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Warsash Mercantile Credit
Millennium Spring Series IRM Report
With this year's Spring Series holding the first
IRM Class racing anywhere, much worldwide interest was centred
on the event. Since they shared a start line with IRC 1, the
seven-boat IRM fleet had twenty large obstacles to avoid in
the shape of Prima 38s, Desperado, BH 41s etc!
The IRM fleet comprised two Farr 40s, Mumm 36, 1D35, the new
Yeoman (JV 44) and two of the new IRM 9m class. These were Paul
and Marie Claude Heys' new IRM J92 and Peter Rutter's new Ker
9m, Quokka (above). Competition in the Class was very hot with
the bigger boats generally having the better time of it as Quokka
and the J92 struggled with the dirty air of the IRC 1 pack.
Throughout the races, Warlord showed a high level of consistency
to take the Series from sister ship 2XL. After a hard winter
of training, Fair Do's showed flashes of brilliance, winning
one race but finishing no higher than fourth in the Series.
The crew of Quokka knew that with Kevin Sproul steering, the
IRM J92 would be tough to beat. Following some close battles
early in the Series, Quokka began to show her true potential
towards the last races. After a period of intensive rig tuning,
she had excellent speed during the last race finishing less
than two minutes behind Fair Do's on the water, ahead of the
1D35, and even beating the J92 by over five minutes on corrected
time! This gave Quokka a third in both the race and the Series,
with the J92 coming fifth in both.
After gradually adding to Quokka's sail inventory throughout
the Series we will now be racing with a full suit of Checkmate
Kevlar fore and aft sails (Main, L1, M1, H1, 3) and our initial
Series 2000 spinnakers (1/2oz Runner, 3/4oz AP). With four spinnakers
allowed under IRM, this is an area we will be looking at closely
between now and the beginning of the trials for the England
Commodore's Cup Team in June.
Back to Reports
and results
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