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2024 IRC Enhancements Were Focus of ICRA National Conference

15th March 2024
For the 2024 season RORC has issued an IRC clarification about the setting of headsails (staysail)
For the 2024 season RORC has issued an IRC clarification about the setting of headsails (staysail) Credit: Paul Wyeth

The first keynote speaker at February's well-attended Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) Conference at the Royal Irish Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire was Dr Jason Smithwick (technical director of RORC). Jason outlined the composition of the IRC Technical Committee and gave an overview of the approach to rating formula changes and developments.

The main changes for 2024 include:

  • A clarification about onboard systems
  • A clarification about moveable ballast
  • A clarification about the setting of headsails (staysails)
  • A new requirement for sail measurement stamps/stickers on new sails, for endorsed certificates
  • An amendment to the definition of a flying headsail
  • A rating for the number of headsails carried onboard

He also highlighted that IRC boat data has been publicly available for every boat rated since the beginning of 2024.

Jason fielded several queries from the members, including questions about when the age allowance begins for a boat and how significant an impact age allowance has on the IRC TCC for a boat.

Details of 2024 changes are here

Published in ICRA
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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)