This year’s Irish Cruiser Racing Association Annual Conference will take place at the Castletroy Park Hotel in Limerick on Saturday 4th March from 10.30.

Under the heading ‘We Must Talk about Cruiser Racing’ this year’s conference promises to be an exciting discussion on the hot topics surrounding the world of Cruiser Racing in Ireland today.

The format of the discussion will be an open floor Q&A session chaired by Denis Kiely.

ICRA would like to hear your voice on the state of cruiser racing in your club. We hope that sharing of information from the people on the ground will help us all find ways to encourage and develop cruiser racing within our own clubs.

Commodore Simon McGibney also wants to take the opportunity to update on developments by ICRA including Crew Point and launching a grant scheme to assist clubs in providing approved Cruiser Racing Training Programmes.

The conference will include guest speaker Prof. O’Connell on ‘Winning a World Championship’ and Mike Urwin from RORC sharing his insights on the IRC world today.

The presentation of the ICRA Boat of the Year 2016 will take place towards the end of the conference and it’s not too late to have your say!

The ICRA Boat of the Year nomination form can be found along with the agenda and additional information on the conference on the Irish Cruiser Racing website 

ICRA is your national association and we want to hear your views on how ICRA is doing and how it should develop for the future – we would like to see and hear from you on March 4.

A buoyant ICRA conference at the Castletroy Park Hotel in Limerick yesterday saw Simon McGibney of Foynes Yacht Club succeed Norbert Reilly of Howth Yacht Club as Commodore. It is the first time ICRA has elected a Commodore from the west coast.

An attendance of 80 sailors representing all the major sailing clubs on the east, south and west coasts participated for the first time in a round table format to encourage ideas from the floor on the future direction ICRA should take in order to grow the cruiser racing sector in Ireland.

In an enthusiastic gathering, Reilly summarised initiatives needed to achieve 'more sailors/more sailing' or as McGibney described it 'more bums on boats'.

John Leech gave a strong safety awareness talk and Afloat.ie's Winkie Nixon entertained with his views on ICRA's role and its positive approach to listening to its market.

Leading sailing school Alistair Rumball of the Irish National Sailing School in Dun Laoghaire and sailmaker Des McWilliam from Crosshaven made excellent presentations on their training initiates for the cruiser racing sector that are attracting increasing numbers and improving skills and feeding members to Clubs

Reilly also highlighted the ICRA crew point project which it is hoped will lead to identify areas within clubs of people who would like to go sailing and link them up with owners. 

ORC gave an informative update on its developments worldwide and an insight in to its rating rule progression.

In the absense of ICRA's ECHO handicap guru, Denis Kiely, who was unable to attend for personal reasons, former commodore Barry Rose and Ronan Enright, commodore of SCORA, gave the meeting an insight in to the evolving of the system over the last seven years to a Progressive ECHO model starting from an IRC base and being totally transparent and computerised analysing performance in a measured way to re adjust ratings automatically after every race. This model has produced great results and has been used during this period at ICRA Nationals, Volvo Cork Week, Volvo DL Week, WIORA, SCORA and by clubs on the south and west coasts.

ICRA is encouraging its use nationally as it is a very effective dual scoring system alongside IRC to encourage spreading the prizes and interest through the fleet and represents a credible performance alternative to the fixed number rating systems.

Afloat.ie's Tom MacSweeney ran an inciteful interreactive session with those present on how to present a welcoming approach to encourage new entrants to the sport.

The ICRA Nationals are in Howth Yacht Club this year from 10th to 12th June and arrangements are well advanced and it promises to be another high calibre event

Volvo Cork Week, the Round Ireland race and WIORA were also promoted at the event

The Irish Sailing Association (ISA) were represented by Jack Roy and Harry Hermon and the ICRA executive are in advanced discussions with the ISA to attract the support needed to grow the sector.

The conference concluded with presentation of ICRA Boat Of The Year trophy to George Sisk and his crew on Wow who had a fantastic season winning the ICRA Nationals in the process.

