The Irish Cruiser Racer Association's (ICRA) new committee for 2023 was elected at Saturday's national conference agm in Dun Laoghaire.

Commodore Dave Cullen announced to the hybrid meeting – online and in attendance at the Royal St George Yacht Club – that there were two new Dublin additions for the coming season. 

Howth skipper Mike Evans, the current ICRA boat of the year skipper, joins as a committee member with Dun Laoghaire sailor Alice Shanahan of the National Yacht Club.

The balance of the 12-person committee under Cullen, who starts his second year in office, is Secretary Denis Byrne, Treasurer, John Leech Treasurer, Technical Delegate Ric Morris, Brian Raftery, ISORA Rep Peter Ryan, IRC Liaison Mark Mills, Liam Lynch, SCORA Rep Daragh Connelly and Youth Pathways liaison Saoirse Reynolds.

The 2023 ICRA conference and agm held at the Royal St. George Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire on Dublin Bay

In a packed morning conference schedule, the Commodore welcomed representatives from June's Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race and Sovereign's Cup at Kinsale, July's Dun Laoghaire Regatta, ISORA, SCORA and WIORA, along with Howth's staging of the ICRA Nationals in September. As Afloat reported earlier, each gave updates on their regatta and race plans this summer.

The 2023 meeting marked the 20th edition of the conference. As regular Afloat readers will know, an exploratory ICRA meeting between Denis Kiely, Jim Donegan and Fintan Cairns in the Granville Hotel was held in Waterford in 2022, and the first conference was held in February 2003 in Kilkenny.

Read also: 

ICRA Hears of Robotic Buoys as Dun Laoghaire Regatta Seeks 400-Boats for Ireland's Biggest Sailing Event

20 Entries In For June's Dun Laoghaire Dingle Race, ICRA Conference Told

ISORA's Ryan Emphasises Coastal Racing at ICRA Conference

Irish Cruiser-Racers Get Snapshot Of Success As Highlight Of Today’s ICRA Conference in Dun Laoghaire

ICRA Boat of the Year winning skipper Mike Evans of Howth Yacht Club headlines this Saturday's National Conference at the Royal St. George Yacht Club, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin.

Evans — co-owner of the successful J99 Snapshot, ICRA Boat of the Year for 2022 — will outline boat and sails selection, crew preparation, and effective planning for a successful season and share some of his winning formulae.

As previously reported, as well as the keynote speakers, there will be updates on the major events planned for the year and the AGM, including the sailors’ forum — where ICRA members can discuss and debate the big issues in the sport — and updates on ICRA activities.

The national cruiser-racer association has published its agenda for Saturday's meeting (see below) 

The conference will start at 10:00 am, followed by the AGM, and close at 13:00 pm.

Cruiser-racing on Duboin Bay - ICRA members can discuss and debate the big issues in the sport at this Saturday's national conference in Dun Laoghaire Photo: Afloat

The full agenda for this year's conference and AGM is as follows:

ICRA Conference Agenda 2023

• Welcome & Update, by Commodore
• Events Update 2023, club representatives
• Irish Sailing CEO, Tim Bourke, Observations from Irish Sailing
• Break
• ICRA BOTY winner, Mike Evans, Snapshot review & tips for success
• Sailors Forum

ICRA AGM Agenda 2023

• Formal Opening
• Financial Update
• Updates from Executive Committee Members
• Notification of Committee Members Stepping Down
• Review of Executive Committee Nominations
• Executive Committee Elections
• Closeout

If you haven't already, please register to get the zoom link or attend the conference in person.

The Irish Cruiser Racing Association’s survey of members has identified the biggest barriers to racing as being the costs involved in travelling to events and the lack of crews.

The online survey asked members their views “to improve, support and encourage cruiser racing, including events held last year, handicapping and class bands.”

The five main findings are:

• 1 - The National Championships rating among attendees falls back slightly, with a third suggesting it was worse than expected, but half still say it was better. (The Championships 2022 were held over five days as part of Cork Week)
• 2 - The biggest issues revolve around key aspects of the racing and costs of attending the event, with courses chosen, the competitiveness of divisions and the length of races all scoring relatively poorly. The organisation and social parts of the event all scoring ok.
• 3 - Under 25s and women are well represented on cruiser boats racing in Ireland.
• 4 - There is a move toward a preference for women and Under 18 crew to allow for extra crew allowance, the preference being an extra +1if a boat has either of these categories
• 5 - The biggest barriers to racing are getting to events, the costs, and lack of crew. Band splits are also a big issue for some.

An invitation to take part in the survey was sent by e-mail to all members, including all who competed in the 2022 National Championships.

The Class One yacht Raptor competing in the 2021 ICRA National Championships on Dublin Bay Photo: Afloat

In total, 125 members responded; 43 of those took part in the National Championships, while 82 did not. On average, 90 members answered each question. 79% of those that responded were boat owners. A broad cross-section of all classes and yacht clubs nationwide were surveyed.

