Some of you will remember the very popular advertisement – “Saturday is Lemons Day” for promoting Lemons Sweets and we all looked forward to it, well this coming Saturday, November 13th, will be ICRA Day and promises to be interesting and entertaining from start to finish.
The Annual ICRA Conference will commence at the Carrigaline Court Hotel with coffee at 10.30am and a meet and greet with ICRA Commodore Barry Rose and other officials and guests and the conference proper will open at 11 am. It will conclude at approximately 4pm. The agenda will include contributions on the offshore front by Peter Ryan of ISORA who has reinvigorated offshore sailing on the Irish Sea over the last two years and by Barry Hurley of Cobh who will have some interesting experiences to share of his recent outstanding sailing successes.
Another interesting concept up for discussion will be Rory Staunton’s presentation on the concept of developing a 30 footer one design that can also sail under IRC the idea being this would be a boat that would be trailable to attend ICRA Nationals and other events around Ireland. He will be coming from the UK to make this presentation. John Corby and Mark Mills will also attend to update on IRC developments and their thoughts on boat design going forward.
A most interesting presentation will be on the crew experience of competing in the Rolex Commodores Cup by Prof O’Connell from Roxy 6, Tommy Murphy from marinerscove.ie and Eoin Leahy from Antix. This will give those present an opportunity to have a question and answer session with these representatives on what it takes to campaign and compete at this level.
The highlight of the day will be the ending of the conference with the presentation of the ICRA boat of the year trophy. An interesting poll on some of the possible candidates for this award has been running on Afloat.ie but we will wait and see and be delighted to applaud the winner or winners whoever it may be!
This will be a real opportunity to make your views known and to contribute to meaningful discussion on the policy in this sector going forward so make it a definite must for your diary on Saturday.
The day will conclude with a splendid evening at the Royal Cork Yacht Club where ICRA will host a dinner to honour the victorious Commodores’ Cup Team for their magnificent win in the 2010 Rolex Commodores’ Cup. I understand reservations are almost at capacity but as of Saturday there were just a very small number available and small really means small in this instance and more than likely gone by now. However, there is always the possibility of a cancellation and it’s worth a try if you have forgotten to make the effort.
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