ISORA will applaud its 2023 overall champion Paul O'Higgins and his Royal Irish Rockabill VI crew at the association's annual black-tie dinner at the National Yacht Club on November 11th. 

The winning JPK 10.80 crew and many other prizewinners will be saluted at the traditional Dun Laoghaire Harbour venue, typically one of the biggest prizegiving nights of the waterfront year.

O'Higgins will lift the overall Wolf's Head Trophy again on the evening, an award which he last held in 2020 (not awarded in 2021 due to COVID) after losing out to the North Wales J109 Mojito last season.

ISORA's overall award is the Wolf's Head Trophy that will be presented on November 11th at the annual prizegiving dinner Photo: GP Photo

ISORA Chairman Peter Ryan says he has given good notice that space is limited for the usual sell-out event that starts with a reception before dinner and finishes with a Jack Ryan whiskey toast and a live band to round out the Irish Sea's offshore sailing year. 

A full list of ISORA 2023 prizewinners will appear on Afloat shortly.

Pete Smyth's Sunfast 3600 Searcher from the National Yacht Club won ISORA's Friday night IRC race overall from Dun Laoghaire Harbour.

Seven boats took part in the final race of the Viking Marine coastal series around the Moulditch Buoy off Greystones and back to Dun Laoghaire Harbour, a distance of approximately 20 miles.

John O'Gorman's Sunfast 3600 Hot Cookie (yellow spinnaker) was second overall while Leslie Parnell's First 34.7 Black Velvet (right) was third overall and the IRC Two division winner in Friday night's ISORA race Photo: Afloat

Excellent conditions gave the fleet a spinnaker start at tea time in ten to 12 knots of wind across Dun Laoghaire Harbour and out across the south side of Dublin Bay.

Completing the course in an elapsed time of two hours, 52 minutes and 15 seconds, the line honours win went to Frank Whelan's canting keel Elliott 57 Opal, helmed by Patrick Barnwell of Greystones Harbour.

Frank Whelan's canting keel Elliott 57 Opal of Greystones Harbour was the ISORA night race line honours winner Photo: Afloat

Searcher was the Class Zero winner.

Leslie Parnell's First 34.7 Black Velvet from the Royal Irish Yacht Club won IRC Class Two.

The sailing scene in Ireland has lost three significant figures this past week with the deaths of Liam Shanahan of Dun Laoghaire, Mick Hunt of Howth, and Sean Flood of The Baily overlooking Dublin Bay. They were very much distinctive individuals, as they expressed themselves afloat mainly through different areas of sailing – sometimes very different. Yet all had a “can do, let’s get on with it” approach to life and to boats, with a level of commitment that is increasingly rare in these tasting menu times, in which those of us still on the planet find ourselves in a painfully new era.

For sure, the three men had plenty of other interests. But all three were increasingly out of sync with today’s casual approach of hopping from one thing to another in as short a space of time as possible. They were men for the long haul and total dedication, with Liam Shanahan a pillar of Irish cruiser-racing, Mick Hunt a pace setter and exemplar in the traditional boat revival movement, and Sean Flood actively dedicated in multiple areas afloat, with much of his maritime attention in later years given to sail training.

Tall ships at sea. In his later years, Sean Flood gave sail training the same longterm undivided attention he’d given to dinghy racing and then cruiser-racers earlier in his extensive sailing career

FOCUS ON BEST USE OF BOATS

Thus while family and friends were everything to them, somehow they also found the mental space and energy to run successful businesses while still being able to re-focus on boats and their best use. They did so in a way that may have been time-consuming, but not a moment of that time was wasted, and the result was three sailing careers of international standard.

FROM THE LONG HAUL TO THE BRIEF BUZZ

Yet today, the expectation is of instant fulfillment and the glitter of fame in a minimum of time. We have moved from the long haul to the brief buzz. And in sailing this becomes most painfully obvious when our sport - which is best experienced and observed as an active participant - twists itself into unnatural formats in order to comply with live television coverage requirements.

Thus the more interesting the televised sport becomes to the casual viewer, then almost inevitably the less interesting it is to those who really do go out sailing. The classic case in point - and one to which we’ve referred several times in this connection - is the America’s Cup series of 1987 at Perth. In it, a genuine deeply-involved sailor can be fascinated by footage of one 12 Metre gradually and ever-so-slowly inching ahead of another while racing to windward at the top end of the permissible wind strength.

