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Breskens Sailing Weekend to Organise 2022 IRC European Championship

28th July 2021
Racing will take place over four days at Breskens in late August 2022
Racing will take place over four days at Breskens in late August 2022

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.

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)