At 1030hrs 27th August the BJRC fleet will set off from the Marconi line in the Marconi cruiser race under orders of Richard Collis, cruiser race officer for the day.
For many years this race has been known as the Marconi Cup race as a silver cup is awarded to the winning boat on corrected time, calculated using the BJRC local handicapping system.
In recent years the BJRC introduced a second result for the increasing number of boats racing in the fleet with an internationally recognised IRC rating number. In support of this, the Marconi sailing club will be awarding an additional trophy in 2016 to the winning IRC boat in the Marconi race thereby rewarding the achievements of both locally handicapped and IRC rated boats.
Looking at the recent IRC results it’s likely to be a close run race with perhaps the team sailing Absolution (Eric Reynolds) from the Maylandsea club favourites, but only by a slender margin. With the Quixotic race team back from Cork week the Blackwater-SC crew will have to work hard using their newly honed skills to stretch out sufficiently at the head of the race to be first with their
name engraved on this new trophy. Club mates on Triton, Peter Copsey and Barry Foulds will be looking to repeat their win in the last BJRC IRC race, but high performing Marconi boat Blue Moon (Richard Robarts) has been ahead for much of the season. Other Marconi boats McGregor III, and Monkey Business will need to advance to have an impact on the outcome and we hope that club boat Ned Kelly might by then be able to participate as she’s currently awaiting her first IRC rating certificate.
IRC rating certificates provide a ‘time correction’ factor that is based on self measurement that allows club boats to race against the GP one off racing machines which quite often returns a result where older designs from the 80’s beat the modern planing boats in races such as the prestigious Fastnet and our own EAORA racing here on the East Coast.
It’s easy to get a boat rated and Marconi – SC would encourage anyone interested in participating in cruiser racing to obtain one as it provides an independent measure of a crews relative performance against other teams.
For assistance contact Marconi-SC cruiser racing rep Peter Ward.