Eight National Cruiser Racer Championship Titles & Corinthian Cups will be decided next June at Howth Yacht Club (HYC). Racing under Progressive ECHO & IRC handicap, the 2016 ICRA National Championships runs from June 10-12. The full Notice of Race is downloadable below.

To tie in with Royal Cork Yacht Club's 300th birthday celebrations the 2017 and 2020 Irish Cruiser Racer National Championships (ICRA) will be staged at the RCYC it was announced last night. 

Incoming ICRA commodore Simon McGibney from Kilrush in County Clare made the Tercentenary year announcement at the conclusion of the club's CH Marine Autumn league in Crosshaven.

The double championship announcement follows other ICRA news last week when the national cruiser racer body said its annual conference will move from the traditional November date to March 5.

The 2015/16 conference will be held in Limerick City to mark the election of McGibney as commodore, its first to come from west of the Shannon.2017 - Royal Cork Yacht Club

Future ICRA Dates

2016 – Howth Yacht Club

2017 – Royal Cork Yacht Club

2018 – Unconfirmed

2019 – Unconfirmed

2020 - Royal Cork Yacht Club [Tercentenary year]

#cruiserracing – Buoyed up by yesterday's news that Irish Commodore's Cup yacht Antix (Anthony O'Leary) won the Royal Ocean Racing Club's Boat of the Year award in London, the annual cruiser racing conference staged by ICRA heads to Galway harbour on Saturday. The annual conference, open to all sailors, inlcudes nine presentations including a special Commodore's Cup presentation by ICRA's winning team.

The conference line up also includes a focus on handicapping and an insight into the local ECHO system and, say ICRA, just how powerful the system is when used properly.

There will also, no doubt, be a lot of chat about next season's headline events not least ICRA's own 2015 National Championships that will be run in conjunction with the Sovereign's Cup.

Other major cruiser-racer events next year are: 

Dun Laoghaire Dingle 12  June

Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta 9–12 July

WIORA 22–25 July

Calves Week 4–7 August 

The conference will be held at the Harbour Hotel in Galway from 10:30 – 16:00. It concludes with ICRA's own 'Boat of the Year' presentation.

#cruiserracing – As we start to emerge from seven years of recession, we find the world of sailing has undergone changes which may have not been noticed in the struggle for economic survival. To prosper today, it seems that sailing must hope to be family friendly, and accessible to spectators and would-be participants alike. W M Nixon reflects on how this is working out in the macho world of cruiser racing.

The ICRA Nationals 2015 will be combined with next year's biennial Sovereigns Cup in Kinsale in order to make the event more user-friendly, and comfortably exceed the required critical mass in terms of numbers participating. It is an utterly logical development. And it's scarcely sensational breaking news, as the dogs in the street have been aware of it for a while now, even if an official announcement has yet been made.

But for those who were rather taken by the original notion of the Irish Cruiser-Racing Association staging an annual stand-alone national championship event, rotated around maybe as many as half a dozen centres, this may seem like a retrograde step from the high-flown idealism of the founders. And their vision certainly worked when the streets were awash with money, and people continued to subscribe to the notion that it was acceptable for offshore racing types to devote virtually all their free time to their rather expensive sport, regardless of how anti-social it seemed to family and friends (if they had any of either).

Now, however, the money's gone, and if anything its absence has accelerated the move towards shared recreation. Whatever rugged traditional amateur offshore racing may have been in its heyday, it scarcely qualified as shared recreation. Its austere joys were confined to the direct participants, while the outcome of each contest was an arcane matter to be teased out and analysed only by a very small number of aficionados.

Yet the boats it developed proved popular, with one of the by-products being the acceptance and development of cruisers which sailed well and could, if wished, be realistically raced. In fact, in Ireland in particular, many of these boats with lids are never cruised at all, and no-one ever even overnights aboard them. So after you've had yet another samey day sail round the same familiar old bay, the idea of a spot of racing has appeal.