An Under 25 crew in a Royal St. George J80 keelboat on Dublin Bay Photo: Afloat 

ICRA Commodore Dave Cullen says that, from the findings, it is apparent that three-day regatta events are most popular and that it is very clear that costs of travel, and accommodation are major issues, particularly with societal and work pressures on participants. He said the issues raised will be discussed at this year’s annual general meeting of the Association, which will be held on Saturday, March 4 at the Royal St.George Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire. Amongst topics emerging from the survey to be considered will be the age demographic in cruiser racing, and the increasing interest in white sails racing, possibly a reflection of this. The involvement of more younger sailors is a positive aspect of the survey reflecting the success of ICRA’s Under 25 development project.

ICRA Commodore Dave Cullen

Commodore Cullen is my Podcast guest this week. I asked him first to outline the major issues arising from the survey.

Listen to Podcast here.

Due to low spring tides, September's Irish Cruiser Racer National Championships (ICRA) at Howth Yacht Club will move forward one week.

The 2023 Championships will now take place in the north Dublin port from 8th to 10th September 2023.

"Due to tidal considerations, we are moving the championships back a week, so they will now take place 8th to 10th September, ICRA Commodore Dave Cullen told Afloat.

Cullen says a Notice of Race for the championship that is expected to produce a 100-boat fleet will issue shortly.

The results of the Irish Cruiser Racing Association’s (ICRA) national survey of members to get their views about racing are being compiled. They are expected to be completed and released within the next week.

The survey has been carried out “to make sure that we represent members’ views and constantly strive to improve cruiser racing in Ireland,” according to ICRA, a voluntary organisation, “to support and encourage cruiser racing in Ireland, based on liaising and discussion with members to help promote and watch over racing,” it says. “We welcome anyone who has an interest in promoting the sport.”

The survey has been on online and is wide-ranging, reviewing events held last season and seeking opinions about handicapping and class bands among topics surveyed. It will be used to help formulate future cruise racing development.

One of ICRA’s aims is to encourage more young people into sailing and more women. Its Under 25 programme, which has offered financial support to clubs, is proving successful, it says.

Did we really manage it? Did we really cram all those major special and routine regular sailing events into the one season of 2022? And all that despite its three main months afloat experiencing decidedly mixed weather? And also despite the fact that many folk had simply got out of the way of packing lots of active racing and hectic après sailing into an already complicated way of life?

Yes, it was the Bounce-back Summer and no mistake, making up for the Pandemic’s lost time with major international events running back-to-back, and all that in the midst of a crowded programme on the local front, with some clubs finding that – thanks to their prime restriction-compliant place at the heart of the community – they were actually emerging into the new reality with more members than they’d had going into the plague years.

Thus we’re a bit like someone who resumes swimming after an absence, and begins by diving off an excessively high board which leaves them gasping as it is, yet they persist in swimming determinedly on with excessive speed and enthusiasm for fear that some new restrictions will suddenly bring it all to a sudden end.

BREATHLESS WITH ACHIEVEMENT

In other words, at the moment the sailing community is simply breathless with exhaustion and achievement. And it takes an extra effort to contemplate the season of 2023, at a time now - in November/December - when many of the more sociable clubs are still holding frequent functions to celebrate the remarkable amount of sailing – and successful sailing at that – which has been done at home and abroad during 2022.

So in contemplating the 2023 season at this stage, we’ll take a fairly broad-brush approach. What will be the pillar events, and what will be the main underlying themes?

 Secret waters. The usually private Shannon One Desigs went public for their Centenary in 2022

As ever with Irish sailing’s long history, there’ll be significant commemorations to be marked. 2022 saw the Centenary of the Shannon One Designs, celebrated by that normally rather private class with very public festivities on Lough Ree and Lough Derg during July, following which they were able to go back into their time-honoured closed-shop mode during August’s traditional lake regatta weeks.

SAOIRSE CIRCUMNAVGATION CENTENARY

In 2023, the big One Hundred to be marked is the Centenary of the start from Dun Laoghaire on the 20th June 1923 of Conor O’Brien of Limerick’s pioneering voyage around the world south of the great Capes in his new own-designed Baltimore-built 42ft ketch Saoirse.

Conor O’Brien’s new Saoirse takes her departure for the Great Southern Ocean from “Dunleary” on June 20th 1923

As Saoirse was to become the first sea-going vessel to fly the ensign of the newly-established Irish Free State, everyone – but everyone – quite rightly feels that they own part of this remarkable achievement. Yet as a consequence, those who have been quietly flying the O’Brien voyaging achievement banner for decades, trying to ensure that it is all properly placed in a national and global context, found that they were in danger of being swamped by new enthusiasts who wanted to make a complete circus out of the entire affair.

The re-created Saoirse newly-launched at Oldcourt in September 2022 - looking good, but with too much work still to be completed for a full programme in 2023. Photo: John Wolfe

However, reality has intervened. The West Cork summer resident who has a Saoirse re-build being created at Oldcourt has indicated that the boat won’t really be in a properly tried and tested seaworthy condition for any Dun Laoghaire celebration planned for June 2023. And in any case he tends to feel that it is more appropriate to keep her in West Cork in celebration of that area’s often-overlooked contribution to the magnificent O’Brien circumnavigation of a century ago, and his subsequent success with the 56t ketch Ilen.

