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Displaying items by tag: Waterways Ireland's draft byelaws

In sailing, Brian C expects the 1720 sports boat class to explode again in the coming months. He says "with a lot of the top IRC boats sold and heading for foreign lands, the 1720 can be picked up easily/cheaply and coupled with only having to find 4 crew plus the skip, its easy and most of all affordable to campaign". PLUS they're great to sail in 25 knots. Join in here.

In power boating, Blimp is looking for help in running the P750 European Championships. "Could you be a marshal?"  Help him here.

On inland waters there will be a public meeting on the Newry-Portadown Canal. We're also keen to get feedback on Waterways Ireland's draft bye-laws here.

And in a new post this morning, there is a suggestion to rewrite the Rules of Sailing. We've had a message from an experienced Irish campaigner who says "there is a huge reluctance to go in to the protest room. Instead people turn a blind eye to all sorts of things on the race course. Not much honour there, really". He says "if we can't self-police what's the point in having all these rules?" He wants just three rules. They're on the forum here.

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Published in 1720

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)