Commodore's Letter - Chris Little

During the last month various meetings have taken place of national IRC committees, including the GBR committee, culminating in the International IRC Congress with representatives of all the many worldwide IRC fleets. These gatherings, part of the cycle of meetings set out under the new IRC Constitution, play a vital role in allowing the RORC Rating Office, the UNCL Centre de Calcul and the IRC owners themselves to keep each other abreast of developments.

From the GBR perspective one of the interesting points was the concern in some regions that locally IRC was not drawing in sailors who were racing under a local handicap system. The RORC's view is that there is definitely room for both local handicap systems and IRC racing at the same venue; local handicap systems obviously have a higher degree of subjectivity but that will appeal to some, whereas the objective IRC system will appeal to those who also wish to race beyond their local club. This issue isn't new! On the other side of the coin, while we have been working on promoting IRC, we continue to hope that when there is sufficient acceptance this will allow the development of another rule aimed squarely at the upper echelons of racing yachts. It has not proved possible to find sufficient support to develop a new rule yet but the need and principle have gained acceptance.

The GBR committee also put forward a view that 'novel' features should be treated cautiously, and welcomed the news that the joint RORC/UNCL Technical Committee is revisiting the whole issue of canting-keel boats (and 'race' boats generally), given that there is a clear IRC policy that these designs should not be predominant in mainstream IRC fleets.

At the International IRC Congress two other key issues were discussed. One was a proposal to introduce an IRC 'shorthanded' certificate, and the other to standardise the criteria for the issue of endorsed certificates. The pitfalls of the potential for abuse and race management issues associated with boats holding two certificates were such that the first proposal was not accepted. However, the proposal to standardise endorsed certificate requirements was, with the caveat that measurement would remain the responsibility of each national rule authority.

What these meetings have shown is that we have established a framework to ensure that the IRC Rule is properly governed; and while I acknowledge that there are administrative improvements that we can make the basics are about right. On behalf of both RORC and UNCL I would like to thank those owners who have volunteered to help manage the rule to the broad benefit of our sport.