The ICRA National Championships in the Royal Irish Yacht Club from 13th to 15th June already has approaching 100 entries and looks to be heading for record numbers despite a complex environment for sailing events.
ICRA is doing its best to listen to its market, the sailors , to refine an already successful formula so the event stays relevant in a changing market.
ICRA is fortunate to have Richard Colwell MD of Red Sea polls on its executive committee . Richard has undertaken detailed polls inviting owners and crews to feed back opinion on ICRA Nationals for the last few events enabling a detailed record to emerge of what the sailors participating want in every area of the event.
An issue arose regarding Professionals participation at last years championship in Fenit and ICRA has responded by maintaining its position on 1 professional being permitted in Divisions 0 and 1 only and introducing a facility where a sailor who may be involved in the marine trade or charter industry and as a result end up classified as a Professional may present his case to the organising committee before the event for clearance if he feels he is not in the intended category of making a significant professional contribution to the boats performance and is not really a professional sailor in a performance sense.
This is a common sense approach to try and be inclusive for obvious cases who should not be caught in the professional trap.
ICRA has published the entry list on its website with a spaced indication of likely Division Bands. Feedback on these bands is welcomed. The objective is to offer tight bands in an open minded way and create good racing in each Division.
Race Officers Jack Roy, Henry Leonard and Hal Bleakley and their teams are planning top class racing on the water with good course variety and have now been given the freedom to run the race program over the three days as they see fit depending on weather learning from the weather disrupted Fenit event.
The Royal Irish have a super fun social program in place including lots of live music and a carnival atmosphere ashore . There will even be straw hats available on Saturday for those who really want to get in to celebrating the Bloomsday mood.
Get your entries in ASAP – discount date extended to 16th May
