The mighty Irish

We look at the line-up and form for next week's Rolex Commodore's Cup

While the Royal Ocean Racing Club may be loathe to admit it, the Rolex Commodores' Cup is increasingly filling the void - if indeed there is a void - left by the Admiral's Cup. This year the supposedly 'Corinthian' IRC team event for cruiser racers, a kind of Admiral's Cup-lite, has never been stronger. There are no 'made up' teams from 'Europe' or the 'Commonwealth' as there have been in past years and never has the event seen so many new boats competing. This is truly excellent news both for the event and for keelboat racing in the UK and Ireland.

John Shepherd, owner of the brand new Fair Dos VII, sailing for GBR White, feels the Rolex Commodores' Cup is indeed beginning to take over from RORC's one time premier event. "With the demise regrettably of the Admiral’s Cup I think the Commodores’ Cup has assumed much more in the way of national and international recognition and importance. Whereas it was in a jokey way called the 'Comedy Cup' in the past, now it is no comedy." Shepherd says he had his new Ker 46 built with a view to competing in the Rolex Commodore' Cup, as well as other offshore races and windward-leewards.

But the most probable theory for this raising of the bar concerns the incredible armada of new race boats launched recently for Irish owners - and it should be noted this is over and above Eamon Conneely's TP52 Patches and the canting keel Cookson 50 Chieftain which owner Ger O'Rourke had hoped would be able to enter in the Rolex Commodores' Cup.

After a superb performance in the last Rolex Commodores' Cup two years ago, the Irish team, led by Colm Barrington's Ker 39 Flying Glove, were robbed of ultimate victory in the winner-takes-all final offshore race. Upon returning to Ireland, the Irish Cruiser Racer Association who manage the Rolex Commodores' Cup team on behalf of the Irish Sailing Association, held an owners meeting to establish what could be done to ensure victory next time around. Theories have been mooted about it being due to a flourishing Irish economy, internal Irish oneupmanship or merely the desire to give the British a sound spanking - but the result this time is not one but three Irish teams, with six of their nine boats brand new, five of them custom builds.

One look at the results from RORC's recent Fortis IRC National Championships gives some indication of the Irish might: IRC 0 was won by Tom Costello's Mills 40 Tiamat- just over a year old and not included in the six mentioned above - while Colm Barrington's flagship, the Ker 50 Magic Glove was third (their third big boat, a DK 46, is the chartered Dark & Steamy - yes the same boat which hit the wreck during the Round the Island Race). Impressively in IRC 1 the top three spots were all taken by the Irish mid-size boats while in IRC 2 Ireland's small boats took second, third and fourth places to winner Stephen James' Jacobite, which isn't competing in the Rolex Commodores' Cup. Ouch!

It should be pointed out that the class 1 story isn't clear from the IRC Nationals as while John Shepherd's new Fair Do's VII came second to Tiamat, the British team's other two big boats - the stalwart Farr 52s Chernikeff 2 and Bear of Britain - were sailing in Class SZ.

Ireland and England are not the only nations to be fielding three teams. The French, led once again by 2002 winner of the event, Gery Trentesaux, are putting up three as they did in 2004. To give some indication of their form Trenteseaux's own Beneteau 44.7 finished fourth at Spi Quest regatta at Easter this year while their White team big boat Stephane Neve's Paprec Recyclage, another campaigner from two years ago, came second in a fleet of 41. Their middle boats in France Blue and White finished fifth and tenth respectively in this same class. The team also includes TBS, who's skipper Pierre Follenfant was a big name in French offshore racing during the 1980s when he competed in the first Vendee Globe following a stint as co-skipper of the maxi-catamaran Charentes Maritime.

Aside from the big three teams, there are single teams from Belgium, Holland, Scotland and a particularly interesting one from Russia. This is not Russia's first foray into the Rolex Commodores' Cup - Serguei Kotsiouba’s Follow Me sailed for Team Europe in 2004. This year however they return with a fully Russian three boat team, to be led by regular campaigner in the British waters Misha Mouratov on the Swan 45 Murka. Sergey Bryuzga’s Sinergia 40 Juga, from St Petersburg spent last season competing in the Baltic. Bryuzga says his crew is freshly formed but includes a mix of seasoned amateurs some with 20 years experience, plus some younger sailors. Making up the Russian team is the chartered HOD35 Zarafa to be skippered by Vice President of the Russian Sailing Federation Vladimir Loginov, also with a crew from St Petersburg, including two Olympic sailors.