A boat regularly raced with a modicum of enthusiasm and skill will attract regular crewmembers who want to be sure of getting their fix of sailing once or twice a week, but who also have other things to do – they've other sports, hobbies and interests to take up the rest of their time in addition to the increasing demands of family and social expectations.

Steady steering afloat, and flexible management ashore....Nobby Reilly of Howth, Commodore of ICRA, helming his Mills 36 Crazy Horse. Photo: Bob Bateman

Lord knows it's all a very long way from the hundred per cent totally rugged offshore racing dedication of international legends like John Illingworth, Dick Nye, Carleton Mitchell and Adlard Coles, but this is the way we sail today. As for really serious stuff, we now leave that to highly-sponsored professionals in sailing machines. And as to any temptation to take part in challenging events, we focus on major happenings like the Fastnet and the Round Ireland. But the rest of the time, we seem to prefer a semi-inshore programme, and home in time for tea.

The ICRA management are a savvy bunch, and they are keen to provide what the market demands. In fact one of their number is Richard Colwell of RedC Polls, the noted opinion poll and market research outfit. His company is a bit busy at the moment – something about European and Local Elections next week – but once that's tidied away, he's going to run an exercise on what cruiser-racer folk really want in their annual programme.

It's not nearly as easy as it seems. If your organisation is going to benefit from successfully going with the flow, then you have to be able to outline a reasonably creative questionnaire structure to indicate where the flow might most usefully go in the first place. Chickens and eggs and all that sort of thing maybe, but good management has to manifest itself in many wonderful ways in a mixture of guidance and productive acceptance of the results of research.

However, before we look at how next month's ICRA Nationals in Dun Laoghaire are shaping up, the Kinsale link-up decision should be considered in the light of its effects on events beyond 2015. ICRA brings any co-operating club an unrivalled database and a hugely experienced race management and administration team. Thus, a neat linkup with an established regatta will confer enormous mutual advantages.

Yet surely it is essential for the good of Irish sailing overall - and particularly for the good of sailing at significant centres which are not holders of major biennial regattas – that from time to time the ICRA Nats continue to be staged as a stand-alone event?

Once the linkup has been made to the Sovereigns Cup at Kinsale, you can see the slippery slope with linkups to the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta in Dun Laoghaire, and Cork Week itself. Carried to its logical conclusion, going with the flow to this extent would exclude other regatta-less centres on a permanent basis.

Crosshaven offers such a total package afloat and ashore, complete with a large ready-made home fleet, that smaller ports are at a disadvantage in competing to stage regattas. Photo: Bob Bateman

But that would be too totally at variance with ICRA's ethos of being a truly national body. And fortunately there is a let-out. Both the VLDR and Cork Week are held in July. The ICRA Nats have always been in either May or June. Thus although the Sovereigns Cup may be traditionally the last week of June, it's June nevertheless, and the basic integrity of the by-now traditional annual programme is maintained.

In the final analysis, it comes down the numbers game, and the Cork area and Dublin Bay start with an in-built advantage with their large fleets. In fact, Dun Laoghaire's enormous fleet puts it in a class of its own, and all sorts of special effects related to it being the harbour for a populous and burgeoning capital city come into play.

A brisk race, and back in time for tea – it's the way most cruiser-racers sail today. Photo: Bob Bateman

When everything falls into place, the numbers involved can be staggering. The increasing accuracy of weather forecasts plays a role in this. Last year, as the weather maps started looking a bit more healthy as the time for the four-day Volvo Dun Laoghaire approached, boats which had scarcely been racing at all were given a top and tail, they chatted their way through the late entry process, and crews were soon brought together for a sun-filled summer campaign in a record fleet.

It may sound a very hit and miss way to plan you sport, but that's the way we live now. Anyone in the hospitality industry in the West of Ireland can tell you that if there's a good forecast for the weekend, the Dubliners who can now reach them in a couple of hours on the motorway will be in contact, cutting last-minute deals. And if the weather's bad, those same Dubliners will either spend the weekend at home on indoor pursuits, or else they'll hightail to the airport to take up a late bargain on a day or two in the sun.

