SAILING:The start of the peak summer sailing season gets under way today off Crosshaven when the combined classes of the Irish Cruiser Racing Association gather for the annual Saab National Championships. The three- day event is just the start of an intense competition as it will be followed by the biennial Sovereign's Cup starting next Wednesday at Kinsale.
Four classes comprise the ICRA series - Classes Zero, One, Two and Three and will race under both IRC and ECHO handicap systems with the four classes divided across two course areas.
With a possible home waters advantage, Class Zero will be hard fought amongst Cork boats. In particular Conor and Denise Phelan's Jump Juice, fresh from winning the Scottish Series last month, will be pitted against Eamon Rohan's Blondie who narrowly missed taking that title.
Dave Dwyer's Mariner's Cove will be another local favourite, but the recent arrival of George Sisk's brand new Farr 42 Wow will add an unknown element to the competition on its debut national level competition.
Class One will feature a revived battle involving Mike McCarthy's Checkmate and sister-ship from the 2004 Rolex Commodore's Cup against Eamon Crosby's Teng Tools from Dun Laoghaire. Also tipped are Kevin Lane's Aisha and the Mills 30-footer JP Ryan Logistics steered by ICRA Commodore Fintan Cairns.
Class Two features Dublin halftonners Dick Dastardly, skippered by Brian Cusack, and Dave Cullen's King One who will jointly challenge local boats Denis Ellis' new Corby 27-footer and Vinny O Shea's Yanks and Franks. Barry Rose's Obsession VI continues a long pedigree of winners and must be a firm favourite for this title on friendly Cork Harbour.
Jimmy Nyhan's Outrigger tops the large turnout amongst Class Three boats.
By Sunday, following a mixture of Windward-Leeward, Olympic and 'round the cans' courses, the four national champions will have been decided and the action switches to Kinsale for the Sovereign's Cup event where the fleet will almost double in size for this four-day classic series.
Crucially, for a busy season, only four days of annual leave will have been taken up by the two events to date leaving time for the forthcoming 460-boat plus Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta in three weeks time.
The programme for this event only requires two days of leave and this co-ordination of the season's fixtures has boosted availability of crew for racing yacht owners who find crewing a growing issue.
Meanwhile, for the super-committed on the Atlantic seaboard, the annual West of Ireland Offshore Racing Association (WIORA) has currently received 43 confirmed entries for the series that runs from July 4th to 7th at Clifden Boat Club.
Amongst the confirmed entries to date are Vincent Gaffney's Alliance, the 2006 Class Three National Cruiser champion, Raymond Mc Gibney's Disaray, the 2005/06 overall West Coast champion plus three Corby 25 including Rose's Obsession and Thomas and Kieran Whelan's Chaos.
