 2021

While for most, the past year and a half will be remembered without much joy. In a number of sailing clubs in all corners of Ireland, enthusiastic U25 squads are preparing their boats for the opportunity to compete against each other and the established keelboat fleets.

ICRA’s U25 Support programme, now in its second year, has committed support to a total of twelve clubs, with offers to support a further number of clubs once their U25 programmes are ready.

ICRA has assisted in the purchase of three new U25 keelboats.

There are capital funds ring-fenced for a further two clubs once they find suitable boats for their programmes. Our trickle funding is assisting seven U25 programmes to fund their annual sailing campaigns, at local, regional, and national level.

The U25 programmes, being supported by ICRA and Irish Sailing currently straddle a number of different keelboats namely J80’s, J24’s and Ruffians. With clubs choosing the platform that best suits the needs of the local fleet.

The Dublin Bay-based Ruffian 23 has been identified as a keelboat type for its U25 programme support Photo: Afloat

With the recent addition of Saoirse Reynolds onto the ICRA Executive, we are looking at additional measures that may offer support and encouragement for clubs to further their keelboat offering. In particular, initiatives that help retain our younger adults sailing and keep them active in our sport.

What is the ICRA U25 support programme?

The ICRA U25 Support Programme is funded by Irish Sailing and will be provided directly to clubs, to assist in developing their ongoing U25 development system.

Mentoring:
ICRA will provide the club with mentoring and advice on how best to structure their U25 programme. This knowledge is drawn from the real experiences of clubs with already established U25 development programmes.

Capital Funding:

The ICRA support programme has Capital Grants available of up to €1,500 available. These grants must be used for the purchase of a club owned keelboat that will be used for a U25 development programme.

Follow On Trickle Funding:

Once a club secures a capital grant or has an existing U25 programme, ICRA can support their programmes by providing “Trickle Grants” for up to three years. These grants are tapered allowing the U25 squad to become more independent over the period to raise or provide their own funds for sailing.

Coaching & Cross Club Communication:

ICRA supported U25 programmes will be offered additional coaching and training opportunities. They will be encouraged to meet and exchange ideas with other U25 programmes so that they can all grow and develop from each other.

This area has been most affected by the current COVID-19 pandemic and the limitations and restrictions we have all been placed under during the past 18 months. However, it is our intention to bring on stream more initiatives in these areas as we are allowed to do so.

Where does the funding come from?

The ICRA / Irish Sailing U25 support programme is funded directly from the IRC and EHCO certification fees paid by keelboat owners to Irish Sailing each year. Reinvesting these fees directly back into the future development and sustainability of Cruiser sailing in Ireland will help to ensure the growth of our sport nationwide.

Clubs Supported:

In the initial round, all of the clubs that already had U25 programmes were invited to join as “existing teams”.

Each of the following clubs already had a club boat or boats, primarily dedicated for a U25 development squad. These clubs were Howth YC, Foynes YC, Sligo YC, Mullaghmore SC, Malahide YC, Rush SC and Royal St George YC.

For the duration of the programme, the U25 squads in each of these clubs now receive a “trickle grant” each spring to kick-start their annual sailing budget.

In addition, during 2019 and 2020 a number of additional clubs have availed of the Capital Grants. Royal Cork YC, Lough Ree YC and Greystones SC have already purchased J24s for their U25 programmes. Royal West of Ireland YC and Mayo SC are currently seeking suitable boats to start their programmes.

All of the above U25 squads are now active within their clubs’ cruiser fleets and many of them are training to attend regional or national regattas throughout the season.

Click here for further details

With several smaller regattas already being held, it looks increasing likely that the ICRA National Championships will be the major event of the 2021 season.

ICRA is encouraging competitors to enter their boats online for the ICRA National Championships hosted by National Yacht Club on 3rd to 5th September, and the association has have extended the early bird rate with an official change to the Notice of Race to allow as many competitors as possible to avail of this.

Entries can be made on-line at cruiserracing.ie/icranats/ before 20 August 2021

The three-day Championships is being held in Dun Laoghaire and Dublin Bay covering offshore, inshore and white sail racing.

The National Yacht Club is the venue for September's ICRA National Championships at Dun Laoghaire
As Afloat previously reported, three fleets will be accommodated at the event covering

• Fleet 0 - Class 0
• Fleet 1 - Class 1 and 2
• Fleet 2 - Class 3 and Corinthians Cup, White Sails classes

The ICRA entry fees are as follows:

Up to 11th July:
Boats rating 0.895 and under:	€165
Boats rating between 0.896 and 0.985:	€195
Boats rating 0.986 and above:	€225

After 11th July:
All boats:	€245

The Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) has announced scoring details for its annual Boat of the Year Award.

The overall prize was unable to be awarded last year due to COVID-19's impact on the cruiser-racer season.