REALISTIC CENTENARY CELEBRATION SAILING ILEN

But as the 1926-built O’Brien-designed 56ft Ilen has been sailing again as a multi-purpose vessel for some years now, thanks to a meticulous restoration programme by Gary MacMahon of Limerick and the Ilen Project working with Liam Hegarty’s boatyard in Oldcourt near Baltimore, a more realistic commemoration scenario has been devised by the Irish Cruising Club in co-ordination with the Ilen Project.

Saoirse’s “big sister”, the 56ft Ilen, has been recruited to take on a celebratory role for the Saoirse Centenary. Photo: Gary Mac Mahon

The ICC was not founded until 1929, but one of its first acts was to make Conor O’Brien its first Honorary Member. However, during his voyage it had been the 1880-founded London-based Royal Cruising Club which gave him enthusiastic support through the regular award of its premier trophy, the Challenge Cup.

This was done three years in a row in 1923, ’24 and ’25 as his voyage progressed to its successful conclusion in Dun Laoghaire exactly two years to the day after departure. And the RCC’s leading officer was also very encouraging in the promotion of O’Brien’s book of his voyage, Across Three Oceans, which in terms of its genre, became a best-seller.

All this was in a time of political turmoil in Ireland with Dublin/London conflict, when O’Brien, moreover, was entering the international sailing arena with a personal history of having been one of the 1914 gun-runners in favour of Irish Home Rule, along with Erskine Childers and Sir Thomas Myles. Thus it was courageous and generous to come out so openly in London in his support, and in recognition of this, the ICC will be joining the RCC with he Ilen as flagship in a Centenary cruise-in-company from Dun Laoghaire to Madeira and back, while the two clubs will be joining forces in publishing a re-introduced re-print of Across Three Oceans.

Cape Horn pioneer Conor O’Brien as portrayed by his wife, the artist Kitty Clausen, in 1930

DUBLIN BAY SAILING CLUB JOINED CELEBRATION

This neat solution to what was shaping up to be a possible clash of viewpoints as to how best the Centenary of the beginning of Conor O’Brien’s Saoirse voyage should be marked is further enhanced by realising that the major celebration should really be on the Centenary of his return, on June 20th 2025. It happened to be a Saturday back in 1925, yet Dublin Bay Sailing Club cancelled its legendary Saturday racing programme in order that its complete racing fleet could welcome Saoirse home.

That in itself was such a totally unprecedented gesture by the 1884-founded DBSC that its Centenary deserves celebration in its own right. So maybe harmony can be maintained by everyone anticipating some special celebration on June 20th 2025, when a sense of completeness might be possible with the more relaxed presence of the re-created Saoirse.

THIRTY YEARS OF THE DUN LAOGHAIRE-DINGLE RACE

Meanwhile, 2023 is already very Dun Laoghaire-focused with the 30th Anniversary staging of the biennial Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race from the National Yacht Club on Wednesday, June 7th, and the all-clubs four day Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta from July 6th to 9th. The Regatta Director this year is Paddy Boyd, whose extensive sailing experience and interaction with Dun Laoghaire and Dublin Bay are so intertwined as to be part of his DNA.

Paddy Boyd is bringing an unrivalled wealth of Dublin Bay sailing and administration experience to the challenge of the VDLR 2023. Photo: Robert Bateman

Nevertheless, it will take all the expertise and enthusiasm of Paddy and his team to get the VDLR machine up and running at full blast again. It’s a formidable setup when it gears fully into smooth action, which made it a doubly-cruel blow when it all had to be pandemic-dismantled early in 2021. Back then, Don O’Dowd (who will continue as Chairman for 2023) was heading the large group of volunteers who finally learned that their already much-worked-at and intensely-sociable VDLR 2021 simply wasn’t going to happen.

SOVEREIGNS AT KINSALE WILL MAKE COMEBACK

In their racing to Dingle, the D2D competitors - with the Murphy family’s Grand Soleil 40 Nieulargo of the Royal Cork YC the defending champion, having been welcomed back to Crosshaven after her victory in 2021 with a full gun salute by Admiral Colin Morehead – will be battling past Kinsale, which hosts its own battles with Sovereign’s Regatta on June 21st to 24th.

Every major regatta in Ireland – whether it be Bangor Town on Belfast Lough, Wave at Howth, the VDLR in Dun Laoghaire, Volvo Cork Week in Cork Harbour, the Sovereigns in Kinsale, or Calves Week at Schull – manages to have its own unique character, partly because those seven premier sailing centres somehow all manage to be completely different in character from the other six.

Kinsale. Every major regatta centre in Ireland is unique, and the special charms of Kinsale are obvious Photo: Wikimedia

Yet the Sovereigns at Kinsale - sponsored in 2023 by Simply Blue - will have at least one significant carry-over from 2022’s Volvo Cork Week. The 1720 Euros were the highlight of Crosshaven last July with a crack fleet of 42 boats, many of them with superb restoration and re-spray jobs which belied their class’s 1994 origins. The Crosshaven-Howth team of the English and McDonald talents combined on Atara to come out tops, which means that at Kinsale they’ll be the target boat, while the other target is to push the fleet of these eternally attractive boats through the 50 mark.

