The future of IRM

We look at the Vice-Admiral's Cup and the speak to players such as Peter Morton and Farr 40 National Champion David Murrin

While in every other aspect of life the world is becoming a smaller place, the world of handicap yacht racing remains ridiculously fragmented.

A big white prospect emerged two and a half years ago when US Sailing, the ORC and the RORC got around the table to try and establish a new Grand Prix Rule, but this fell apart when it came to deciding exactly who this rule should be catering for and specifically how it should be implemented (read US Sailing's explanation about why they pulled out here).

Since then we have returned to a situation where in each country it is a case of each to his own, with new rating rules and box rules springing up locally and occasionally even being taken up, while international competition is left to all-encompassing rules such as IRC or IMS at one extreme or one designs at the other. The exception - and the success story in the middle of this hiatus - is the TP52 class, as we have reported on at length recently.

While we will return to the Grand Prix Rule in due course, the purpose of today's article, prompted by last weekend's Vice-Admiral's Cup, is to look at the state of affairs in the upper echelon of keelboat racing in the UK.

It should be noted that with few exceptions - Nick Lykiardopulo's Ker 55 Aera being the most recent example - Grand Prix one-off race boats or racing, by which we mean with fully-pro crew, at near America's Cup TP52 level, don't really exist in the UK. While there are a smattering of professionals among the crews of UK boats, there are no full-timers and for racing at 'Grand Prix' level British owners such as John Cook, soon to be joined by Stuart Robertson, head for the Mediterranean to join the TP52s.

Where the UK is unique is in having differentiated a class of race boats falling between the 'Grand Prix' boats and cruiser/racer fleets that race under IRC. These boats might be dubbed the 'IRM fleet' and represent substantially better value than Grand Prix boats particularly in terms of their running costs.

Many in the UK still believe IRM would have made a good international Grand Prix rule class, but today in the Solent this rating rule has come to be used for a slightly different purpose - rating one design race boats or racer cruisers where there are simply not the numbers to race competitively on their own. While last weekend's Vice-Admiral's Cup was not raced under IRM, it included many of the boats that normally do.



Due to the demise of yet another Admiral's Cup Peter Morton (abve right) and the Royal Corinthian YC in Cowes came up with a new format for the Vice-Admiral's Cup. In this boats where were divided up into length classes of 44-46ft - containing 12 Farr 45s, Swan 45s and DK46s - and 37-41ft - the Farr 40 majority being joined by a sole Ker 11.3 - in a quasi-level rating event, allowing competitors to race on a straightforward first across the line wins, handicap-free basis.

"It is a nice formula for just keeping boats that have a similar performance together on the same line so you’re not having to worry too much about different wind strengths and different tides, etc" explains Peter Morton. "Basically what it is proving is that 45-46ft boats go the same speed. There are some conditions when some are a little bit better than others and occasions when the reverse happens. In the 45ft class there are 12 boats and three different designs and the three different designs are first, second and third and they each won a race. So no one is dominating."

In fact during the regatta the Swan 45s proved slightly off the pace downwind, but this was expected due to their having smaller spinnakers. Presumably if this type of level rating competition is to be taken further then most owners would upgrade their boats to hit the maximum allowed rating for their length band.

The Swan 45s could do with an extra 25-30sqft added to their spinnakers if they are to be competitive in this 45ft class reckons Peter Morton. "But there wasn’t a huge difference in speed: The boat which won the start and the boat which went up the first beat the right way sailed around the course in front."

Most of the Farr 40s in the UK that regularly race under IRC or IRM have already been tweaked so that they are out of class by adding 180kg to the bulb and lengthening their spinnaker pole. "This weekend everyone had masthead kites which are really great - they make the boats come alive. In 10 knots of breeze you are doing 9 knots downwind," enthused David Murrin of 2XL, the newly crowned B&G Farr 40 National Champion (below).



A third class, the Mumm 30, was invited but didn't come out to play at the Vice-Admiral's Cup. The two remaining classes were further limited by being only open to production boats (ie a minimum of four had to have been built) and a maximum IRC rating of 1.240 and 1.180 for each respective class.

"We looked at the two main handicapping systems - IRC and IRM. With IRC and IRM there are differences but if you amalgamate the two they are pretty even," continues Morton. "We put a limit of 1.24 under IRC just so that we don’t get whacky boats. The feeling among the owners is that we don’t want expensive one-offs turning up and making a mockery of the whole thing. They can go and do their IRC racing and what have you, but they are not welcome in this fleet."