When volatility like that becomes the norm, management will have to be flexible or it will fail. Even in times past, "Surely you knew we'd be coming?" was a frequent greeting as some late un-entered would-be participant turned up at an Irish regatta. That said, if you're half serious about your racing, you'll have had it all – boats and crew alike - in place months in advance. But the latecomers will happily claim that such punctiliousness makes it even more galling when some bunch of hastily-assembled pierhead jumpers goes out and gets a good result.

Entries for the ICRA Nationals 2014 at the Royal Irish YC from June 13th to 15th went through the hundred mark this week when Darragh McCormack's Foynes-based J/24 Maximus became officially registered, and almost immediately afterwards Converting Machine from Pwllheli in North Wales came aboard, so progress towards the desired 120 is looking good.

That may seem optimistic with just four weeks to go, but Fintan Cairns of ICRA, who is monitoring the list and liaising with the RIYC, is a realist. Remembering what happened with the VLDR in the final days of countdown last year, he's keeping one eye on the met maps, and another on the current low entry in classes like the Sigma 33s and the First 211s. A bit nearer the time, and a cheerful weather prospect for mid-June will see those numbers coming to life.

That said, up at the sharp end, the serious entries have been in place for weeks, and it's already a cracker of a fleet. And even the most rugged traditionalist offshore racer who claims to enjoy nothing more than a 90 mile slug to windward will allow himself (or herself) to enjoy a bit of sunshine sailing in the bay.

This sort of cruiser-racing is just the ticket for most crews – and they'd prefer not to be in an event which involves racing at night. Photo: Bob Bateman

#corby25 – A Corby 25 IRC cruiser–racer built by Harley Yachts, is on market, just in time for competition at the ICRA Nationals in Dun Laoghaire in June and Cork Week in July.

Thunderbird has been well maintained and stored inside every winter. The 2004 build is advertised on Afloat Boats for Sale site through Northern Ireland broker Whyboats Northern Ireland.

One of the most successful designs drawn by John Corby, these 25–footers have been extremely successful in Ireland, the UK and wins include the Irish IRC nationals Class 2 from 2007 to 2001 and Cork Week - IRC 5 in 2010 and 2008. The Corby 25 was awarded Yacht of the Year in 2009.

On sale at €25,000, Thunderbirds are go! Full advert here.

#icranats – Take sixty-one offshore racers, recruited from Ireland's leading sailing centres. Place them in a bay of stunning beauty, set among spectacular mountains perhaps, but nevertheless a bay which is inescapably located right on Ireland's Atlantic weather frontier. Then take a witch's brew of weather, with at least three different low pressure areas circling with malice around your race area on an axis of about 400 miles.

That done, carefully calibrate the line of the Polar jetstream so that its most vivid red hues on the charts are located precisely over your chosen location, massively accentuating the power of any breezes or rainstorms occuring within its ambit. Then sit back and contemplate the extreme results of your wicked work. And what you have is precisely the setup which developed as the four day WIORA Championship and ICRA Nationals were staged at Tralee Bay.

For the ICRA Nats from Thursday June 13th to Saturday June 15th, they'd scheduled six races in a no-discard series. They did well to get a series with the minimum staging of three races, two on the Thursday in champagne sailing conditions, and then as the weather went down the tubes on Friday, just one hour long event in filthy rain to hit the quota.

Sailingwise, Saturday was totally blown out. But they'd a result already, and of course by having the incorporated WIORA series starting a day earlier, the most enthusiastic participants saw themselves as losing only one day's racing out of a four day series. Horses for courses, perhaps, but for some determined western sailors, this was exactly as it should have been. They're singularly proud of the fact that WIORA has held an annual championship since 1976 – it's an education to read on their website the champions list of gallant western boats and skippers going back 37 years – while ICRA is the new boy on the block, still wet behind the ears with its foundation as recently as 2002.