After thirty years, the Cork 1720 Sportsboat is as attractive as ever. They’ll be hoping for a fleet of 50-plus at Kinsale next June for their Euros as part in the Sovereigns Regatta

THE INTERNATONAL SCENE

We’ll be taking a much more comprehensive look at the international prospects for 2023 in a future SailSat, but anyone who thinks that the Irish representation afloat for the 2024 Olympics in Paris (with the sailing at Marseille) will be selected by the end of 2023 might be surprised when some of it goes right down to the wire in April 2024, which has happened in times past.

Be that as it may, on the offshore scene 2023 gets going early with the Caribbean 600 in February – there’s almost invariably Irish involvement, and we’ve collected more than our fair share of its silverware since it was inaugurated in 2009.

The dream of thousands – racing in the RORC Fastnet Race. 2023’s edition - the 50th – will start earlier than usual, on July 22nd. Photo: Kurt Arrigo

But inevitably the focus will mainly be on the Fastnet Race 2023, which unusually for this 50th Edition, will be starting in July, on Saturday 22nd July from Cowes, but taking in the new extended course to finish at Cherbourg. Presumably this timing is partly to allow the heavy brigade to take in Cowes Week itself in August, but meanwhile, looking ahead to the Fastnet Centenary in 2025, we still don’t really know if the old course to finish at Plymouth will be acknowledged and used. But either way, Ireland certainly has skin in the game as the first racing of the new course in 2021 saw Irish Offshore Sailing’s vintage Sun Fast 37 Desert Star from Dun Laoghaire - skippered by Ronan O Siochru - put in an appropriately stellar performance to take a close second in Class IV and an impressive 14th overall in a huge fleet.

Stellar performance – the crew of Desert Star (Ronan O Siochru on right) have a nano-second of relaxation towards the end of the 2021 Fastnet Race, as it becpmes increasingly clear they are second in class and 14th overall in a fleet of hundreds

INSS & THE DUN LAOGHAIRE PHENOMENON

The fact that Desert Star’s success was just one of many achievements being logged by the continually-developing Dun Laoghaire sailing and training scene – both commercial and in the clubs – reflects the new interest that sailing attracted as the first small easings of the pandemic began to apply in the local context.

Ultimately, it’s all about the numbers game. The Rumball family of the multi-function and high-achieving Irish National Sailing School are originally from Malahide, while Ronan O Siochru of IOS took his first serious steps afloat in Kinsale. But in facing business realities, they all realised that the population package right beside good sailing water which Dun Laoghaire and South Dublin offers made it no contest in deciding to base their locations around The Old Granite Pond, and sailing history has proven them right.

“THE HOWTH PRODUCT”

That said, the slightly quirky appeal of Howth Harbour, which prides itself on NOT being part of Dublin Bay, proved to have its new and established adherents in considerable numbers as sailing emerged from the plague years. The modern HYC clubhouse/marina reaches the end of 2022 with 2,173 members when you include all categories, and they look forward to a 2023 season which is fascinatingly book-ended by the National Youth Championship from 13th to 16th April 2023, and the ICRA Nats from 1st to 3rd September.

For those who try to take in all the information they can from developing situations, it w be fascinating in getting an overview of sailing development to see how many juniors who take part in their own multi-class championships in April then reappear in some crewing or helming capacity in the ICRA Nationals at the beginning of September.

HOWTH SEVENTEENS’ 125th ANNIVERSARY TO BALTIMORE

Meanwhile Howth’s eternal 17ft OD Class - founded in 1898 - continues to attract all ages, and they celebrate their 125th Anniversary in 2023 with many events, a highlight being a week’s “one class” regatta visit to Baltimore in mid-June.

They’re no strangers to West Cork, as master-shipwright Rui Ferreira of Ballydehob has done significant work on some of the boats, and back in 2003 no less than 15 of them decamped en masse to the Glandore Classics Regatta, dropping out of the regular programme to take in circuits of the Fastnet Rock and other eccentricities.

The Howth 17 Leila (Roddy Cooper) at the Fastnet Rock during the Glandore Classics 2003. The 1898-built Leila was already six years old when the Fastnet Lighthouse began signalling in 1904. Photo: W M Nixon

In fact, when the Howth Seventeens are hunting as a pack, it’s really easier for everyone if they do their own thing, and even then you need to be tuned in to their system of in-class communication, which supposedly relies on a WhatsApp, but in practice seems to be utilizing some form of supernatural telepathy.

So my thoughts are with anyone with a bigger boat with an auxiliary who happens to be detailed off to be the Mother Ship to the Seventeens in June. For as we learned in in 2003, you’re called the Mother Ship because the Mother is always the last to know.

