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RC35 Champion 'Animal' Beats Howth's 'Storm' at Kip Regatta

12th May 2019
Pat Kelly's Storm was runner-up in the RC35 class at Kip Regatta Pat Kelly's Storm was runner-up in the RC35 class at Kip Regatta Credit: Afloat.ie

Scottish RC35 champion Debbie Aitken's First 36.7 Animal has taken first blood of the season beating the Howth Yacht Club J109 Storm (Pat Kelly) at this weekend's two-day Kip Regatta on the Clyde.

As Afloat readers will know, the Storm crew who hail from Rush in North County Dublin opted to defend their 2018 Kip title instead of racing closer to home at the J109 Eastern Championships on Dublin Bay.

Animal took four wins to produce a convincing victory in the ten-boat fleet on four nett points with Kelly's Storm second on ten points, some five points clear of the Scottish J109 Blue Jay.

Full results are here.

Following the Royal Western Yacht Club hosted event, the next big event in the Irish Sea is, of course, the Scottish Series at Tarbert in a fortnight where a bigger than normal Irish fleet is expected.  Storm is also the Scottish Series RC35 class winner so will face Animal again in two weeks time.

Published in ICRA, RC35
Afloat.ie Team

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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)