Tonight sees the annual Prize Dinner (& Dance, forsooth) of the Irish Sea Offshore Racing Association. It's in the highly sociable setting of the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire, where Commodore Peter Sherry and his members and staff will be demonstrating why the National is currently the MG Motor "Sailing Club of the Year". There'll be excellent food and good cheer being dispensed for a gathering whose enjoyment of the comfortable shared hospitality is accentuated by the fact that much of their time in each other's ambit is spent racing at sea.
Often, that time at sea is in demanding and far-from-comfortable circumstances. Thus tonight's affair will ultimately celebrate the success of many. For in the ultra-mixed weather of 2024, merely finishing an offshore race in the waters off the coast of Ireland and Northwest Wales was an achievement.
National YC Commodore Peter Sherry when the NYC had been confirmed as MG Motor "Club of the Year" 2024. Photo: Michael Chester
TWIN LANGUAGE CAMARADERIE OF SEAFARING
But then too, there's the intangible aspects of the warm camaraderie of sea-faring. It's given an added quality at ISORA gatherings afloat and ashore, when some of the Welsh group might slip easily into to their mother tongue. The mostly mono-lingual Irish members are for once out-foxed in the eloquence stakes, and tend to wonder if the neat and melodious cross-channel visitors' comments, made in the language of the Land of their Fathers, is entirely complimentary to all who overhear them.
An inviting-looking sort of place - Dun Laoghaire's National YC by night. Photo: NYC
UNFAIR INFORMATION TRANSFER?
There was another element to this in times past. In those days, precise meteorological information was scarce during races. So it was not unknown for Welsh-speaking boats in ISORA races to exchange VHF radio tips about how the wind was shaping up in their area of the course. Some pernickety Irish crews started complaining about this possibly rule-infringing input of "outside information", but the Welsh crews would give one of their most beatific smiles and say they were only asking after the health of the other skipper's mother, who had been unwell, as everyone knew or should know.
DETERMINED RECRUITING OF WELSH SPEAKERS
The more determined Irish skippers would then recruit on the other side to get at least one Welsh speaker in their crew. All of this contributed – however tangentially – to the 1971 aspirations of the ISORA founding fathers like Dickie Richardson, Hal Sisk, Alan Stead, Alun Roberts and the Tudor and Morris families and others, their hope being that ISORA would be a positive force for regular and friendly interaction between both sides of the channel.
Cross-channel interaction – Peter Ryan of ISORA and the National YC at the helm of the Pwllheli-based J/109 Mojito during the Fastnet Race
As it is, the two sides of the Irish Sea have much in common hydrographically. The Greater Dublin area provides some excellent and well-used racing areas, while on the Welsh side, Tremadoc Bay with the magnificent backdrop of Snowdonia is simply one of the best and most scenic sailing race locations in the world.
EARLY PROGRAMMES SHAPED IN SIMPLER TIMES
But when the founding fathers transformed the provincial-sounding Northwest Offshore Association into the vision-inspiring Irish Sea Offshore Racing at a meeting in Howth Yacht Cub at the end of August 1971 after the finish of the season-concluding James C Eadie Cup race from Abersoch, the overall sailing picture was much more simple than it is today.
There were few "everyone wants to attend" signature events, and so there was time and space for ISORA to develop a programme in which its combined fleet – 107 boats at its peak - were expected to race at least seven weekend events.
SEVEN THEEE DAYS WEEKENDS IN ONE SUMMER
Even with today's extended summer, seven effectively three-day weekends would be an impossible chunk to take out of anyone's hyper-busy life, so ISORA's lead organisers have to be flexible and imaginative in developing their yearly programme. Several bright minds from a number of centres make an input, while the lead is given by former National YC Commodore Peter Ryan of Dun Laoghaire on the Irish side, while on the Welsh side it's Stephen Tudor of Pwllheli.
Great racing water – the J/109 Mojito in action in the outer reaches of Tremadoc Bay
WHAT WOULD HENRY VIII DO?
Stephen's sailing branch of the ultra-Welsh Tudor dynasty looks set to be active much longer than the eventually Royal branch in London, which was of consequence for only 118 years. But that said, it's fascinating to consider what Henry Tudor, the much-married multi-beheading King Henry VIII, would have made of the challenges facing ISORA today.
Another of the Tudors. If Henry VIII were running ISORA, in order to get his way he'd bang heads together - probably after chopping them off.
For they have to plot their course in 2025 round the Ailsa Craig-like rocks of signature events like the Scottish Series (23-26 May), Wave at Howth (24-26 May), the Dun Laoghaire-Dingle Race (11 June), the Sovereigns at Kinsale which includes the ICRA Nats (June 25-28), Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta (July 10-13), the Centenary Rolex Fastnet Race (July 26th), and the seductive siren call of Calves Week (Aug 5-8).
DECEPTIVELY EASYGOING IMAGE OF WEST CORK
It's seductive because everyone assumes West Cork is an easygoing sort of place, but it most certainly isn't in the four days of August with racing out of Schull among the Calves Islands.
Beyond those already fixed points, the dates for the hugely-popular J Cup Ireland are still "TBC". But we can be sure that some very hot boats and crews will drop anything and everything else if that's what's needed to compete among the Johnstone brothers' boat-shaped children and grandchildren.
When this banner goes up, people stand to attention and salute - even with a sky like that. Photo: RIYC
UNEXPECTED RISE IN MORTALITY RATES?
Faced with this very problematic programme challenge, it's perhaps a very good thing that some modern Henry VIII isn't running the ISORA show. For if he were, there'd probably be a sudden unexplained rise in mortality rates among yacht club officers and boat marque promoters who were presuming to set up major regattas and championships which cut across traditional Irish Sea races.
But as Afloat.ie revealed on Tuesday, the top honchos in ISORA are keener than ever to make their fixtures list user-friendly. Thus tonight will provide an opportunity for information intake in a sociable setting, particularly from those old salts who reckon that an invitation that suggests there'll be dancing simply means that there's be ample time for thinking, talking, and drinking to music.
Rare bird. There are very few J/105s in Europe, but though the Hal family's Jackknife from Pwllhei sails a solitary trail, it's a very successful one
HISTORIC MAGIC OF K2Q
Meanwhile, here's to all who race the offshore waters of Ireland and the Irish Sea, and particularly to the Shanahan family of the National YC with the J/109 Ruth, who won the overall title in the very last race. They were able to do so by having won the K2Q in July, the Dublin Bay to Cork Harbour Race. It goes all the way back to 1860 when it was won by Cork's amateur sailing superstar Henry O'Bryen, and deserves to be seen as the real worship-deserving Totem Pole of Irish offshore racing.
As for its first winner, he spelt his surname that special way because by 1860 there were many O'Briens around Cork, steadily increasing in numbers ever since the colourful sailing pioneer Murrough O'Brien had settled himself two hundred years earlier as chieftain in Rostellan Castle on the shores of Cork Harbour in 1660. Not all those O'Brien descendants were social assets, so one branch renamed themselves O'Bryen in a procedure of genetic sanitation. Quite.
The magic destination of Cork Harbour. It was here in 1860 that Henry O'Bryen finished first to win the first offshore race from Dublin Bay. And it was here in 2024 that the Shanahan family's J/109 Ruth, racing in a re-enactment of the same course, took a first to build up the points base which enabled them to win the ISORA Championship 2024 in September.
ISORA 2024 PRIZE WINNERS