Thus the fleet found themselves on a foggy windy morning in Castlehaven when - just along the coast in Glandore - the rest of the Classics fleet were being confined in-harbour for their racing. But the Seventeens’ race plan for that day was a slightly offshore sprint from Castlehaven to Glandore, with the winner being the first boat to have a crewperson down a pint in Casey’s of Glandore, thereby throwing in a brief but intense bit of hill running to add to the sailing sport.

With the poor visibility and the brisk onshore wind, the Mother Ship was assured that they’d take the more sheltered route inside High Island. But once we’d cleared the entrance to Castlehaven, it was quite clear that the class was determined to face the more challenging seas running outside High Island.

Summertime in West Cork. The Casey’s Pint Race from Castlehaven to Glandore, July 2003, with Aura (1898, left), and Deilginis (1907, right), shaping up to use the breaking Copper Rock off High Island as the weather mark. Photo: W M Nixon

Moreover, they seemed to have agreed among themselves that it was safe enough to chance going over or inside the submerged Row Rock, and therefore the half-tide Copper Rock southwest of High Island became the weather mark.

When you see a bunch of Howth 17s racing flat out past the Copper Rock as the seas break over it within a metre or two of the boats, you know you’re dealing with a bunch of total free-thinkers. So good luck to whoever is the Mother Ship in June next year, twenty years down the track from that first Casey’s Pint Race.

Is most “ocean racing” today really oceanic? Does “offshore racing” really involve going truly offshore? Are boats touted as being “cruiser-racers” ever really used for genuine cruising? And are sailing enthusiasts who like to think of themselves as being devoted adherents of some - or indeed all - of the above, surely tending to over-egg the cake more than somewhat, in order to cut a bit of a dash and enhance a reputation for seagoing toughness when they get together to socialise with other sailing enthusiasts?

It’s an effect which is accentuated when such dedicated matelots are meeting within earshot of civilians at mid-week. And it’s much more prevalent in England or Scotland or France, where many sailors live at some considerable distance from their boats, whereas in Ireland, we’d tend to regard such a situation as plain silly.

Be that as it may, in the profoundly English rural depths of the Cotswolds, there are so many weekend sailors living in the area that they felt such a need for mid-week get-togethers that they formed the Chipping Norton Yacht Club. It would meet at least once a week (and may still do so) in some totally non-nautical pub (the Pug & Ferret perhaps) in order to talk boats, and the members tended to wear their sailing clothes – or outfits, or whatever you want to call our unmistakably salty gear – at these gatherings, and chat with increasing volume about the past weekend’s experiences, and the excitements to come.

Far from the sea in the Cotswolds, clear definitions of “offshore” and “ocean” come with added significance Photo: Saffron Blaze/Wikimedia

Thus any non-sailing country-living typically straw-chewing hedge fund manager or venture capitalist doing a spot of ear-wigging nearby would be increasingly impressed by the frequent use of the word “rawk”, particularly once he or she had cottoned on to the fact that it meant RORC. For its use implied that the weather–beaten speaker had just returned from a weekend’s rugged participation in some major event staged from the South Coast by the Royal Ocean Racing Club.

THE AURA OF GREAT OCEAN SAILING LEGENDS

Yes indeed, the use of “ocean” implies regularly taking on the risk-laden deep sea challenges faced by Slocum and O’Brien and Chichester and Knox-Johnston and Tabarly on a daily basis. Whereas the reality has been a cross-channel summertime sprint to northern France, and no greater risk than some allergic reaction to an over-indulgence in fruits de mer and calvados.

Don’t get me wrong. The Royal Ocean Racing Club does indeed stage some genuinely trans-oceanic events in its busy calendar. But the use of “Ocean” in the blanket title of a distinguished organisation which will begin celebrating its Centenary in just 26 months time tends to muddy the waters as to our meaning for various terms in defining non-inshore racing.

SIT-REPS FROM ISORA AND ICRA

Last weekend’s publication of what we might interpret as Situation Papers, from both the Irish Cruiser-Racer Association and the Irish Sea Offshore Racing Association, underlined the increasingly blurred borders, and the fact that the racing of boats with a lid – “truck racing” as dinghy sailors call it until they get involved – is going through one of its inevitable upheavals, as people’s changing commitments and societal and family expectations interact dynamically with a complex sport which is always quietly changing in itself.

Peter Ryan of Dun Laoghaire, Chairman of ISORA, at the helm on Mojito during the 2013 Fastnet Race

Thus names and categories which might have been completely appropriate fifty or even twenty years ago have become almost misleading in recreational sailing today, and inevitably produce an adverse reaction in those traditionalists who take the basis of their definitions from the great days of commercial sail, when “ocean-going” and “offshore” and “coasting” had clear legal meaning, and straightforward significance.

COMPLYING WITH THE DEFINITIONS OF THE DAYS OF SAIL

Consequently, when Dublin Bay’s Corinthian-emphasising Royal Alfred Yacht Club ran one of its regular races from Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead in the late 1800s, it would be described as a Cross-Channel Match. No casual use of “offshore” or “ocean” there. But that said, when the ultra-pioneering 1860 race from Dublin Bay to Cork Harbour was staged, it was promoted and reported as “The Ocean Race”, a name which has such a zing to it that years later, the annual Cork Harbour to Kinsale Race for cruisers and Cork Harbour One Designs on the August Bank Holiday Weekend became known as “The Ocean Race”.

