Commodore's Letter

Three days spent with the race team on the platform at the Royal Yacht Squadron during Skandia Cowes Week under the guidance of John Grandy gave me a good opportunity to view some current race management issues across a large and diverse fleet. With over 300 boats racing in the IRC classes this year, Cowes Week offered a great insight into how an IRC fleet performs over a wide rating band and under a diverse range of conditions.

Given that Skandia Cowes Week this year had some fairly strong winds for the first few days, tailing off for the last two, my overall impression was that the IRC boats were inherently more stable, more controllable and much quicker than their IOR and IMS predecessors. There were of course plenty of classic broaches, but more wary helmsmen were forewarned of gusty corners in adverse tide by the large number of photographersÕ RIBs gathered like vultures to pick off the unprepared! However, there was relatively little of the violent rolling downwind that used to be the hallmark of boats built to the older rules.

Another aspect was the wide cross-section of boats racing under IRC, ranging from the brand-new one-offs, many fresh from the Rolex CommodoresÕ Cup, to the standard cruiser-racers, a few of them over 15 years old and still winning. The spread of class winners this year included John ShepherdÕs new Ker 46 Fair DoÕs VII, the evergreen 1972 S&S 41 Winsome owned by Harry Heijst, and the 1992 MG 346 Enigma. If nothing else, such a scorecard and numbers of boats racing in every IRC class serve as a very good reminder that there are a huge number of sailors out there using IRC who are enjoying their racing under this international rule.

At the other end of the scale, the New Zealand 100ft canting-keel Maximus, with co-owner Charles St Clair Brown at the helm, spotted a suitable weather window midweek and sailed around the Isle of Wight in 3h 20m 9s, taking a massive 48 minutes off the previous record held by Mike SladeÕs Leopard.

As this is written, the Sevenstar Round Britain and Ireland Race has started with 28 entries, and the new RORC tracker system developed with OC Technology is getting its first real test. Early use of the web page and the feedback from users who have logged on to it are all very encouraging- but more of that next month...