Breezy windward work for match-racing 12 Metres makes for fascinating viewing for a dedicated sailor, but the casual observer’s interest soon wanes

BORING FOR CASUAL VIEWER

But the casual viewer almost immediately finds that boring, yet might be drawn to a modern America’s Cup race where the decidedly un-boatlike foiling machines race round a tame course at ludicrous speeds, and it’s all done and dusted within half an hour.

However, it’s only with limited success in viewing numbers. For if you’re trying to pitch sailing into the top-end viewable sports category, then why try to rival Formula 1 racing when people can quickly turn to the latest and very real incident-filled Formula 1 event?

Now this did make them sit up and pay attention. The MOD 70 Trimaran Spindrift capsizes while racing in Dublin Bay in September 2013. But it was publicity with a serious cost – a crewman spent a prolonged period in a Dublin hospital with a severely fractured pelvis

Equally, there’s the eternal fascination of human interest. In an intensely-covered, successfully-televised arena sports event, you’ll find that the key moments are when the cameras focus on the faces of those most actively involved, with some faces and people much more watchable than others. Thus in his glory days, many fans would have preferred to watch Tiger Woods playing golf badly rather than view some characterless nonentity playing it well. There was powerful interaction between spectators and the high-visible star. Yet modern America’s Cup helms and crews really have become the faceless men, and it’s difficult for their personalities to emerge after the event, when all you can see during the racing is a protective helmet.

Playing to the gallery – Volvo World Race skipper Ken Read hits the right note during the Galway stopover. Photo Tourism Ireland

THE UPWARD TREND TOWARDS SIGNATURE EVENTS

But difficult and all as it is for sailing to find a foothold in the crowded space of sport’s top levels, within the sport there is this clearly discernible upwards trend in event success in terms of boat numbers. As Peter Ryan of ISORA had dolefully pointed out in contemplating the very muted interest in last night’s concluding race of the offshore season, signature events like the Round Ireland, the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle, and ultimately the Fastnet Race are sucking the energy and oxygen out of ordinary offshore racing.

ISORA’s Peter Ryan of the National YC reckons that signature events suck the oxygen and energy out of “ordinary” racing

There are those who would point out that staging an overnight offshore race in the weekend of the Autumn Equinox is almost a guarantee of interest failure, particularly when the Championship is already decided with Paul O’Higgins’ JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI (RIYC) the overall winner.

“We are the Champions”. Even with a final race scheduled for last night, Rockabill VI (Paul O’Higgins) of the Royal Irish YC were already the 2023 ISORA Champions. Photo Afloat.ie/David O’Brien

But in this case, Peter Ryan is drawing attention to a rather extreme instance in order to highlight a season-long trend. Cruiser-racer crews are only human, and many share the widespread enjoyment of possibly seeing their name up in lights if they can work their way onto the podium in even one race in a major highly-publicised series such as the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta.

That’s highly-publicised by sailing standards, which inevitably is not very high at all unless there are serious accidents involved. But it’s the best that’s going. Yet meanwhile, as a longterm and very keen offshore racer, Ryan becomes the complete iconoclast by also lamenting the adverse effect that modern technology can have on his branch of the sport.

DRAWBACKS OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY

The detailed efficacy of weather forecasts means, he says, that crews may not make the final commitment to taking part until very near the event, as they have no wish to go to sea in order to be becalmed for a long time in zero wind, or battered – sometimes expensively – by too much of it.

Then in warming to his theme, Ryan takes a swipe at Race Trackers, claiming that in the old days you often hadn’t a clue at the finish as to how well you’d done in that over-crowded profession of doing the best you can. It was a fascinating situation which greatly added to the liveliness of the post-race party when the results were finally issued. But with YellowBrick and its rivals in general use, you have a fair idea by mid race.

Back in the day, navigation with sextants was seen by some as part of the proper package for offshore racing Photo: Valery Vasilesvky 

Remembering the battles there used to be as to whether or not the now-quaint Decca navigation system was permissible on offshore racers, there’s no escaping the trend. Indeed, it could be argued that it is all leading to AI bots racing remotely-controlled boats while the rest of us savour the experience through various electronic ways.

Yet surely the ultimate artificiality is trying to stage events with a ban on the best of modern equipment? Even the setting of spending limits has a phoney air to it. And like it or not, there’s something sad about re-enactments, even if we’ve had them back the beginnings of civilisation with the theatrical dramas of ancient Greece.

At least those involved in acting and theatrical re-enactments will ultimately acknowledge they are actors. In fact, they make a profession out of pretending to be someone else. But Liam Shanahan snr, Mick Hunt and Sean Flood had no doubt that they were themselves, and lived their lives ashore and afloat accordingly.