For 2021 and onwards, a boat's 'Boat of the Year' score for a given year shall be the sum of the boat's Event Scores from the 'boat of the year events' listed by ICRA in that year. (See 'ICRA BOTY 2. EVENTS' below for 2021)

A boat's Event Score for a given event shall be its best Division Score from that event multiplied by the events Event Weighting.

A boat's Division Score shall be based on its overall series placing in an IRC division at the event:  3 points for 1st, 2 points for 2nd, 1 point for 3rd

ICRA BOTY 2. EVENTS

CATEGORY 1: CHAMPIONSHIP EVENTS; EVENT WEIGHTING X2

• ICRA National Championships
• Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Yacht Race

CATEGORY 2: NATIONAL REGATTA; EVENT WEIGHTING X1.5

• Sovereigns Cup
• Calves Week
• WIORA

CATEGORY 3: REGIONAL EVENTS: EVENT WEIGHTING X1

• HYC Autumn League
• DBSC Thursday Series
• ISORA Irish Coastal Series
• RCYC Autumn League

ICRA BOTY 3. PRIZES

The ICRA Boat of the Year Trophy shall be awarded to the boat qualifying for ICRA membership with the highest Boat of the Year Score for that year. The trophy shall be presented at the ICRA Annual Conference, usually held in March.

"Sailing is a lifestyle activity which evolves as an expression of a vehicle sport afloat". There you go. So now you know. And please note that it's "lifestyle" and not "lifetime", though the latter also applies. Yet you were thinking it was just boats and sailing………….

This definition is a Sailing on Saturday distillation of several attempts at pinning down our sometimes incomprehensible aquatic interests for a wider world, and it results from many nautical minds devoting themselves to some deep thought during the pandemic lock-downs.

The irony is that those who are good at sailing in its competitive aspects will probably seldom think at all – in fact, probably not at all - about what exactly they're doing in the broader sense. For them, focus on specific performance-improving actions is totally dominant, they just get on with it, with their absorption in activity so totally involving every aspect of their being in the moment, and in what they're doing, that it effectively excludes any mental space for self-indulgent semi-philosophical reflection.

Nevertheless, the effects of the pandemic, the way we handled it while it was at its height, the way various organisations in sailing and boating made the best of the situation as it obtained at different stages, plus the way we're coping as we somewhat unevenly emerge (and let's hope we are emerging, for a Civil War in Japan over the Olympics wouldn't surprise us at all) tells us much about ourselves and our sailing and boating interests.

Going down the mine? At such times, the lone sailor is unlikely to be reflecting on whether or not sailing is a lifestyle activity that evolves as an expression of vehicle sport afloat 

Overall, the abiding impression in Ireland has been of a notably cohesive and responsible society. Oh for sure, there were those who selfishly transgressed - some quite spectacularly. But in general, and certainly among those in the sailing and boating community, the sense was of a shared responsibility to keep things under control in a self-policing way, without requiring some government agency to mount some sort of patrols.

Yet equally, there was an obligation – and it really was an obligation – to get in as much sailing as possible when it was permitted during periods of easing. But even here, there were those who indicated that they preferred to sit it out until the complete all-clear was confirmed, and sailors were good at understanding and respecting the wishes of their fellow-enthusiasts who saw it that way.

In terms of achieving activity afloat, it became a case of the smaller and more specialist the organization and form of sailing involved, the more nimble it could be in having sailing while complying with the regulations of the moment. Single-handed dinghies made hay, with the Lasers in Dun Laoghaire a particular case in point, while two-handed races found their time has come, with Howth's annual Aqua Restaurant Two-Hander in July having its best turnout ever.

Just add water – Drascombes gathered on one of Ireland remotest waterways, on the uppermost Shannon where it enters Lough Allen. Thanks to a mastery of communications, the compact Drascombe Association are well able for what are in effect pop-up events.

But in a very different area of sailing interest, the Drascombe Association in Ireland had one of their busiest seasons. It's a curious reality that the more quaint the boat involved, the more up-to-speed at within-class communications are those involved with sailing them.

The diverse standing army of Drascombe fans may not be completely happy with their prides-and-joy being described as "quaint", so let us assuage them by commenting that when the time is right, all you need to do is add water for an efficiently organised smoothly-communicated Drascombe gathering to take place, and 2020's expeditions up the River Boyne and into the remotest corners of Lough Corrib were classic cases in point.

The larger class organisations such as the notably effective GP 14 Association of Ireland found themselves more restricted, particularly as their originally-planned seasons had involved bringing international fleets to Ireland. But they maintained good lines of communication to members, which leaves them well-placed to accelerate into action when sailing resumes full time.

Thanks to 136 years of race organisation experience, Dublin Bay SC was able to demonstrate how to get "the mostest boats out there the fastest" whenever restrictions were raised. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O'Brien

When many restrictions were lifted for two months last summer, Dublin Bay Sailing Club got the mostest afloat the fastest, and for sheer effectiveness in these unprecedented circumstances, it's the groupings which amount to virtual organisations which have proven themselves the most nimble in providing sport, but it sometimes seemed the fewer involved in the actual running of events, then the more effective it became.

