SAILING:Ireland's Commodore's Cup performance will certainly get a mention at tomorrow's national cruiser-racer conference following this week's news that Cork has taken action to deal with one of the domestic side-effects of involvement with the cup last July.
The mismatch between the performance of the grand prix boats and the local fleet racing together at home was top of the agenda at the Royal Cork club this week, where plans for next season were announced on Monday night.
In an effort to placate owners of production boats who have been outpaced by Commodore's Cup one-off designs in class one, the South Coast Offshore Racing Association (Scora) voted to follow the example of Royal Cork (RCYC) and Kinsale Yacht (KYC) clubs and separate production and grand prix boats.
"It's a legitimate request for them to have a separate division," said sailmaker Des McWilliam yesterday.
Most recently at RCYC's October league, an arbitrary hull factor number was used to separate the boats, while KYC chose to identify production boats by the number built.
Now Scora are to implement a more uniform system for 2007 that will keep production and one-offs apart. But the contentious issue is defining just what is a "production" boat.
Whether such a split is a good thing depends on individual viewpoints, but it is clear the majority of cruiser racers on the south coast were fed up being beaten by the racing machines.
"Scora has made the right decision, because we need people sailing and the situation up until now has discouraged production boat owners," said McWilliam.
Handicapping is a topic at tomorrow's ICRA conference in Galway, and the fact Cork has made a class one split might cause other fleets to look at similar solutions.
A highlight of tomorrow's event will be the announcement of the ICRA boat of the year award.
There have been considerable successes this season, but the judges face a problem in championing just one boat as achievements were made in a range of disciplines, such as the world championship-winning performance of Eamon Conneely's Siemens Patches.
It is also hard to ignore Ger O'Rourke's string of successes offshore in the Cookson 50 Chieftain.
The Limerick man was overlooked in London at the Royal Ocean Racing Club awards last month, so an ICRA award would make amends.
In one-design racing, Richard Burrows/David Burrows/Peter Coad, sailing Matatu Durh, were the first of two Irish boats at this year's Etchells world championships that ended yesterday in Frematle, Australia.
Burrows ended the series in 34th place with Howth clubmates Dan O'Grady/Paul Reilly/Brian Hammersley in 37th in the 69-boat fleet.
In Florida on the Olympic circuit, in the build-up to Beijing, Max Treacy and Anthony Shanks marked their return to the Star class with a 30th in the 79-boat North American championships.
MAJOR CRUISER FIXTURES FOR 2007
May 25th-28th: Scottish Series, Clyde Cruising Club. June 10th: Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race. June 22nd-24th: ICRA Nationals, Royal Cork YC. June 27th-30th: Sovereign's Cup, Kinsale YC. July 12th-17th: Dun Laoghaire Regatta. Aug 4th-11th: Cowes Week. Aug 12th: Fastnet Race.
