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Displaying items by tag: Chris Little

The Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) and Union Nationale pour La Course au Large (UNCL), joint owners of the IRC rating rule, have been in discussion with the Offshore Racing Congress (ORC) about the possibility of creating a unified organisation to govern yacht ratings worldwide. This initiative to bring the world offshore rating systems together was endorsed by ISAF following its AGM in 2009 in Korea.

The intention is for RORC/UNCL and ORC to create a joint venture company which would run the existing rules, IRC and ORC and then in time, using the combined knowledge and resources, evolve new rating systems that combine the benefits of IRC and ORC to create fast, fun and seaworthy boats for unified competition all over the world.

Bruno Finzi, Chairman of ORC, working alongside Vice-Chairman Wolfgang Schaefer, are enthusiastic and confident about working with the RORC. "We appreciate the work and friendship with RORC and we believe it is finally time to get back to the IOR era and to the ORC founding spirit, when only one single rule was recognised as 'the international' rule in offshore sailing."

Chris Little, Admiral of the RORC, working with Commodore Andrew McIrvine agree that it is time to bring the development of rating systems under one umbrella.
"We have received strong support from a number of countries and potential owners to develop a rule that will allow us to recreate the international yacht racing circuit and we shall continue to work towards this goal."

Published in RORC

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.