IRC Lake Ontario fleet - Measurements and first events

by Int'l IRC Owners Association - Lake Ontario on 8 Apr 2013 The time of year has arrived when we start organizing spring boat measurement and weighing sessions for the IRC Lake Ontario fleet. Please submit your sail measurements to our regional measurers prior to submitting your certificate renewal.

Your favourite sailmaker will measure your sails and fill in the IRC sail measurement forms for you. We suggest that all Canadian IRC certificate renewals be forwarded to our Chief Measurer John Crawley at jccrawley@gmail.com so all dimensions and details may be checked prior to submission to the RORC Rating Office. This will ensure that no additional fees are incurred for submission of revised information at a later date.

It is imperative that your IRC certificate renewals are processed early and any boat that is in need of new measurement contact our measurers to arrange to get their certificate procedure booked. Our regional home for all things IRC Lake Ontario is www.lorc.org so we encourage you to go to the site, check out the regional racing schedule and contact our 2013 executive for further information. Again this year, all rental costs for the scales will be paid for by IRC Lake Ontario for the group weighing sessions. All single point lifted boats of less than 9000 lbs will be lifted for free at National Yacht Club while all those who need lifting apparatus will be weighed at C&C Marine which is located at the east end of Toronto Harbour. C&C Marine generously allows us to buy time for our IRC measurement sessions to keep the cost to owners to a minimum. By having our entire Lake Ontario IRC fleet with measured certificates we maintain very good accuracy and thus enjoy the best, most competitive racing on the lake.

We encourage all IRC Lake Ontario members and participants to relay our regional information to prospective owners of IRC eligible and appropriate boats. Remember - we are striving to accommodate boats of all sizes and speeds with a division appropriate for all. In the last two years, all of our major IRC events have had five divisions. There are few boats that are not competitive in our IRC fleet when well prepared and well sailed. Since there is virtually no PHRF racing at regional weekend regatta events we strive to have a competitive IRC division for any boat that would like to join us. Again last year, we saw a handful of high performance boats languishing in the PHRF divisions especially for a number of the regional distance races. For the most part, these boats are just looked upon as 'mug hunting' a division that is intended for those newer to racing and lower performance boats. We want to encourage these boats to sail IRC on Lake Ontario this year to the benefit of all racers.

The first events of the 2013 racing season are not that far away with the ABYC Open Regatta on May 25/26 followed by the Susan Hood distance/overnight race on May 31. Also, new this year and not mentioned on our IRC Racing Calendar, there will be an IRC start at the Toronto Area Hospice Regatta, June 15/16 at NYC. The weekend following the Hospice regatta is our first IRC championship event of the year - the 2013 IRC Canadian Championship at the RCYC Open. We all have a lot of work to do over the next six weeks to prepare our boats! Good luck and we'll see you on the water!