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Prince of Wales 300th Anniversary Trophy Among Feeder Race Prizes Up for Grabs at ICRA Nationals at Volvo Cork Week

1st June 2022
Tim Kane and George Sisk's WOW, an X-Treme 37 from the Royal Irish Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire is an entry in July's ICRA National Championships at Volvo Cork Week
Tim Kane and George Sisk's WOW, an X-Treme 37 from the Royal Irish Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire is an entry in July's ICRA National Championships at Volvo Cork Week Credit: Afloat

Several feeder races are now in place for the ICRA National Championships which form part of July's Volvo Cork Week 2022.

The entry list for the championships continues to build with over 50 boats registered to compete in the IRC class and a further 14 boats registered for the coastal class.

Promising some top-class competitive racing, the idea behind the feeder races is to encourage boats from further afield to compete in the July 11-15th Cork Harbour-based championships.

Michael O'Donnell's UK based J/121 Darkwood from the RORC is entered for the ICRA Nationals in Cork Harbour Photo: Paul WyethMichael O'Donnell's UK based J/121 Darkwood from the RORC is entered for the ICRA Nationals in Cork Harbour

Kingstown to Queenstown Race

Organised in conjunction with ISORA, The 'Kingstown to Queenstown' (which formerly ran as the Fastnet 450 in 2020 during COVID) Race kicks off from Dun Laoghaire and consists of a  260-mile race, via the Fastnet Rock, ending in Cobh in Cork Harbour.

Falmouth to Cork Race

As Afloat reported earlier, The 180-mile Falmouth to Cork Race, most recently ran in the 1990s, sets off from Royal Falmouth Yacht Club on July 7th, and it is hoped that this race will encourage UK participants for Cork Week and the ICRA National Championships to attend.

The winner of the race will be the inaugural recipient of the Prince of Wales’s 300th Anniversary Trophy”. His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales, is the Royal Patron of the Royal Falmouth Yacht Club.

"Hopefully, this weekend’s WAVE Regatta in Howth will enthuse more Dublin boats to travel to what is intended to be a fantastic regatta with the old Cork Week spirit!," ICRA Commodore Dave Cullen told Afloat

A full entry list for Cork Week and the ICRA National Championships is here with the entry form here

Published in ICRA, Cork Week
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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)