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Greystones J/122 'Kaya' is Crowned Overall ICRA Champion at Dun Laoghaire

6th September 2021
By virtue of her overall win in class Zero, Frank Whelan's J122 Kaya was declared overall winner of the 2021 ICRA championships
By virtue of her win in Division Zero, Frank Whelan's J122 Kaya was declared overall winner of the 2021 ICRA championships Credit: Afloat

Greystones Sailing Club's Frank Whelan and the crew of Kaya emerged as overall winners of the annual Irish Cruiser Racing Association National Championships on Dublin Bay today (Sunday 5th September 2021).

Four straight class wins meant the final day wasn't needed for Whelan's team who won the Class Zero title as Afloat reports here plus the overall event win.

Prizes were presented at the National Yacht Club who hosted the 2021 event, its first staging in 25 months due to the pandemic.

80 crews entered from 17 clubs around Ireland to decide four titles under the IRC rating system.

Whelan's crew for the ICRA double win (below) was: Paddy Barnwell (nav/helm); Mark Mansfield (tactics) (not pictured), Andy Verso (main); Bill Nolan (trim 1); Cillian Ballesty (trim 2); Gary Hick (pit1); Matt Sherlock (mast); Gavin Laverty (bow 1); Brian Hare (bow 2) and Killian FitzGerald (pit2).

The overall event win is calculated using an ICRA formula based on results, class size and performance rating. 

Find all of Afloat's coverage of the 2021 ICRA Championships in one handy link here

The ICRA National Championships 2022 are scheduled to be sailed at Cork Week in July next year which will also mark the delayed festivities marking the 300th anniversary of the Royal Cork YC.

Published in ICRA
Afloat.ie Team

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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)