ICRA cancellation leaves cruisers high and dry

By David Branigan

At face value, the reason presented for the full cancellation of last week’s Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) national championships in Galway seems completely normal for a sailing event: The weather.

The full four-day racing schedule for the west coast and national events was cancelled, with 56 entries denied any form of competition.

No reserve date is planned as cancellation without any racing is uncommon in the sport.

Three races constituted a championship but even with an improved forecast for the final day, racing was not possible. To be stormbound for four consecutive days in Summer was described as “unprecedented” by ICRA officials.

The outcome was obviously disappointing for the volunteer organisation and crews alike, all anxious to put an earlier controversy over the venue selection behind them and deliver a great regatta at a popular destination.

Since its foundation 15 years ago, ICRA, the body that represents cruiser-racers — those boats typically found on moorings or marina berths that provide accommodation on board for crew numbering up to a dozen or more — has staged an annual championship at various venues around the coast.

There are approximately 400 boats registered with an average size of 30 feet and are sailed regularly by an estimated 7,500-9,000 sailors in this country. At its peak, the ICRA championships attracted over 125 entries.

In response to calls from outlying venues other than Dublin Bay and Cork, the traditional strongholds of the sport, efforts would be made to include secondary venues for the nationals: Dingle was selected in 2009 and a big push was made by west coast clubs in 2017 to have the 2018 championships sailed in Galway.

The circumstances of the decision to select Galway almost 18 months ago is disputed but the upshot amounts to a split in the ICRA leadership that came to a head in February of this year when the committee resigned en masse.

A reconstituted committee saw an undertaking to review the organisation’s purpose and activities but the crucial decision to sail the national championships in Galway remained unchanged. The ordinary membership had already spoken, as early as June 2017 at the national championships in Crosshaven when the Galway fixture was announced.

For boats further afield than the west coast i.e. Cork to Dublin and everything in between, Galway was simply too far to travel to by sea. The prospect of a four-day regatta on Galway Bay would typically require a delivery passage of anything from three days to a full week — each way.

Such trips don’t come cheap either in terms of cost or crew time. Wear and tear on the boats and sails is inevitable and the possibility of damage is a real prospect.

A case in point is the total loss of a Scottish 39-footer heading to Crosshaven in 2017 while on another boat returning from that event, the owner was washed overboard and was lucky to survive.

Owners and crews voted with their feet and planned not to attend Galway.

Meanwhile, west coast boats were buoyant, notably on the back of a highly successful regional championship in 2017 sailed from the Aran Islands and a strong entry was expected for 2018. Of the 56 entries received for last week’s event, the vast bulk were from the west coast while several smaller Dublin boats were delivered by road and craned into the harbour.

Just a handful of boats sailed ‘on their own hulls’ to Galway, including John Maybury’s highly successful J109 Joker 2 who was aiming for a fourth consecutive Class 1 national title to cap another great season with win in the Round Ireland Race and Cork Week.

However, Maybury publicly added his voice to the debate surrounding the championships writing in Afloat.ie this week where he described the decision to race from Galway as “pure folly”.

Like many of the first-time visitors, he was unaware that the harbour was restricted by tidal gates that only opened for a few hours each day. Priority was also given to commercial shipping despite the fact that Port of Galway was the event’s title sponsor.

While weather was advanced as the cause of a series of daily cancellations, it’s also claimed that in the event of

inclement weather, there was no safe refuge available for the racing fleet once the lock gates were closed to maintain depth in the harbour.

Of the four days, none had gale warnings for the racing period although the wind was certainly at the top end of ‘safe’ conditions and prudent seamanship would require the availability of a nearby ‘safe-haven’.

This surely had to be taken into consideration in deciding the venue and, notwithstanding the subsequent criticism, it is an issue that’s certain to have a major impact on future events.

There will be no national champions for 2018 in five divisions that comprise the biggest group of participants in Sailing in Ireland; no nominations for the ISA’s Sailing All-Ireland championships in October and no ICRA ‘Boat of the Year’.