LEADERSHIP NEEDED, RATHER THAN FICKLE FASHION

As we face into this weird new world of reality intertwined with artificiality in every aspect of our lives, we need the firmly-based example of such people simply to cope. And we need to be able to discern between populism and leadership. In sailing as in other sports, there are those who operate on the system of “I am their leader, which way do they want to go?”

An impressive force for the good in Irish sailing - the late Denis Doyle of Cork

But there are, and always have been, those who know when to step in and give clear unequivocal leadership. One of the best examples was the late Denis Doyle of Cork, who has been gone from among us for far too long. It was he who, when others dithered, stepped in and provided space in his boatyard for Tim Severin to built his St Brendan Currach in 1976. And when the Round Ireland Race was struggling to gain acceptance after its inauguration in 1980, Denis brought Moonduster round from Cork to Wicklow for the 1982 race, and his example then - and in subsequent races – set up the Round Ireland as a major fixture.

Admittedly, that meant that in the long run, he was encouraging a signature event which in due course, might weaken other races. But that’s the way it is. When choices have to be made, they have to be made thoughtfully and firmly, and then adhered to in a way which provides true leadership.

Putting the new Round Ireland show on the road to success – Denis Doyle’s Moonduster approaching Wicklow to take line honours in the second Round Ireland Race in 1982. Photo WSC

The canting keel Elliott 57, Opal, skippered by Frank Whelan of Greystones, will compete in Friday's ISORA Viking Marine Coastal night race from Dun Laoghaire.

According to organisers, the likely course will be 20 miles along the Dublin and Wicklow coast to the Molutditch buoy off Greystones Harbour and back.

The list of eight starters (below) includes two Beneteau 34.7s and two Sunfast 3600s for the last six-race series off the Dublin coast but recently crowned overall 2023 ISORA Champion Rockabill VI (Paul O'Higgins) is not racing.

As regular Afloat readers know, this Dun Laoghaire Harbour-based race was postponed due to gales on August 18th. 

The Molutditch buoy off Greystones, County Wicklow is the likely turning mark in Friday's ISORA night race Photo: Afloat

A start time of 18.30 has been set by organisers to get all boats back to the National Yacht Club by 10 pm.

The final course will be published on Friday morning. 

Simon Knowles's J109 Indian from Howth will compete in the ISORA Night Race

Meanwhile, ISORA is mourning the loss of one of its stalwarts with the death of Liam Shanahan Snr this week, as Afloat reports here.

Friday's ISORA night race starters

Update at 12 noon (Friday, September 22): ISORA Night Race course is confirmed. Usual Dun Laoghaire start at the outfall buoy, Muglins (S), Moulditch (P), Muglins (P), and finishes between the pier heads. The start time for all classes is 18.30. VHF Ch17.

Afloat.ie regret to record the death of National Yacht Club member and former Trustee Mr. Liam Shanahan Snr.

Liam and his wife Emir and family have been stalwart members of the National Yacht Club at Dun Laoghaire Harbour for many years. 

"Together with their family, the Shanahans have made a huge and positive impact on many aspects of Club life", National Yacht Club Commodore Peter Sherry said last night.

"Always willing to help with the management of functions and events, they epitomised the true ethos of family membership", the Commodore added.

"Liam brought his very extensive experience as a successful businessman to bear for the benefit of the Club, which was greatly appreciated by every Commodore he supported during his long term as Club Trustee", he said.

An offshore racer, Liam was at the top of the sport in the 1980s and '90s in both Irish Sea and Round Ireland Race campaigns. "Liam was a stalwart of offshore racing and ISORA from its early days, racing boats like “Emircedes“ and “Lightning", ISORA Chairman Peter Ryan told Afloat. 

A former crew on Shanahan campaigns, and the Chairman of the NYC's Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race, Adam Winkelmann, expressed his condolences online saying: "Sincere condolences to Emir and the whole Shanahan family. Truly the end of an era for many of us who were mentored in offshore and life skills by Liam. So many fond memories of time at sea and onshore together. Truly a life lived to the full. Rest in peace Liam and thank you for it all". 

The National Yacht Club ensign will be flown at half-mast in his memory, and a minute's silence will be observed at the next club committee meeting.

A full appreciation of this very special figure in the Dublin and Irish sailing world will appear in due course; meanwhile, our heartfelt condolences are with his family and very many friends throughout Ireland and abroad.

The funeral arrangements are here

The last race in the ISORA Viking Marine Coastal Series for the Vincent Farrell trophy will be sailed on Friday, 22nd September.