The start of a Royal Alfred YC cross-channel “match race” from Dublin Bay to Holyhead in 1888

Cork Harbour ODs dominate the start of the “Ocean Race” from Cork to Kinsale in the 1940s – the two cruisers are Michael Sullivan’s Marchwood Maid (left) and possibly Denis Doyle’s ex-6 Metre Vaara. Photo: RCYC

So in the midst of these confusing angles and interpretations, let us grasp what is tangible. The ICRA report of its many prize-winners – topped by Mike & Richie Evans with their J/99 Snapshot – reveals that 109 boats were eligible for the title. And those of us who raced with ISORA in its first defining decade in the 1970s will recall that in its peak years its annual championship – based on a minimum of seven genuinely offshore races – was contested by 107 boats.

ISORA boats in Howth in 1978 at the end of the James C Eadie Cup Race from Abersoch were (left to right) a North Sea 31 designed by Holman & Pye, a Sadler 25, the J/24 Pathfinder (Philip Watson), the S&s 40 Dai Mouse III (David Hague, now Sunstone), the McGruer yawl Frenesi, and the High Tension 36 Force Tension, skippered by Johnny Morris and line honours winner of the first Round Ireland race in 1980. Photo: W M Nixon

Thus ICRA is now – and has been for several years – accommodating the sport of a fleet of boats comparable to ISORA at its height. Yet when ICRA was first mooted in 2002 by Fintan Cairns of Dun Laoghaire and the late Jim Donegan of Cork in a meeting at the notably ecumenical location of the Granville Hotel in Waterford, there were many – this writer included – who felt that an association of potentially offshore sailing boats based entirely around a land-mass would be unhelpful for the development of a sport in which the enthusiastic use of definably offshore waters was surely essential.

But the ICRA promoters made the point that inshore cruiser-racing - right up to regatta level - was the fastest-growing area of interest in Irish sailing. And its adherents – particularly those who had no wish to go far offshore and most particularly had no wish to spend nights racing at sea – were a very significant sector of the sport, a sector which urgently needed meaningful representation in a dedicated national Ireland-oriented organization, rather than solely by some sea area-based setup.

With ICRA, you certainly do get to race round the Fastnet, but it’s at Calves Week out of Schull. In winning form aboard 2022 ICRA Boat of the Year Snapshot, it’s Des Flood on the trim, Richie Evans on the tiller, and Mike Evans reading the runes. 

TWO CORRECT YET OPPOSING POINTS OF VIEW

Both points of view were right. ICRA has become such a central part of the Irish sailing scene that it is difficult to imagine the contemporary world afloat without it, with its enthusiastic committee playing a key role in giving day-racing cruiser-racer sailors - with their prestigious annual regatta-style National Championship and season-long series for the “Boat of the Year” - a major role in the bigger picture.

And the growth of ICRA in turn has accelerated the decline in numbers of those prepared to dedicate themselves to the traditional offshore pattern of an extended weekend – sometimes a very extended weekend - with its time-consuming deliveries and crew-location logistics challenges, and all in order to race just one classic offshore race.

But ISORA itself is continually mutating in order to accommodate new trends in its members’ enthusiasms. Last weekend’s convivial prize-giving and celebration in the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire of its Golden Jubilee may have saluted memories of great Irish Sea offshore races of times past, and the special flavour of competitive nights at sea. Yet a straw poll indicated a preference for more coastal races, with the double implication that no nights are going to be spent at sea, and the race will end comfortably back at the home port.

And though the deservedly-lauded overall champion, the J/109 Mojito (Vicky Cox & Peter Dunlop, Pwllheli SC) has achieved honours in serious offshore events as various as the Fastnet Race, the Round Ireland, and the Dun Laoghaire-Dingle, she is equally at home at the front of the fleet in a regatta in Tremadog Bay.

This blurring of roles is further emphasized – in what was a very good year for J Boats – by the J/99 Snapshot’s taking of the ICRA “Boat of the Year” title in the same year as she won the “Best Irish” with a very close second in her first major offshore event, the Round Ireland.

Snapshot gliding to a seemingly effortless overall class win in the Beshoff Motors Autumn League 2022 at Howth, one of the many successes which contributed to her becoming ICRA “Boat of the Year”.

Until then, Snapshot had seemed the regatta boat par excellence. And though Richie Evans had sailed a couple of Round Irelands, his co-owning brother Mike hadn’t done any. Their approach to the challenge of the big one seemed to be to regard the round Ireland as a string of full-on day races with some brief but intensive June night contests in between. It certainly worked. Their impressive closing in on the winner’s lead in the last dozen miles, leaving all other opposition in their wake, was sailed with the dedication and energy of a crew who might have stepped fresh on board only that morning.

