Racing in the mix

A LARGE mixed fleet, including older racing boats, in keen and even competition will provide a spectacle on the Derwent River today.

The second BYC North Sails IOR Cup started with a twilight race last night and will continue with a three-race regatta today with the first starting off the Bellerive Yacht Club at 11am.

“We hope this year’s event will be even more successful than last year and encourage yachtsmen including owners of older boats to get out on the water [racing],’’ BYC manager David Kirkland said.

He said this year’s IOR Cup series would also incorporate a classic division aimed at attracting a new division of older boats.

All up, the three races will be run in four divisions and, like last year, there are expected to be some close and exciting finishes providing keen crew competition and plenty of spectator interest.

The secret of the BYC North Sails IOR Cup competition is based on a handicap-rating rule known as the International Offshore Rule.

This is a rule no longer in use, disappearing from the offshore racing scene in the early to mid 1990s, but its ethos of “keen and even competition’’ remains in present-day handicapping rules.

Mr Kirkland said the influence on the origins of the IOR rule came from the two main rating rules in use in the 1960s on either side of the Atlantic — the North American CCA rule (Cruising Club of America) and the European RORC rule (Royal Ocean Racing Club).

The growing popularity of international ocean racing events, such as the Admirals Cup and Southern Cross Cup and the revival of level rating for the various “ton’’ cups, combined to drive the two rules towards the need for a single international rule — the IOR.

Although the BYC North Sails regatta is named in honour of the superseded IOR system the results of races would actually be calculated on a current PHS (Performance Handicapping System).

Broadly speaking, the PHS is aimed at allowing dissimilar classes of boats to race against each other and it is the “performance’’ not the place in the race that determines the handicap in the following race.

The regatta concept makes for keen competition and considerable spectator interest.

A social function for competitors, families and friends will follow the racing.