As regular Afloat readers know, the Dun Laoghaire Harbour-based race was postponed due to gales on August 18th. 

The race is the last of a six series off the Dublin coast.

A start time of 18.30 has been set by organisers with the aim of getting all boats back to the National Yacht Club by 10 pm.

While boats entered for the original race are entered for this rescheduled race, new entries are also being accepted.

In a busy end to September for coastal sailing fans, the rescheduling means the race now runs two days before the annual DMYC Dublin Bay Kish Race on September 24th.

Despite placing fourth and a strong final challenge from Welsh yachts in Saturday's end-of-season ISORA cross-channel race, Paul O'Higgins's Rockabill VI of Dun Laoghaire maintained her overall advantage and was crowned 2023 ISORA champion by a 3.1 points difference.

In the 20-hour James Eadie Cup race light air climax, Pwllheli sailors were to the fore and saw Andrew & Sam Hall's J125 Jackknife from Pwllheli Sailing Club (PSC) take the gun. Clubmate Cris Miles in the J111 Jezebel GBR was second, with the defending champions Peter Dunlop & Victoria Cox, also from PSC, third in their J109 Mojito.

After a 19-race Musto-sponsored offshore season where her best five scores counted, O'Higgins's JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI is back on top of the Irish offshore scene, and her Dun Laoghaire Harbour crew will lift the Wolf's Head Trophy at ISORA's annual prizegiving in November. 

Finishing second overall is Class One winner Mojito, with Jackknife third.

Mark and Jo Thompson's Sunfast 3200i Jac Y Do Sunfast 3200i, also of PSC, was the class Two winner.

The RIYC champion returns to inshore waters next Friday for the ICRA National Championships at Howth, where Rockabill VI competes in Class Zero according to class bands just released by organisers.

The last ISORA cross-channel race of 2023 takes place this Saturday (September 2nd), and there are early indications of a 12-boat turnout for the Irish offshore season's closing fixture.

The 60-mile James C Eadie Cup Race from Pwllheli in North Wales to Dun Laoghaire Harbour follows an intense weekend of ISORA racing at Strangford Lough in mid-August, where the stage was set for an exciting end-of-season climax to decide the overall Wolf's Head Trophy.

Clear overall winners have emerged for Class 1 and 2, but there will be a fight in Class Zero.

As Afloat previously reported, overall leader Rockabill VI's (Paul O'Higgins of the Royal Irish) absence at the Strangford weekend means her overall lead has been eroded.

Defending ISORA champion Mojito (Vicky Cox and Peter Dunlop, Pwllheli SC) is lying second in the hunt for the 2023 Wolf's Head Trophy

The Northern Ireland race winners were the defending ISORA champion Mojito (Vicky Cox and Peter Dunlop, Pwllheli SC) and Jackknife (Andrew Hall, Pwllheli SC) and are now snapping at Rockabill VI's heels.

The J125 Jackknife (Andrew Hall, Pwllheli SC) is lying third overall in ISORA's offshore points table Photo: Afloat

The JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI is on 526.1 points and has an eight-point advantage over the J109 Mojito on 518.0, with the J125 Jackknife on 488.4.

The 2023 ISORA James Eadie race from Pwllheli in North Wales to Dun Laoghaire Harbour has a 14 boat entry for this Saturday, (September 2nd)

A poor weather forecast has postponed Friday's (August 18) ISORA Night Race from Dun Laoghaire Harbour. 

The race will now be sailed on Friday, September 22, at 7 pm.

As Afloat reported earlier, the Night Race is the Final Viking Marine ISORA Coastal Fixture of 2023.

A five-hour race was planned, but ESE winds gusting to 40 knots with heavy rain are due on Dulin Bay this evening.

Ironically, the postponement may play into ISORA's hands in terms of numbers as some regular competitors, such as Leslie Parnell's Frist 34.7 Black Velvet, is yet to return to Dublin after competing at Calves Week Regatta in West Cork earlier in August.

A course beginning and ending off Dun Laoghaire Harbour will round out the 2023 ISORA Viking Marine Coastal Series this Friday (August 18th).

The series' last race of six off Dublin Bay will start at 19.55hrs on Friday, August 18th, with the same course for all classes.

The aim is to provide a four to five-hour race. The course will be published at midday on Friday.

Download the Sailing Instructions below.

Friday's fixture follows last weekend's intense ISORA racing at Strangford Lough, which set the stage for an exciting end-of-season offshore climax to decide the Wolf's Head Trophy on September 2nd.

The entries for the ISORA 2023 ISORA Viking Marine Coastal Series Night Race