If it’s an even-numbered year, it’s a Round Ireland Race Year! Things are warming up in Wicklow Sailing Club, the 2017 Mitsubishi Irish Sailing Club of the Year, where preparations for the 2018 Volvo Round Ireland Yacht Race are well under way.
Róisín Hennessy, Vice-Commodore of the club, has taken over as Chair of the race committee. A dinghy sailor, Róisín competed in the 2014 race on board Farmer Ryan’s Volvo 60 Monster Project where the team on board took Line Honours in that race.
She will be working closely with Race Organiser Theo Phelan – this is his fourth race as organiser – and with the race committee as they target the delivery of another successful and exciting race.
The 2016 race saw several records broken with George David in Rambler 88 taking both 1st place in IRC and monohull Line Honours. He also added a new record time of 2 days 2 hours 24 minutes and 9 seconds to the many achievements of this American Maxi. Now that’s a record to beat!
Are you up for the challenge? The VRI is one of the longest offshore races in the RORC championship series at 704 nm. It offers spectacular sailing, from the west coast Atlantic rollers to the tidal gates around the Irish Sea.
Save the Date: the 2018 edition of the race starts on 30th June in Wicklow and entries open in January 2018 at www.roundireland.ie. The race carries a 1.4 point weighting in the RORC Championship series.
As an additional carrot for competitors, Volvo have ‘upped the ante’ with their announcement that there is a fantastic prize of a Volvo V40 car, for the best registered entrant on corrected time over the three races from 2016 to 2020.