Tralee Bay, a place of stunning beauty a great sailing venue twice visited by the ICRA national fleet. Photo Bob Bateman

The lead-in to the series at Tralee was deceptive, as the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race of June 7th, used by many as a feeder, was gentle summer sailing at its very best. The very best, that is, if you won on a rising breeze from the back of the fleet, which is what Tralee skipper Brian O'Sullivan and his crew managed with their veteran Oyster 37 Amazing Grace. But maybe not so good for the O'Leary family with their Baltimore/Crosshaven Ker 39 Antix, which achieved line honours in handsome style in Dingle, only to see their placing slip to 14th overall as the tail-enders became the leaders.

The Oyster 37 Amazing Grace from the host club. Photo: Bob Bateman

So as the boats gathered in Fenit a couple of days later, there was keen anticipation to see if the pattern of the Dingle race results could be reversed. And there was a completely new boat in the picture too. The latest race machine from X Yachts of Denmark, the XP33, made her debut only last November. But Conor Fanning of X Yachts secured one for Ireland, and with Colin Byrne of Dun Laoghaire on the helm and the legendary Jochem Visser on the strength, clearly this boat Bon Exemple was one to watch.

IRC one champion Bon Exemple, is the new Xp33 design. Photo: Bob Bateman

Not all boats had entered both championships, so the WIORA Overall Results posted soon after Friday's gloomy token race have notable absentees. In IRC0 the four entries appropriately had a western champion, Martin Breen's Reflex 38 Discover Ireland with Denise Phelan's Ker 37 from Jump Juice second five points behind. But in IRC 1 the points margin was in a different league – the XP 33 was put of sight with just 5 points, while John Gordon's X332 from Mayo had 20. Another western boat, Ray McGibney's Dehler 34 Dis-a-Ray from Foynes, won IRC2 with 9 points from two Corby 25s, Liam Burke's Tribal from Galway on 14, and Rob Allen's Smile of Kirush and Galway on 20. IRC 3 saw an east coast winner, Barry Cunningham's Quarter Tonner Quest from the RIYC by 10 points from the 15.5 of the host club's Gary Fort with his J/24 Jaguar.

Antix, the Ker 39, is the IRC Zero champion. Photo: Bob Bateman

When the ICRA imprimatur came into play on the Thursday, the competition notably intensified, and the pace of sunny Thursday was maintained into Friday's "grand soft day, thank God". The Antix crew were in fighting form in the five boat IRC 0, but fair play to the Galwaymen on Lynx Clipper, they were only 2.5 points adrift at the end, Antix on 5.5 to Lynx's 8, while ICRA Commodore Nobby Reilly of Howth took third with co-owner Alan Chambers on their Mills 36 Crazy Horse Mills 36, only 1.5 points behind Lynx.

The big turnout in IRC 1 saw Bon Exemple resume her successful debut, but not until after she'd trailed Pat Kelly from Rush with his J/109 Storm – the Fingal flyers finished only two points behind the hyper-hot new X boat, and another J/109, Ian Nagle's Jelly Baby from Cork, was in the hunt too, finishing on 10 to be 3 points clear of Paul O'Higgins Corby 33 from Dun Laoghaire.

IRC2 had an even better geographical spread of top boats, underlining the truly national nature of this event. Indeed, in this class it was international, as winner Nigel Biggs with his Half Tonner Checkmate may race for RStGYC in Ireland, but he's from North Wales, and you're as likely to find him competing in the Solent. Normally it's a direct ding-dong between Checkmate and David Cullen's classic Half Tonner King One from Howth, but Ray McGibney from Foynes with his veteran Dehler 34 Dis-a-Ray pulled off a coup by getting between them with second on 9 points while King One was third on 12, fourth going to Paul & Deirdre Tingle of Cork with the Corby 25 Alpaca while sister ship Tribal (Liam Burke, Galway) was fifth.

