The latest campaign to enter June's 2024 SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race is Saturday's keynote speakers at the ICRA National Conference in Dun Laoghaire.
Sam Hunt and Cian McCarthy have signed up the successful doublehanded Sunfast 3300 Cinnamon Girl from Kinsale Yacht Club; the pair competed in December's Sydney-Hobart Race in a chartered Australian boat.
The entry is the third Sunfast 3300 of nine entries into the Irish 700-miler so far, with Alan Crichton's Aqua Marine from Solway Yacht Club and Richard Elliott's Bug Salcombe Yacht Club also doing the circuit.
In the 2022 race, Cinnamon Girl finished eighth overall and second in the Two-Handed class to the Sunfast 3300 Bellino (Deb Fish), a British entry from the Royal Ocean Racing Club that has also registered an interest in the 2024 race.
A month before the Round Ireland Race from Wicklow, Cinnamon Girl will defend her inaugural win of the south coast's 240-mile offshore Inistearacht Race from Kinsale on May 24th.
As regular Afloat readers know, Hunt and McCarthy are back on the waterfront this Saturday morning to deliver a talk to ICRA members on their exploits down under in a challenging edition of the Sydney Hobart Race.