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Displaying items by tag: Fergus Coughlan's

It was one of those weekends in Cork Harbour where the wind refused to play the game writes Claire Bateman. All was prepared and in readiness at Cove sailing Club for the McWilliam One Sail SCORA South Coast Championships on Saturday morning. They had the committee boat, the support RIBS, the marks and last but certainly not least they had acquired the services of the hard working Neil Prendeville as the PRO.

Setting up the committee boat off "Foxes Cover" in about 6 knots of wind the Race Officer sent off the fleets who started with great enthusiasm but alas and alack this wind did not hold but was quite happy to die and fill in again from a different direction only to die once more, making it a frustrating day for the sailors.

Sunday, if anything, was worse with the wind boxing the compass. Despite the lack of wind the fleets did manage to complete one shortened round thus enabling a result for the Championships.

OVERALL RESULTS:

In Class One IRC Ria Lyden in Elida was first with Colman Garvey in True Pennance second. This situation was repeated in ECHO.

In Class Two IRC Vinnie Delaney's Yanks & Ffrancs was first with the other Corby 25 Denis Coleman's Thunderbird second.

In Class Two ECHO Yanks & Ffrancs again prevailed with Leonard Donnery's No Gnomes in second place.

In Class Three IRC Niall Kelly's WOT Like took first place with Dominic Losty's Woody second.

In Class Three ECHO it was Fergus Coughlan's White Knight took the win followed by Liam and Pat Coakley's J24 JAY.

In Class Four IRC Two GK 24s fought it out with Mike Sexton's Granny Knot beating Kevin O'Connell's Gaelic Kiwi into second place.

In Class Four ECHO Granny Knot again took the win with Peter Webster's Thistle in second place.

Published in SCORA

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)