Sailing: Crackdown in Cork may be first shot in class war

The craic which is Ford Cork Week has also seen the race committee crack down on classification in an attempt to differentiate between boats built specifically to race and the multi-purpose cruiser-racers which form the bulk of the fleet. The pot hunters have been told they must race in a high performance division and they have been given no choice.

More than 500 boats are streaming to Crosshaven for the start tomorrow of what has become a popular biennial jamboree which tests the liver as much as the limbs, but 20 of them have been put into the IRM class. An appeal system, if an owner felt the boat should be in the cruiser division, was available, but the committee's verdict was final. Only one took umbrage and withdrew.

Curiously, Paul Henderson, the president of ISAF, the sport's world governing body, said that he thought the move was healthy for sailing and that "the Irish go into the good leprechaun box". As it is ISAF's job to give the sport a structure worldwide it is odd that it should be left to an individual club running a local event to bring health to the sport.

There will be just 20 racing under the IRM but that is seen as a kick-start to a move which should spread. Except that, within Henderson's own organisation, there is a determined move to promote not IRM, which is an Anglo-French development, but another performance measurement system called IMS, which came out of the United States. It is also the preferred method in Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and even France.

Nor has there been a similar move made by the organisers of Cowes Week, which takes place in early August, though yachts can be dually handicapped under IRM and the more gentle IRC systems. "This is a very bold initiative by Cork," says the IRM organisation's secretary in the UK, Stephanie Merry. "I hope a similar approach will be adopted for other events in the future."