The reaction among owners and crews thedailysail spoke to about the new format of the Vice-Admiral's Cup were positive. As a result of the first across the line wins format there was no need to study watches continually and with all the boats going a similar speed there was no instance of a boat performing the usual Aera/Farr 52 stunt of benefitting from being first to get off the line and into clean air.

"This has been a great event and the racing has been really close. It has been tough," said David Murrin. "I think this is what racing is about: really good run cycle of windward-leeward courses, racing boats, boats that are light so that even when there isn’t a lot of breeze it is fantastic to sail them." He adds that if the remaining two Farr 40s and all the Ker 11.3s had taken part they could have had 19 boats in class two.

Keith Miller, owner of the top Swan 45 Crackerjack, gave his view: "It was a nice format. There is a disparity between the boats downwind. The Swan 45 seems to hold its own against the Corels [Farr 45s], it is pacier upwind, but downwind with a smaller kite it is noticeably slower, but we still hung in there."

Nick Haigh, co-owner of Farr 40 Too Steamy with wife Annie added: "It was interesting to have level rating. It looked really good fun in class one with all the 45s. And in the 40s there were six of us and one of the Kers. We are so happy that a Ker didn’t win the Farr 40 Nationals! It was interesting to see we rate very similarly under IRM and that was proved on the race track."

IRM

With the supposed advent of a new Grand Prix Rule still believed to be on the cards, it has been widely thought that the days of IRM would be numbered, but at the Vice-Admiral's Cup there was a strong contingent who felt otherwise.

"We don’t have enough boats to make classes work together, so IRM has been really good at keeping a nucleus going in this country," says David Murrin, who has owned his Farr 40 for five years now. "I personally believe it has some length bias so that bigger boats do have a natural bias to win; so if you beat a 45 in a 40 you are doing really well. If you beat a 52 it’s a miracle - but the Rating Office won’t recognise it."

Murrin, who professionally is Chief Investment Officer for Haslemere-based Emergent Asset Management, believes there is also a tie-in with the economy: "I don’t think IRM’s days are numbered. I think people are completely missing the point: If you look at the Farr 40 fleet it was constructed in the biggest economic boom in 2000, when they built 130 boats. There won’t be another boom like that for two decades, if you are lucky. So what we have is what we’re going to play with and the thing you want is to have a handicap system that lets dedicated race boats race well together. Under IRC a Farr 40 gets so penalised you don’t really want to do it."

Murrin maintains that IRM's original aim was to be a development class but now it should be a class that keeps one designs in a group that can race together. "If people recognise that - and I think people are beginning to in certain places - it has more of a future than people realise. I don’t think there is going to be a box rule in a rush and even if there is people aren’t going to build them in this particular environment, so it’s not going to take off. So I think IRM is really good, and if you could just sort out a few things like the length bias and possibly shut off the development route so that it allows the current boats to race well, it has a great future."

Probably too late, but Murrin believes people should stop knocking IRM. "You need to invest in it in this country. When people see it working it in this country, like IRC then you can export it, but use it like the incubator rather than drop it like a hot potato."

If IRM does finally wind up then level rating events such as the Vice-Admiral's Cup might be a way forward for these boats. This is certainly the feedback Peter Morton says he has had from owners. "I think it is going to take over from IRM. What is clear is that the 45ft owners that I speak to don’t want to race against Farr 52s or Farr 40s. The Farr 45 owners would prefer to race against Swan 45s and DK46s. And you are not looking at your watch. You are looking at other boats."

From here there is the possibility of holding a series of events of this format annually. "The feeling among the owners is that they’d like to do two or three of these events per year and if the demand is there we’ll do it," says Peter Morton, "but instead of doing one or two a year maybe we will do three or four two day weekends."

They are also already talking to the organisers of the Hamble Winter Series to see if they can halt dwindling big boat attendance by changing the format to two weekends of four to six races rather than having one race on nine separate weekends. "If the owners of this group stick together we can probably ask for our own start," he says.

What is perhaps most positive about the Vice-Admiral's Cup is that it simply represents a change after a fairly long period of stagnation in the UK. If the new era in level rating comes to pass and it makes for better racing and more fun for owners and crews, than perhaps it will entice more people to take part and begin the long-awaited upward trend in UK keelboat racing.