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Royal Irish Publishes Notice of Race for Unio ICRA National Championships

2nd February 2024
Brendan Foley's First Class 8, 'Allig8r' from the Royal St. George Yacht Club, competing in the 2023 ICRA National Championships at Howth Yacht Club. The 2024 event will be staged by the Royal Irish Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire from 30th August- 1st September
Brendan Foley's First Class 8, 'Allig8r' from the Royal St. George Yacht Club, competing in the 2023 ICRA National Championships at Howth Yacht Club. The 2024 event will be staged by the Royal Irish Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire from 30th August- 1st September Credit: Afloat

The Notice of Race and online entry has been published for the Unio-sponsored ICRA National Championships 2024 at the Royal Irish Yacht Club this August.

Organisers plan to split fleets into Class 0, Class 1, Class 2, Class 3 and Non-Spinnaker for the event that runs from 30th August- 1st September. Up to 100 yachts are expected to compete.

The Notice of Race is downloadable below.

There will be a maximum of four races on any day. Seven races are scheduled.

As previously reported on Afloat.ie, this year’s ICRA Nationals mark the beginning of a unique series of major sailing championships hosted by the Royal Irish in Dun Laoghaire Harbour.

The closing date for entries on this link is 19th August 2024.

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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)