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Displaying items by tag: Balazs Hajdu

After the Finn class released its video 'Sailing at its best' on YouTube last week, the response has been nothing short of phenomenal say the class officials. The video is part of a campaign to ISAF to keep the class an Olympic dinghy and the chips are down. To date more than 17,500 views have been recorded from more than 110 countries.

According to YouTube Insight statistics it is the second most viewed sailing video over the past month.

If you haven't seen it yet then check it out on the Afloat home page, scroll down to the bottom of this post or click HERE

The video is just a small part of the classes enhanced media plan. Class President Balazs Hajdu wrote earlier this year, "Today the sailing community realises that media appeal is not only about what you broadcast but also about how you broadcast. By making footage and coverage on Finn races so comprehensive, continuous, available and ground breaking, the International Finn Association brings a message that the Finn is not only a great Olympic class showing close, tactical and fair competition for fit, healthy and heavier elite sportsmen at the top of their game but also that the sport of sailing is able to deliver the media requirements of the IOC and the broadcasters."

Comments posted online about the 2 minute and 40 second video have backed this up

- Outstanding video. This is the pinnacle of dinghy sailing captured on video.

- Fantastic sailing video. This is really promoting Olympic Sailing
- Without a doubt one of the best sailing videos EVER.
- This is simply awesome! Never thought Olympic and small boats sailing is so cool. GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT
- This is just fantastic! This is actually what we want to see from Olympic Sailing.
- The more I watch it the more I love it.

Die hard Finn fans will also be pleased to know that a longer version is in production and will be released later this month.

Published in World Sailing

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)