ICRA Nationals At Royal Irish Yacht Club Hits the Spot

Source: Afloat.ie

The Irish Cruiser-Racing Association had a weekend to celebrate after its three day Teng Tools Nationals at theRoyal Irish YC in Dun Laoghaire from Friday June 13th to Sunday June 15th writes W M Nixon. 

The mood afterwards was buoyant to the point of exuberance despite losing an entire day’s sailing with complete calm throughout what should have been the peak-hitting Saturday. Yet thanks the crisp race management, and the extraordinary machine which is Dublin Bay race administration on top of its form, they zapped through the complete programme in a light to moderate southeast breeze on the Friday, and then took full advantage of gentle but viable onshore breezes on the Sunday to provide a full championship with a very valid set of results.

Lesser souls might well have despaired at the virtually flat wind gradient, but this was a fleet determined to have sport. With 115 boats in six classes, it hugely outshone the British ICRA Nationals taking place in the Solent at the same time, where they mustered just 45 boats in four classes. And even there, it all added to ICRA’s lustre, as the winner was Anthony O’Leary’s Ker 39 Antix, flagship for ICRA’s Commodore’s Cup challenge for Ireland next month.

As for the setting for the Irish championship, the hosting Royal Irish Yacht Club was the essence of hospitality, with Commodore James Horan leading his members in making the visitors more than welcome, while the summertime atmosphere each night in the classic clubhouse was an experience to be savoured. And the club itself fielded a remarkably good turnout of members’ boats, including the overall winner, Jonathan Skerritt’s Quarter Tonner Quest.

Vintage boat aficionados will pay prick up their ears at this news of the supreme champion. Quest is no Spring chicken. She was designed mostly by Marcus Hutchinson in the Rob Humphreys office in Lymington in 1987 for Justin Burke of the National YC, and with Gordon Maguire at the helm, she placed second in the 1987 Quarter Ton Worlds in Cork.

Class 0 was Jump Juice rampant. This superb Ker 37 still looks state-of-the-art, and with Conor Phelan doing the driving and David Rose calling the shots, the Juice showed an almost uncanny ability to claw her way out of setbacks on the rare occasions when things hadn’t gone right, but most of the time she was so out on her own that she emerged at the end of the series ten points clear of runner-up WOW, the Farr 42 of George Sisk, RIYC.

At the other end of the fleet in size, Div 4 was won by the Sonata Asterix (Boushel, Coonihan & Meredith), while the two non-spinnaker Corinthian classes were in their own happy little world, a sort of waterborne croquet, with Paul Tully’s Elan 33 White Lotus taking Div 5 while the Club Shamrock Demelza (Windsor Laudan & Steffi Ennis, Howth) swept the board in Div 6 with five wins and four bullets.

ICRA’s Barry Rose of Cork, who will be team manager for the Commodore’s Cup next month, was more than happy with the regatta: “For sure, most of the boats in the fleet weren’t in the first flush of youth. But people are moving on from the worst of the recession, and making the best of what they’ve got. They’re going sailing, they’re sailing well, and that’s what matters”.

Before the Commodore’s Cup, he’ll be racing Cork Week with his daughter Judy McGrath on her family cruiser-racer Bonanza, a much-loved Impala 28. “We’ll be racing with a roller-furling genoa”, says Rose, “but you can be absolutely certain we’ll give it our very best shot. The sport is going to be better than ever”.