Fixtures congestion and persuading racing crews to travel to away venues remain central issues for the Irish Cruiser Racing Association’s annual conference next month despite a broadly positive response to this year’s event according to a Red C survey circulated this week.
June's championships held at the Royal Irish Yacht Club received an 80 per cent satisfaction rating from over 100 skippers and crew representing close to 1000 participants in the three-day event.
Other findings in the survey include demand for more windward-leeward type courses, less “round the cans” and coastal races and support for a three-day regatta format.
Just 13 per cent of respondents felt they could not introduce new sailors to the sport.
However, economic pressures remain a significant barrier to participation and although most boats would welcome newcomers, a national-level scheme is needed to attract potential sailors.
The Irish Times understands that a Keelboat Academy is currently in early-stage development but plans are still at the discussion stage.
A 10-year strategy to develop a pool of talent is envisaged, beginning with current teenagers who typically drop out of the sport at school-leaving age.
While racing skills development are an acknowledged part of the existing junior training cycle, the academy discussion questions whether enough emphasis is placed on general seamanship.
Lack of sea-time on bigger yachts may well be part of the problem affecting attendance at away venues that are suffering from a dearth of visiting entries.
Apart from participation costs, moving the boats demands delivery crew and previous generations’ younger sailors gained valuable experience on such passages.
Regular events
“It’s more than just cost, people can’t get time off work like they used to,” commented ICRA Commodore
Norbert Reilly
. “It’s not like years ago when maybe eight crew headed off on the delivery – modern boats can be delivered with two people.”
However, Reilly also cites organising clubs with regular events that pick dates without regard for other events thus forcing crews to pick one event over another.
“Statistically 80 per cent of an entry comes from the local fleet. We need to get clubs talking to each other before they set their dates and putting more events on the calendar isn’t going to work either,” he said. “We simply need to get more people to travel.”
But do the clubs want to co-operate?
“In the last two years there has been an improvement and there’s definitely an exchange taking place and while things are still tight economically, now is the time to do it,” suggested Reilly.
Meanwhile, in a shift away from the regular Kilkenny venue for the ICRA conference, The Harbour Hotel in Galway is this year's venue on November 15th.
