Full Circle for UK big boat racing?

The Amicus IR2000 Championships showed a return to the popular racing of the 1980s says Peter Bentley

My visit to Portsmouth for the Amicus IR2000 Championships was something of a personal trip down memory lane. The last time I raced a boat from the home of the Royal Navy was in the mid-1980s. The majority of the regattas we sailed were handicap racing under the then dominant IOR rule. The boat in question, the Stephen Jones half-tonner Smiffy, was a typical example of the type-form generated by the IOR rule: wet, wide and heavy and all but uncontrollable downwind in a breeze.
Despite this we had several years of excellent racing. In addition to the enduring RORC and JOG races we sailed alternate weekends in the highly popular Solent Points Series with 50 to 70 boats regularly spread across seven divisions. In fact the IOR produced some of the best handicap racing ever seen in this country and perhaps more importantly around the world.

Time has moved on and the things have changed: One designs are all the rage. The IOR has given way to IMS and IRM while the vast bulk of handicap racing around British shores takes place under a secret rule, that was according to many, doomed to failure when it was invented nearly twenty years ago. On a global basis, there are nearly as many handicap systems as there are boxing control authorities and, it must be said, many of the championships have about as much relevance.

So it was with some surprise that I learned of the size of the fleet assembled in Portsmouth for RORC's Amicus IR2000 Championships. That 77 boats turned out for the championships of the IRC and its more recently invented spin-off, IRM, can only confirm both the popularity of handicap racing and the IR2000 rule in both its forms. With all these boats keen to race will we see a resurrection of the Solent Points Series of old?

Over time I have raced and reported on events from some strange venues but the new Gunwharf Quays Centre in Portsmouth takes some beating. Situated at the end of a temple to shopping, eating, drinking and all other forms of conspicuous consumption, the small marina is at first an unpromising place for a regatta. Further inspection, and some swift deals to gain access for crew vans to unload their kit, reveals a small marina located just a couple of miles from some of the best racing waters in Britain, south of Hayling Island and Eastney beach.

The Gunwharf Quays management are justifiably keen to have boats in their marina as a focal point for the diners and drinkers in the seemingly endless waterfront restaurants and bars. One free beer on the first night and a huge car-parking bill when the time came to go home hardly seemed just rewards for the sailors. On the bright side there were plenty of places to eat and drink and not a queue in sight. What chance of getting a table for ten in Cowes without a long wait? The local ladies descending on the place for a determined night of action in the bars and night clubs also provoked some interest from the sailors, even if determined efforts by the bar and night club bouncers in refusing them entry dressed in sailing gear ultimately thwarted their plans.

Read page two for Peter Bentley's views on the racing and the future of IRM.