YOUNG TURKS AND SENIOR SAILORS HAVE DIFFERENT PRIORITIES

With this blurring of distinctions between long-established categories, we find other divides emerging, and some seem to relate to age and professionalism. The more senior sailors enjoy a one-race-per-day event, with an attractive coastal element. They tend to think that the excitement of just one heart-rate-accelerating start sequence in each daily programme is quite enough to be going along with, and they reckon a coastal course, with its scenery and the chance of some cunning work with tides, is what cruiser-racing should be all about.

But the Young Turks and the Pros want longer races to be kept away from coastal influences, and they’d happily charge into at least two starts every day, and more if it can be arranged. As for the senior sailors’ lack of enthusiasm for one damned windward-leeward course after another, it’s something the Young Turks and the Pros don’t understand at all – they’re gladiators when all is said and done, they can’t get enough of confrontation and very direct competition.

Classic offshore racing – a cross channel ISORA race gets under way from Dublin Bay. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien

And then of course there are still those who think that the only authentic competitive use of a cruiser-racer is a straightforward passage race from one port to another, with your proper social duties fulfilled at start and finish. It may be more time-consuming in the long run, but it has an attractive simplicity in planning and purpose.

FACING UP TO 2023

In looking at the diversity of all this with its new interpretations, it’s fascinating to see how the different organisations are facing up to the season of 2023. ICRA will not hold its annual conference under Commodore Dave Cullen until the 4th March next year, but that’s perfectly reasonable as it has been known for a long time that the ICRA Nationals 2023 will be staged at Howth from 1st to 3rd September 2023, and other events contributing to the “Boat of the Year” award are date-dependent on the clubs and organisations running them.

But ISORA with its cross-channel membership faces a much greater diary challenge, and the preliminary draft of the 2023 programme was in circulation before the Golden Jubilee party. No matter how you look at it, it’s quite a complicated document, and it’s interesting to note that there’s the likelihood of a northern element being involved once more through the Royal Ulster Yacht Club. 

The ISORA Draft Programme for 2023 reflects the demands made on a cross-channel organisation

Back in the hugely ambitious first season of 1972, Chairman Dickie Richardson was heading an ISORA organisation whose events took in venues all the way from Scotland to Dunmore East, using both sides of the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George’s Channel in addition to the Isle of Man.

Despite the many events available, as the season drew to a close, northern skipper Dickie Brown with his own-built 35ft Ruffian may have been topping the Class 1 points table, but he was still one race short of the necessary seven with no more events scheduled for the North Channel. So he brought Ruffian to Holyhead to race the southern section’s final event, from Holyhead round Rockabill to Dun Laoghaire, and I was press-ganged to join in Holyhead to make up numbers in a motley crew for this final overnight dash.

Northern star – John Minnis’s A35 Final Call II (RUYC) racing to he class win in the Wave regatta at Howth at the beginning of June. Photo: Annraoi Blaney

The foredeck was being run by two legends of northern sailing, Victor Fusco and Colin Gleadhill – who were both well into their 50s, but well on top of the job nevertheless. This was just as well, as the first leg was a screaming spinnaker reach in a sou’wester, conditions in which Ruffian was unbeatable - if you could only hold onto her. But when you couldn’t as a long squall arrived, it was up to our seniors to snap the spinnaker in and then set it again as soon as possible, which they did very well, and so much better than most men half their age that when we arrived in Dun Laoghaire, the only boat ahead of us was Paddy Donegan’s lovely little 36ft Robb yawl Casquet from Skerries winning Class 3, but then her division had sailed direct, and didn’t have to make the long haul up to Rockabill and back.

Other Class I boats began to arrive in with the Class 2 winner, Bill Cuffe-Smith’s Mark 2 Arpege Leemara from Howth, successfully among them. But nobody challenged Ruffian’s lead and she took the race and the overall title, as did Leemara in Class 2 and Casquet in that race in Class 3, so we were quite the little Winner’s Enclosure that cold morning rafted against the East Pier in Dun Laoghaire.

Winners in Dun Laoghaire at the end of 1972’s first ISORA season were (left to right) Leemara (Bill Cuffe-Smith, Howth YC), Ruffian (Dick & Billy Brown, Royal Ulster YC), and Casquet (Paddy Donegan, Skerries SC). Photo: W M Nixon

Thus while ICRA and ISORA have to keep moving the goal posts in order to accommodate the changing patterns of “offshore” and “cruiser-racing”, it’s good to know that ISORA now also looks north again, where John Minnis’s A35 Final Call II is the Ruffian de nos jours. Offshore and cruiser racing formats may be changing, but the sport and the spirit and the camaraderie are as vibrant as ever.

Following a busy and successful racing season of Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) events nationwide, the J99 yacht Snapshot in Class 1, owned by Mike and Richard Evans of Howth Yacht Club was deemed the clear winner for this prestigious Annual Award writes ICRA's John Leech.

She claimed victory by 1.75 points from her nearest rival, Samaton in Class 0. The season was blessed with good weather for most of the events, which added greatly to the enjoyment of the 109-boat fleet that competed for this award. Snapshot had a great season overall, she finished 1st in her Class in the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race, she finished 1st in her Class during CD Environmental Calves Week, 1st in the Beshoff Motors HYC Autumn League and 2nd in her Class during the HYC WAVE Regatta.

