RORC IRC National Championship - Day 1
by Louay Habib 18 Jun 17:08 BST
18-20 June 2021
The Royal Ocean Racing Club's IRC National Championship is under way in the Solent. Two windward leeward races, followed by a reaching start for a two-hour round the cans finale, gave the RORC fleet a variety of racing.
A fresh northerly breeze of 15-20 knots, with pulses of rain showers, produced difficult conditions. Crew work, tactics and strategy were all in the mix for a top performance. The IRC Class leaders after three races: Niklas Zennström's FAST40+ Rán, Stuart Sawyer's J/121 Black Dog, and Adam Gosling's JPK 1080 Yes!
Results so far can be found at www.rorc.org/racing/race-results/2021-results
IRC ONE
Niklas Zennström's FAST40+ Rán scored a 1-2-1 today to lead the high performance IRC Class. Peter Morton's GP42 Jean Genie won Race 2 to finish the day in second place but only on countback. Hamilton & Gillon's GP42 Khumbu is tied on points with Jean Genie, only missing out win in Race One, by 24 seconds after IRC time correction. "Khumbu is going really well after some upgrades, we were very close to winning the first race but Ran hit the 'turbo button' to stay ahead." Commented Khumbu's Guy Gillon.
RORC Commodore James Neville is racing his HH42 Ino XXX in IRC One, their main focus this year is the Rolex Fastnet Race. However, racing at the IRC National Championship is very much part of the programme. "Inshore and offshore racing are very different disciplines but racing against the top inshore boats in the Solent really sharpens up our performance, and that fine tuning of our boat trim and sail handling works very well offshore."
IRC TWO
Stuart Sawyer's J/121 Black Dog came out fighting hard for the opening day of the championship, scoring straight bullets to take a five point lead from Rob Bottomley's Mills 41 Sailplane. Mills 39 Zero II, skippered by James Gair is lying third in class. Blair & Beckett's King 40 Cobra came close to spoiling Black Dog's perfect score, just 14 seconds behind in Race Three after time correction.
IRC THREE
Adam Gosling's JPK 1080 Yes! scored a hat trick of wins today to lead the class. However, it was far from an easy day for Yes!, each race was won by about a minute after IRC time correction. Bruce Huber's J/112E Xanaboo is second, three points ahead of McNamara & Lowe's First 40.7 Incognito.
Racing at the Royal Ocean Racing Club's IRC National Championship continues Saturday 19th June.