Barry Cunningham of Dun Laoghaire in IRC3 was the only skipper to pull off the double of winning overall in both WIORA and ICRA with his sweet little Humphreys Quarter Tonner Quest. The enthusiastic Losty team from Cobh with their restored French Quarter Tonner Illes Pitiuses were second on 8 points to Quest's 5, while local helm Gary Fort was in the frame again, third on 9 points with his J/24 Jaguar, well clear of fourth placed Alliance II, Vincent Gaffney's interesting and rare Laser 28 from Howth, on 16 points.

The marina in Fenit was the base for the60-boat ICRA championship fleet. Photo: Bob Bateman

When Tralee Bay SC staged the Irish Intervarsity Team Racing Opens for 26 teams back on the St Patrick's Weekend in March, they had great luck with the weather – reasonably gentle sunny conditions, while most of the rest of Ireland continued ion th grip of winter. So maybe the Kerrymen used up their quota of good weather luck three months ago. But although the last day may have been blown out on Tralee Bay for the ICRA Nats, when the sailing was good, it was very good indeed, and the images from this championship show sailing at its best.

Champions with ICRA commodore Nobby Reilly (centre) at TBSC. Photo: Gareth Craig

FINE DAY FOR SPRING WARMER FINALE

Howth Yacht Club's Spring Warmer Sailing Series, sponsored by Key Capital Private, came to a close on Saturday afternoon after the eight classes completed the six-race series in conditions which, while pleasant, were particularly frustrating for the race officers. With the winds shifting from northerly to easterly as the day wore on, it was no surprise that the starts for both races were delayed until conditions settled.

In terms of numbers, the SB3s had the biggest entry with 17, with a dozen or so out each week. Sharkbait (Duncan/Moran) and Yeti (Sean Craig, RStGYC) dominated proceedings on the last day, notching 1^st and 2^nd respectively in both races. While that was no doubt satisfying, it wasn’t enough to prevent the consistent Eoin Quinlan in ‘Shockwave’ from taking the overall prize.

The Quinn/O’Flaherty partnership in Fetching has been the crew to beat in the Etchells from day one and while Kootamundra Wattle and Jabberwocky took turns to win on the last day, two second places was more than enough for Fetching to head the fleet overall. That their discard was a second place speaks volumes for their dominance.

Class 1 was a three-boat affair but it was Storm (Pat Kelly) who headed Equinox (Ross McDonald) with two wins to take the overall honours by two points on IRC, although the order was reversed under ECHO.

Xtra Time (M&P Arthurs, MYC) enjoyed success in the first race but it was never going to be enough to upset the odds on Maximus (Pat Kyne) winning the Class 2 trophy on IRC, with the Howth boat also winning on ECHO as well.

Over on the ‘inshore course’, Class 2 was effectively a match-race between two boats – Gecko and Starlet – who took it in turns to win the races so that in the end they couldn’t be separated and had to share the spoils.

Lough Erne visitor JP McCaldin got away well to win the first race and with two guns and two seconds over the first two weekends had the luxury of retiring from the final race knowing that the series was wrapped up. Scandal from MYC (with Mossy Shanahan on helm) won well in the last race to share second overall with Flor O’Driscoll’s Hard On Port.

The only perfect score of the series was in the Puppeteers where Dave Clarke’s Harlequin topped the fleet with a peerless six guns and the margin of victory was such that they also won on handicap. Eclipse (A & R Hegarty) had a satisfactory series, finishing runner-up on both scratch and handicap.

Visiting boats dominated the Squibs from day one and while Royal North entry Toy for the Boys (P.Wallace) won the penultimate race, normal service was resumed with Lola (F.Whelan, RStGYC) in the last, to take the title by a clear four points from another George boat Nimble (O’Hare & others). 

ICRA members sailing in Dun Laoghaire will be interested to know that North Sails Ireland have announced they are to run an overnight sail repair service during the Liebherr Cruiser Nationals. The service will be run out of the Stena Line ferry terminal in Dun Laoghaire.

Contact details for the North Sails Ireland are available on their website: www.northsails.ie