Cruising the racer?

[Yacht Yogi]

Mike Slade's Farr100 Leopard would fit the bill (big bill). He does well in IRC races, usually trying for Line Honours rather than the false pride of a handicap result and it makes a good comfortable cruiser too, so I'm told. To the point that Ran's owner chartered Leopard a little while ago to do a comfortable trans-Atlantic race, rather than use his own boat. So, Flaming, you never suggested that you had a cash limit on this question!
Although in the recent St Malo race he finished way down the IRC order.

 

[Piddy]

Sorry, a bit late to this thread - off cruising.....

The J109 I crewed on in RTIR (2nd in IRC class2b, blah, blah) is off cruising next week with just the owner and wife. Of course it will be weighed down with all the cruising kit that is carefully removed for racing so would be unlikely to be competitive in this trim.
I raced on it for a few days at Cowes week last year and was surprised at the level of trim on board (pressurised water, bunk cushions etc.) but nowhere good enough to support the crew and all their gear and all the sails needed. My boat was used as a nanny boat for this.

I'm not terribly sure that racing boats make good cruising boats - when I am cruising with my wife in my Moody, we enjoy every comfort we can. This comes at a price of weight, which inevitably hits performance and boat size to house all these comforts.
2 of us rattling around on a 38' boat is comfortable for us. I know my wife wouldn't appreciate the additional performance if she had to give up the inverter or ice in the large fridge etc....

Cheers,

 

[flaming]

Mike Slade's Farr100 Leopard would fit the bill (big bill). He does well in IRC races, usually trying for Line Honours rather than the false pride of a handicap result and it makes a good comfortable cruiser too, so I'm told. To the point that Ran's owner chartered Leopard a little while ago to do a comfortable trans-Atlantic race, rather than use his own boat. So, Flaming, you never suggested that you had a cash limit on this question!
Although in the recent St Malo race he finished way down the IRC order.

Didn't it have a big refit a couple of years back to put an interior into it to make it into more of a comfortable cruiser, once it became clear that the other 100 footers were ahead on the line honours game?

 

[michael_w]

Nirvana, the Pedrick designed Maxi used to have a demountable cruising interior. IIRC the only bit of gear that couldn't come out for racing was the Owner's bath. She held the Fastnet record for many years.

 

[mrming]

At the small boat end of IRC (where I race), the rule bizarrely favours really heavy boats, which negates one of the big advantages of having a small boat, that it's easy to trail, launch and recover.

In the medium to large range where the OP sails, heavy caravans full of unused furniture are favoured.

It's not until you get up to the Grand Prix racer size of TP52s etc that suddenly fun is allowed and planing downwind is okay.

It could be said, therefore, that IRC limits the fun of sailing unless you're on a huge budget.

At the small boat end it might be just plain weirdness with the maths, but it seems to me that sailors in the middle are being genuinely forced into racing heavier, slower boats than they would otherwise choose.

 

[Dino]

I raced on a very competitive Ben 40.7 a few years back doing both inshore and offshore events. The boat did very well offshore with a few podium finishes and reasonably well round the cans. The owner bought the boat because it had an anchor locker and removable cockpit lockers. We won the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle race around 2003 on it and the day after finishing we stripped off all the racing sails and kit and fitted the sprayhood, roller furler and cockpit lockers. The boat was almost unrecognisable but the owner had great fun cruising it with friends and family.
Have heard a few 47.7's so a bit of both also.