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Displaying items by tag: Uno

Below: Union Chandlery Topaz Nationals 2009, Malahide YC image_thumb.jpeg

The Topaz Class Association of Ireland has been formed to promote the Topaz Uno and Uno Plus as the one design Sailing dinghy of choice for the modern generation.

Please note: 2009 Events – New Rules This year it has been decided by the Class Association Committee that all of the Class Association events for Unos and Uno Pluses will be scored as one fleet, with NO handicap system.
Changing fleets during an event will only be allowed with the prior approval of the race committee. Boats that are allowed to change fleet during an event will be scored as a new entrant to the event.
Changing of crew during an event will only be allowed with the prior approval of the race committee. Permission will only be given to change crew during an event if they are of similar weight. 

 

Afloat's Graham Smith wrote, in the February/March 2009 issue: "One of the newcomers on the Irish sailing scene, the double-handed Topaz has certainly captured the imagination of members of six clubs. In a relatively short period of time, the class has grown to almost 100 boats, putting it into the top 10 of classes by numbers.

Getting a third of the national fleet to compete at the Irish Championships at Wexford Harbour represents a singular success for the class administrators and young Richard Arthurs from Malahide (which boasts one of the biggest club fleets) will have been happy to take the title ahead of 32 rivals.

Another Malahide helm, Conor Costelloe, won the Easterns on home waters and Wexford’s Ronan Jones took the Western title (curiously held in Dungarvan in the South-East!), both with fleets in the high teens. The biggest event of the Topaz year in numerical terms was the Southerns in Baltimore where local helm Fionn Lyden was the best of 46 entries. National Champion 2009: Richard Arthurs, Malahide YC" 


Topaz Class Association of Ireland  c/o Peter Harrington, President, Kilnahue Lane, Gorey, Co. Wexford. Email: [email protected]

There is a space for Irish boating clubs and racing classes to use as their own bulletin board and forum for announcements and discussion. If you want to see a dedicated forum slot for your club or class, click here 

 

 

Published in Classes & Assoc

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)