There have been a few notable amendments to the Notice of Race for this year’s Volvo Cork Week, taking place in Crosshaven, Co. Cork from July 10th to 15th:

All boats under IRC are now permitted to have the IRC crew number, plus one.

The Coastal fleet does not need to have an endorsed IRC cert.

The white sail fleet is no longer restricted to one head sail as long as their IRC cert permits multiple head sails or they are only sailing under ECHO.

The decision to the divide of White Sail and Non Spinnaker has been greatly welcomed. The logic behind the amendment is that it will be fairer on all participants to separate the results of the cruiser racers sailing with no spinnaker and the traditional cruising boats sailing under white sail, as per “Appendix A” of the Volvo Cork Week Notice of Race. As a result of this change, event organisers are expecting to see more White Sail boats entering.

This year at Volvo Cork Week there’s a particular effort being put into building the Coastal Fleet, this will be for boats who wish to partake in the event but do not want to be in the mix with all the high performance racing boats, or have to get a full crew of experienced sailors in order of have a chance of winning their class. The coastal fleet will be longer races with a lot more variety to the types of boats, aimed at providing good fun racing for those competing in that fleet.