IRC Level rating racing?

Hi Stefan and Gordie

I have had some opposition to IRC here, since we have two systems which serve scandinavia well plus a host of local OD racing: IRC is creeping in to my dismay though.

Having had some sporadic "racer" class break outs at clubs and events I had heard of and seen on the electric interweb, I google today that the yank seem to be betting on a narrow-ish band defined by legnth appx 35 feet and a rating over 1.025- scratch boat and up to some level.

They are calling that IRC 35 and funnily enough the list of boats is pretty much identical to those choosing to race in lys R36 here: bendytub 36.7, j109s, tripps, BH36s, X362Ss and so on.

Lys works a bit like portsmouth and for example after three good seasons the 109 went up 3 points, so following the experience of the five or so boats racing as we probably maxed out performance. It is not perfect, and five boats would be meaningless on PY, but it is a common and the committee are pretty good at setting year one rating: because Nav'arcs are involved they claim to use a VPP for y1 rating.

Anyway, the lys R racing class banding and break out serves to make for close and exciting racing with enough OD boats within to have good races within the racing!

I meant IOR designs racing under IRC but then again you are a condescending type so what can man expect ?

They have tried out IRC S break outs on Michigan and Chesapeake at some points : we have actually three break outs common on our LYS system in scandinavia: R30, R36 and R40 for racing oriented boats and they are considered the most serious classes outside OD and ORCi. Works very well, although they did send us off with the "beach balls" (40.7s) twice giving a challenging wind shadow for R36.

There are a lot more planing machines about these days falling out of their fleets : the former "Mumms" are an obvious source.

IRC-S break outs based on faster one designs and IOR boats would be a good proposition: a level rating, or very narrow band,  is also a very good notion to encourage participation, compeition and new design.


Edited by damp_freddie

A pretty good idea!

I find the resurgence in IOR only understandable in that there are a lot of cheap boats for current recessionary pockets: it produced boats which could be obselete over night and had various degrees of safety.

One thing the yanks have been ahead of the UK in is having an IRC - S break out fleet at some events for sportier boats of lighter displacement : bavarias need not apply!

Originally posted by gordon All boats race with no corrected time - so they adjust weight, rig etc to get below rating ceiling. This was how the "Ton Cups" worked

Also the International Metre classes. The key difference is that IOR and International Rule were public domain so a designer could calculate the rating but IRC is a "black box" system, which is intended to prevent undesirable rule exploitation.

All boats race with no corrected time - so they adjust weight, rig etc to get below rating ceiling. This was how the "Ton Cups" worked (with a few rules about motors, stability etc). Remember that the Half Ton Cup did have an offshore, overnight race in the Cup programme.

Gordon