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Byrne's 'Bon Exemple' Ruled Out of ICRA Nationals Due to Mast Damage

6th June 2019
Mast damage - Colin Byrne's XP33 is out of this weekend's ICRA National Championships on Dublin Bay Mast damage - Colin Byrne's XP33 is out of this weekend's ICRA National Championships on Dublin Bay Credit: Afloat

One of the few boats with the potential to break the stranglehold of the J109 type in the very competitive class one of this weekend's ICRA National Championships has been forced out of the Royal St. George competition due to mast damage.

Colin Byrne, of the Royal Irish Yacht Club, who has sailed to so much success in his Danish built XP33 design previously won the ICRA title in 2013 when the championships sailed at Tralee Bay in County Kerry.

Byrne’s IRC cruiser one fleet, with over 20 boats competing, is one of the strongest of all ICRA’s classes, bucking the trend for IRC classes nationwide and in the UK.

But in an unfortunate twist, Byrne will not now contest the championships on his local waters. "We are out, I'm afraid! Mast not yet fixed and unlikely to be for a few weeks yet. Such is life!" he told Afloat.

Anyone of nine J109s, a cruiser one type that has proved so potent on the Bay’s inshore regatta circuit and offshore across the Irish Sea is tipped to take the title 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)