Boat	Type	Owner/charter
Ireland Orange
Magic Glove	Ker 50	Colm Barrington
Jump Juice	Ker 37	Conor and Denise Phelan
Antix	Corby 35	Anthony O’Leary
Ireland Green
Tiamat	Mills 40	Tim Costello
Blondie	Corby 37	Eammon Rohan
No Naked Flames	J109	Andrew Alen/Colm Monahan
Ireland White
Marinerscove.ie1	DK46	David Dwyer
Marinerscove.ie2	Mills 39	David Dwyer
Checkmate	Ker 32	Mike McCarthy
Russia
Murka 2	Swan 45	Misha Mouratov
Juga	Sinergia 40	Sergey Bryuzga
Zarafa	HOD 35	Vladimir Loginov
Belgium
Moana	First 47.7	Francois Goubau
Oxigen	IMX 40	Axel de Cock
Ship Shop Aqua-holic	First 34.7	Bernard Wilmet/Phillippe Bergmans
Holland
Fatboy	Swan 45	Robertjan Zonneveld
Roark	Grand Soleil 43	Kees Kaan
Swisslife	Grand Soleil 37	Ralph Berkmans
France Blue
Courrier du Coeur	Beneteau 44.7	Géry Trentesaux
Codiam	IMX 45	Jean-Claude Nicoleau
Saga	Proto IMS	Alain Foulquier
France White
Paprec Recyclage	Synergia 40	Stephane Neve
Aon	X43	Jacques Pelletier
Guyader	JPK 11	E. Dubois
France Red
Batistyl	A35	C. Legloahec
TBS	Beneteau 34.7	P. Follenfant
Pen Azen	J/109	J-P Delaporte
GBR (Scotland)
Exabyte III	IMX 45	Dave Cullen
Absolutely II	Mumm 36	Kelly/Bramall/Plummer
Salamander XVIII	Match 38	John Corson
GBR White
Fair Dos VII	Ker 46	John Shepherd
Maverick II	IMX 40	Dominic Chappell
Quokka	Elan 37	Peter Rutter
GBR Red
Bear of Britain	Farr 52	Kit Hobday
Software Mistress	Ker 36	Ian Maclean
No Doubt	Beneteau 34.7	Chris and Hannah Neve
GBR Black
Chernikeef 2	Farr 52	Peter Harrison
Mankie	IMX 40	Jack Pringle
Civils Building with Flair	Elan 40	Jim MacGregor

To recap - each team includes three boats divided into classes with IRC rating bands as follows:

Class 1 1.105 – 1.320 DLR not exceeding 200
Class 2 1.040 – 1.104 DLR not exceeding 200
Class 3 0.980 – 1.039 DLR not exceeding 215

(DLR = displacement length ratio, as on the IRC certificate)

Racing starts on Monday with two days of windward-leewards, a short passage/coastal race on the Wednesday of up to 12 hours duration, a day and a half of more windward-leeward, while the event as usual will culminate in the 24-36 hour long offshore race finishing on the Saturday. The duration of the races also dictates their scoring, thus the inshore races count for half points, while the long offshore race concluding the event scores double, ensuring the event does not climax until the final moment.

The event is supposedly for cruiser-racers - thus only 25% of each boat’s crew can be ISAF Category 3 professionals. The rest must include at least 50% Category 1 amateurs. Cat 3 crew are not allowed to helm for the inshores nor the first hour of either the longer races.

And what's the weather doing? The long term forecast is looking like there might be slightly more breeze than it was for Monday with 10-15 knot ENEerlies thanks to a weakening area of low pressure over northern Europe. Tuesday looks set to be light initially as the low pressure dissolves leaving little gradient breeze until a fresh low starts to form over the East Coast of the UK in the afternoon bringing with it building WSWerlies. Come Wednesday a rather promising large North Atlantic depression out to the northwest of the British Isles unfortunately doesn't look like it will reach the Solent thanks to a high forming over continental Europe, so 10 knots of southwesterly. However by Thursday the forecast is suggesting 15-20 knot WSWerlies but as the low trundles north a light long offshore to conclude proceedings. NB: these forecasts are very long term and should be treated as more an indication of what might happen.