Magic finish for Voodoo

Sailing Autumn League finale: The winning skipper of class zero of Saturday's Howth Autumn League, Eamon Crosbie, has urged the Irish Cruiser Racer Association (ICRA) to put next year's Irish Commodore's Cup team at the top of its agenda following Voodoo Chile's explosive first season and win off Ireland's Eye.

As expected, the weekend's final outing, in fresh easterly winds, brought home 11 class winners after six races in the 180-boat fleet. The National Yacht Club 32-footer, the smallest boat in class zero, took the IRC handicap prize. Second to Voodoo Chile was another Dun Laoghaire boat, Colm Barrington's Gloves Off, with Howth's Roy Dickson third in Cracklin' Rosie.

There was a further top Dun Laoghaire performance in class one, where Jim Hyland's Maxim, steered by Andrew Mollard, was the overall winner on IRC.

In class two, Howth YC's Paddy Gregory's Benola outwitted club-mate and 2003 national champion Dux (Anthony Gore-Grimes).

Class three was won, after protests, by Holly (Basil MacMahon), with Dan Breen's Sosumi taking the 31.7 class on scratch.

Although the Howth series marks the end of the season afloat, the action will continue ashore when the inaugural annual conference of the ICRA will deal with Crosbie's contention that the 2004 Commodore's Cup team is the "most important" item of business for cruiser-racer enthusiasts.

The new association, under Fintan Cairns, the former commodore of Dublin Bay Sailing Club, has as one of its first tasks to decide on a Commodore's Cup selection procedure and, if the autumn league performance is anything to go by, then Voodoo Chile is a favourite for the small boat slot.

The current upsurge in cruiser racing plays into the hands of Cairns's new organisation, which has the possibility of fielding the strongest Irish team in years.

Although Saturday's performance means Voodoo Chile ends 2003 with a high-profile win in, significantly, the biggest outing of class zero in over 10 years, there were some initial setbacks to the Jason Kerr design.

They were disqualified from two races in June's British nationals (which Voodoo was leading) over a misplaced lifejacket, and suffered a rating jump by over 12 points and a T-bone collision in the national championships.

In spite of this, resilient National Yacht Club skipper Eamon Crosbie and sons Alan and David have met each obstacle head on.

In fact, they remodelled and fitted a new bow to overcome the hike in handicap before June's Sovereigns Cup, a south coast event that the Dun Laoghaire 35-footer went on to win with five firsts and two second places.

The ICRA's annual conference will be held in the Newpark Hotel, Kilkenny, on November 29th. As well as cup selection, other topics include a presentation by a number of leading yacht designers of their current designs, followed by a panel discussion which will include Mike Urwin from the IRC rating office.

Abroad, there was "stunned silence" last week following the London press conference at which the round the world skipper of Maiden, Tracy Edwards, revealed a massive £38 million sponsorship from the state of Qatar for a combination of global yachting promotions.

These will include a round the world record attempt, a new multi-hull and the announcement of two new round the world races.

While many in the world of international yachting regattas are still coming to terms with the sheer size of the sponsorship, others are asking - in the same week that one round the world race was officially postponed because of lack of sponsorship - is there any need for more round the world races?

Although it is widely accepted that the market for offshore racing is growing, there are already grand prix-style events, such as the Volvo Ocean race and The Race, and now Qatar's new events which, according to Edwards, will start and finish in Britain.