Rudyard Kipling once wrote an odd poem called Winners, whose sentiments were dismissed by George Orwell as being vulgar. Be that as it may, its regularly drummed-home theme was in the two lines:

"Down to Gehenna, or up to the Throne,
He travels the fastest who travels alone".

It's natural to think of its sentiments as coarse selfishness. Yet in running the Irish side of ISORA, Peter Ryan has been largely travelling alone, but it has been for the most unselfish of reasons – the speedy provision of events which comply with regulations yet provide the necessary training buildup for the glamour event which we hope will signal that as good a sailing season as we can reasonably expect in 2021 is getting underway, and that's the National YC's Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race on June 9th.

The smile on the face of the tiger…..Peter Ryan of ISORA says little but does a lot - largely working on his own – such that suddenly the offshore fleet finds itself with viable training races.  

We're now in a sort of limbo for the next two weeks with "Training Racing" permitted, but full-blown sport afloat not permissible until Monday, June 7th, and even then there will still be restrictions ashore, which means that effectively only half of our "lifestyle activity" can be fully activated.

Quite what a "Training Race" involves could be a matter of debate, and there were those who commented that last weekend's vigorous 35-mile ISORA Training Race from Dun Laoghaire looked very much like proper racing under another name.

The inaugural ISORA Training Race 2021 last weekend reinforced the feeling that the best training for offshore racing is going offshore racing. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O'Brien  

"Not so" say those who took part. Many crews were very surprised by just how rusty they were at various sail changing exercises, which normally ran as smoothly as a frequently-rehearsed ballet movement in the old days. And then as further proof it was "just training", the result was changed after the first post-race announcement when it was discovered that Outrajeous, the J/109 part-owned by Irish Cruiser-Racer Association Commodore Richard Colwell, was racing with an outdated and higher rating than was actually the case. In real racing, you usually expect the results to be based on the rating you enter with, but in Training Racing, it seems you're cut a bit of slack.

(Richard Colwell writes: Reading your article this morning. A point of order required. Outrajeous did enter under our correct rating, it was provided to the organisers 5 days before the training event happened, but was NOT updated by the event organisers in their files till afterwards! )

Ben Colwell and his father Richard (ICRA Commodore) aboard the J/109 Outrajeous.

Nevertheless, when the venerable Dublin Bay Water Wags went out in Dun Laoghaire for their first two "Training Races" on Wednesday of this week – a weekly programme for which 21 boats have signed up – it looked for a while as though officialdom at the highest level was keeping an eye on them to see if their training is for real. For the Naval Service's LE George Bernard Shaw came into port in such a way that the word is the "Training Race Officer" had to cancel the first race because of "an obstruction on the course".

"What's going on here then?" We are assured that the Naval Service's LE George Bernard Shaw was not on a Training-Not-Racing Patrol when she arrived into Dun Laoghaire on Wednesday in the midst of the Water Wags' first Training Race of the season.

"Power gives way to sail…." The view from the bridge on the LE George Bernard Shaw as a Dun Laoghaire Water Wag nips across.

However, the whisper on the waterfront is that every so often the navy ships are in Dun Laoghaire on a mock gunnery exercise to see how quickly they could level the still-controversial DLR Lexicon in the same way as the Helga did in the GPO in 1916. And the experience gained in such training could of course be re-directed to eliminating the proposed superstition-rejecting 13-storey apartment block supposedly approved for the Dun Laoghaire waterfront.

Be that as it may, sending a gunboat to check out whether or not the Water Wags really were on a Training Race would be an absurd waste of resources at a time when the Russians are clearly softening up the country – through preliminary cyber-attacks – for some sort of invasion. For as one experienced Water Wag sailor observed:

"In a fleet as diverse in sailing style as the Water Wags, it is always easy to discern a significant number of boats which are quite clearly involved in some sort of training exercise, rather than in any serious racing".

Nevertheless, the Water Wags can now cherish an unprecedented entry to their lengthy record of racing, which goes back to 1887:

Wednesday, May 19th 2021:

Training Race 1: Cancelled mid-race due to intervention of gunboat.

Training Race 2: Cancelled mid-race due to lack of wind.

Ominous sunset. Despite the calm which stopped the Water Wags second attempt at a Training Race on Wednesday, the late evening sky gave every sign of Thursday's approaching storm.

A Dublin Bay-based race boat crew that have made modifications to their deck layout for the 2021 season require a flush-mounted deck compass to fit a 99-mm opening before the sailing season starts (hopefully) next month.

The Plastimo 95 model compass or similar would fit the bill, they say but it is proving hard to source.

Anyone with one of these vintage models in their spares box and willing to trade can get in touch through Afloat by email webeditor@afloat.ie (subject line; compass) and we'll be happy to make the connection.

Update on 29/4/2022 14.30hrs: Thanks to a generous reader a suitable compass has been found!