The IRC is a rule of measurement designed to allow different keelboats to race together in a fair manner. Find the latest news and investigations from Tip & Shaft on the subject.
On Saturday more than 120 boats will set off from Valletta in Malta for the 2022 edition of the Middle Sea Race, a 606-mile classic that circumnavigates Sicily. Within this fleet will be no fewer than five former MOD70s, surely signalling a renewed interest in these 70-foot trimarans launched back in 2011. Tip & Shaft looks closer.
In mid-August more than 80 solo sailors and duos – most of them at least in their forties – will set off from Lorient and Marseille embarking on the tenth edition of the Transquadra. The race is contested every three years in two stages to Madeira and onwards. This hugely popular transatlantic race sees a majority of boats racing that were specially designed for open waters, racing with small crew. Tip & Shaft investigates to what extent the event influences the model and marketing choices of builders and designers of cruiser-racers.
As was widely expected the IOC ruled offshore racing will not be on the programme for the Paris 2024 Games, choosing instead to split the kite discipline to male and female. What might be the consequences of this (late) decision ? Tip & Shaft reviewed the situation….
Isle of Wight based Brit Jules Salter is a Volvo Ocean Race winning navigator who clocked up his fourth participation on the last edition sailing with AkzoNobel. This week he had his first experience of racing two handed offshore on the SunFast 3300 Leyton on the 428 nautical miles Drheam Cup, racing with Henry Bomby. There was even time to reminisce about his favourite ever team win, the Barlo Plastics’ Tour de France a la Voile triumph twenty years ago.
After almost a month of lockdown, the different ocean racing divisions are spending a lot of time working with race organizers on the possible reprogramming of their 2020 or even their 2021 calendar, while at the same time trying to reassure their members, affected to varying degrees by this new turbulent economic crisis. Tip & Shaft goes round the houses, speaking to different key classes.
It is quite a specific segment of the yachting market but right now it is a dynamic, flourishing niche that is igniting the interest and passions of sailors, and stimulating the appetites of boatbuilders to develop new designs. The phenomenon is now being well served by French based J Composites. In 2018 the team, under Didier Le Moal, which has been building J/Boats udner licence in the Vendée for almost 25 years, alerted the well known Johnstone family, originators of J/Boats to the trend…..
The president of UNCL, Jean-Philippe Cau exclusively tells Tip & Shaft that there will be a new solo and two handed Transatlantic. The Transat IRC (provisional name) will start in April 2021 from South Brittany and head, probably, to Martinique.
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