The top 3 boats in each class were as follows:

Class 0
Samatom (14.75 points)
Rockabill VI (13 points)
Darkwood (10 points)

Class 1
Snapshot (16.5 points)
Storm (8 points)
Final Call II (6.5 points)

Class 2
Lambay Rules (6.5 points)
Pyxis (6 points)
Bad Company (4.5 points)

Class 3
Dux (5.5 points)
Maxims (4.5 points)
Blue Oyster (4 points)

Class 4
Headcase (6 points)
Relativity (4.5 points)
Janx Spirits (4.5 points)

Non-Spinnaker 1
Prince of Tides (10 points)
Magnet (6.5 points)
White Pearl (4.75 points)

Non-Spinnaker 2
Shilleagh (6 points)
Demelza (4 points)
Roaring Forties (4 points)

ICRA 2023

The ICRA Committee is pleased with the keen competition and participation in the ICRA events over the season and looks forward to 2023, where we hope to see more cruisers compete in these highly competitive events.

The 2023 National ICRA Championships will be hosted by Howth Yacht Club on 1st – 3rd September.

The ICRA Boat of the Year Award will be presented by Commodore David Cullen, at the forthcoming ICRA Annual Conference, which will take place on the 4th of March in Dun Laoghaire. All cruiser sailors are welcome to this event which promises to be interesting, engaging and helpful, especially to new members that want to give that team spirit of sailing a go and enjoy the sociability; they will receive a warm welcome to ICRA from our committee and members.

Download the full set of results below

The ICRA U25 Support Programme is now in its fourth year and currently supporting eleven U25 squads in clubs all over the country.

"The programme is showing just what is possible when the energy and enthusiasm of youth are given the financial support and mentoring they need to succeed", says ICRA U25 Officer Brian Raftery.

Following the success of the Kinsale Yacht Club U25 squad, in the cleverly named KINSAILOR, through the 2022 season, ending with an incredible third overall at the J24 European Championships in Howth. ICRA asked them to put on paper a little about the squad and their journey so far. Below is team member, Mikey Carroll's, summary of their journey so far.

In the summer of 2021, the younger members of the club took an interest in the ICRA Under 25 scheme. This scheme, between the financial support and the guiding information provided, helped us to approach our club with the idea of getting a boat. With massive support from the club and all its members, it wasn’t long before we had a J24 launched and ready to race.

The new hotshots. The final one-race day of the J/24 Euros at Howth was so damp and grey that we all need a sunny image of the new Euro J24 Youth Champions and Open Division Bronze winner to cheer us up, and this is Kinsailor in a bright mood at her home port

We started our campaign in April of this year. We enjoyed some club league racing as we got to grips with the boat. We had a lot to learn in terms of boat handling and maintenance. Our first event was the nationals in Foynes in July where we placed 8th overall. This event was an eye opener for us and we quickly realized how important boat knowledge and boat handling were for this particular class. We were happy with the result but felt we still had a lot to learn and had plenty of speed left to find in the boat. Since then we have come a long way with a massive helping hand from all involved in the class and especially the boys on Headcase.

By the time the Easterns came round in late August we had improved enormously. Our boat handling was much better and we had learned a few tricks in the boat cleaning/polishing department! We achieved second place only to Headcase who had achieved a very strong set of results across Europe over the summer. The Europeans was a different experience. It was our first time racing Kinsailor in a fleet of over 20 boats. We started with an inconsistent 27th and 2nd on the first day. As the regatta progressed we improved and started to handle the bigger fleet racing better. 3rd overall was something we had wished for, but not expected. It was a fantastic reward for the time we had put into the boat over the summer.

ICRA’s Under 25 Development is without doubt, a support programme, that all clubs should look at for the development of youth sailing and offering their clubs young sailors an opportunity to run their own boat and their own campaign.

After a packed summer of cruiser racing, the Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) has published the latest rankings for its annual Boat of the Year award.

As the season winds down and boats start their respective Autumn Leagues, Robert Rendell’s Grand Soleil 44, Samatom of Howth, leads the competition based on results from key 2022 events such as the Round Ireland Race, Cork Week and more.

Other contenders for the Boat of the Year prize are top inshore and offshore performers Rockabill VI, the JPK 10.80 skippered by Paul O’Higgins of the Royal Irish in Dun Laoghaire and Howth’s Mike and Richie Evans’ J/99 Snapshot.

As Afloat reported earlier, Samatom and Rockabill VI are also in the running in the ISORA offshore series to be decided in the John Eadie race from Pwllheli to Dun Laoghaire this weekend, which means there could be a lot at stake on the Irish Sea this Saturday afternoon.

Rockabill VI, the JPK 10.80 skippered by Paul O’Higgins Photo: Afloat

Mike and Richie Evans’ J/99 Snapshot from Howth in offshore mode at the start of this year's Round Ireland Race. Photo: Bob Bateman

The full ICRA results (pre-Autumn Leagues) are downloadable below as an excel file.