Amended or trial certificates, change of ownership and endorsement

Getting an IRC certificate in the first place is one thing. Keeping it valid and up-to-date for the races you wish to sail is another ! Any changes you make to the boat may affect your rating and/or invalidate the certificate entirely. Dealing with this is straightforward and is explained below.

To apply for an amended or trial certificate(s), please use the appropriate form (accessed from the Ocean Safety IRC page).  You can either pay through MyIRC and save some money! or pay us by credit or debit card (note that a 1.5% credit card supplement applies).  Alternatively write to us with a sterling cheque payable to Seahorse Rating Ltd

Amended Certificate
If you change anything on the boat, or buy new sails etc. that may affect your IRC Rating, you will need to apply for an amended certificate. You can make any number of changes for the price of one amendment.

If you are not sure whether a change you are making will require an amended certificate, PLEASE CHECK WITH US. In some cases we may just ask you to write us a note about a change which we can keep in the file for our information.

Common changes which require an amended certificate are :

• New sails, either larger or smaller
• Addition or removal of sails
• New or changed rig details
• Added or removed internal ballast
• Keel change
• Hull change, eg. fairing of IOR crease
• Weighing/measurement

If your certificate is Endorsed and you wish to keep the Endorsed status, we will usually require official verification of the new measurements. For instance, if you are having new sails it will save time if you ask the sailmaker to let you (or us) have the new measurements in writing. In other cases we may require a measurer to check new measurements.

We reserve the right to refuse to amend a certificate if we believe that the amendment is intended to take advantage of specific race conditions (eg. rating with a No.3 only, two days before a weekend when it is forecast to be windy!)

Trial Certificates
See trial certificates - conditions

Running a trial certificate allows you to see what the rating effect would be if you made proposed changes to the yacht, rig or sails. Any number of changes can be made on each trial certificate. Trial certificates are NOT valid for racing : if you decide to implement the change you will need to apply for an amended certificate.

We reserve the right to refuse to run trial certificates if we feel that an attempt is being made to take advantage of the Rule.

Please make sure you give full details of the proposed changes, to avoid any misunderstandings.

If your certificate is Endorsed and you decide to go ahead with the amendment, we will usually require official verification of the new measurements. For instance, if you are having new sails it will save time if you ask the sailmaker to let you (or us) have the new measurements in writing. In other cases we may require a measurer to check new measurements.

Change Of Ownership (Re-registration)
If you sell your boat and it has a current valid certificate, this will be automatically invalidated.

If you buy a boat which has a current valid certificate, you will need to apply for re-registration. If the last certificate has expired you will need to renew it. Please contact us for a form (we can then check that we are sending you the correct form).

Endorsement This is explained fully in the Endorsement section of this site, and in the the IRC Yearbook.

We suggest you check whether any regattas you intend to enter require Endorsement, and contact us about it early as some measurement may be required.