The first ISORA coastal race of 2023 will take place off Dun Laoghaire Harbour next Saturday morning (15th April).

The start is at 10.00 am. Class 2 will start 30 minutes before Class 0 and 1.

The race duration is planned to have every boat finished by 17.00.

A coastal race will also take place in Pwllheli on the same date for the Welsh ISORA fleet.

While the Irish coastal races are part of the overall six-race ISORA Viking Marine Coastal Series for the Vincent Farrell Trophy, the first three races – all in April – are part of a mini-series.

After every race in the National Yacht Club, there will be a prizegiving with a separate trophy for this month's mini-series.

There is no confirmation yet on whether the latest addition to the Irish Sea offshore fleet, the potent canting keel Opal, will compete in the opening fixture.

There were brisk conditions for last year's first race, as recalled in this 2022 photo gallery below

Entries can be made on the ISORA website

Tributes have been paid to ISORA stalwart Huw Tudor, who has died in his 89th year.

An estate agent by trade, Huw joined Pwllheli Sailing Club in 1967 as the owner of a small fishing boat named after his wife and daughter.

Within a decade he had ascended through the management ranks to become commodore of the north Wales club for the year 1977-78.

In the meantime Huw became an active ISORA racer along with his son Richard Tudor, going on to compete in several editions of the Fastnet Race and Round Ireland Race while also scoring high-profile wins at Cork Week, among many other achievements.

The Pwllheli Sailing Club website has much more HERE.

We have a great race schedule planned for 2023. It combines with many top-class regattas and includes several mini-series, writes ISORA Chairman Peter Ryan

Details can be found on the Musto ISORA website here

The online entry is now active. We would encourage boats that intend to participate to enter as soon as possible, as this will allow us to produce the class splits to ensure similar numbers of boats in each class.

The latest version of the 2023 ISORA Calendar

The series starts with the Viking Marine Coastal Race in Ireland and the Plas Heli Coastal Race in Wales, both on 15th April, followed by another two coastal races on the following weekends.

This season, in addition to the Viking Marine Coastal Race Series in Ireland and the Plas Heli Coastal Race Series in Wales, we plan to run a several mini-series that include specified races. The first mini series, the Irish and the Welsh Spring Series, includes the first three coastal races from Dun Laoghaire and Pwllheli. A trophy will be awarded for the overall winner and prizes will be awarded to overall Class winners, all in addition to the usual race trophies and prizes.

(Above and below) typical ISORA Coastal Race startlines at Dun Laoghaire under National Yacht Club Race Officers Barry MacNeaney (left) and Larry Power Photo: Afloat

There are also mini offshore series. The first offshore mini-series,  Dun Laoghaire – Pwllheli Double Offshore Series, includes the offshore race from Dun Laoghaire to Pwllheli and then the return race, soon after. Similarly for the Offshore Weekend, the Northern Offshore Weekend Series, including the races from Holyhead to Strangford on the Friday evening, 11^th August, and the return race from Strangford to a gate in the Mid-Irish Sea finish, starting on the Sunday morning, 13^th August.

ISORA Series / Mini-Series List

• Wolfs Head Series – Any 5 best race results to count
• ISORA Series – All race results to count.
• Irish Coastal Series –4 best results from 6 race Irish Series to count
• Welsh Coastal Series – 4 best results from 6 Welsh Series to count.
• Irish Spring Series – All results from races 1, 2 & 3.
• Welsh Spring Series – All results from races 1, 2 & 3.
• Dun Laoghaire – Pwllheli Double Offshore Series – Results from Offshore Races 7 & 8.
• Northern Offshore Weekend Series – Results from Races 14 & 15.

The first Offshore challenge is a race from Dun Laoghaire to Pwllheli on 6th May, in time for the IRC Welsh National Championships 12th to 14th May. Then a return race from Pwllheli to Dun Laoghaire on 20th May.

Andrew Hall's J122 Jackknife ISORA racing off Dun Laoghaire Harbour Photo: Afloat

We have again this year teamed up with other races in the Irish Sea and arranged the racing so that deliveries are minimised. This includes the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race and the Liverpool and RDYC Lyver Trophy Race.

In conjunction with ISORA, the Royal Dee Yacht Club are running the RDYC Irish Sea Offshore Championship again this year as part of the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta (VDLR). This will include the Lyver Race and the four Coastal Races in the VDLR.

The weekend double offshore event is being run in conjunction with the Royal Ulster Yacht Club and Quoile Yacht Club.

ISORA's social side

While good and challenging racing is a must for offshore and coastal races, the social side of ISORA is equally important. It is the social side of the races that binds the fleet together and allow the crew to share experiences.

A social reception will be arranged the night before or immediately after each race whenever possible. Courses will be selected that, where possible, will allow all boats taking part in any race to partake in any post-race reception. The course for the Coastal races will be selected based on the weather information to get all boats finished in time to take part in the apres sail.

The 2023 ISORA season will finish with the annual prize-giving dinner dance in the National Yacht Club on the 11th of November

With the increasing exposure in the media of offshore racing, we are getting many requests from potential crew to take part in ISORA. We must encourage as many people to participate and have as many crew available for any race. Lack of crew is the most common cause of boats not participating in a race.

Although ISORA is totally voluntary and all entry fees go towards prizes, additional funds are now needed to run the ISORA YB trackers and promote the important social side of ISORA. While many of our sponsors from last year continue to sponsor ISORA, we need new sponsors for 2023. If you want to sponsor an ISORA race, please contact me (details below).

We are grateful for Musto, who sponsors the Overall ISORA Offshore Series, Viking Marine who is the sponsor for the Irish Coastal Series and Plas Heli, who is the sponsor of the Welsh /UK coastal Series. The full list of sponsors for 2023 will be published before the first race.

The season will finish with the annual prize-giving dinner dance in the National Yacht Club on the 11^th of November.

We look forward to meeting up again with all skippers and crew in 2023

Peter Ryan
ISORA Chairman
[email protected]

Today's ICRA conference at Dun Laoghaire heard from ISORA Chief Peter Ryan, who outlined his 2023 programme emphasising coastal racing. 

"Coastal racing is alive and kicking, and the best of it is in ISORA", he told the cruiser-racer gathering.

ISORA has finalised its 2023 racing schedule, reducing fixtures to avoid clashes with other events.

The programme released in draft form in Afloat here last November was built around a busy racing calendar and is aimed to provide a full series of coastal races in Ireland and Wales.

"It is difficult for crews to make long-term commitments over a season, so we have devised a number of mini-series to make participation easier," he said.

The Offshore Series has been designed to provide a challenging series with a variety of ports and a complexity of courses.

Ryan says the main influencing events which helped ISORA shape the final programme are:

• IRC Welsh Nationals Championships –12th to 14th May
• D2D Race – 7th June
• RDYC Offshore Championship / Lyver Race – 1st July
• VDLR – 6th to 9th July
• Greystones Regatta – 26th to 27th August
• ICRA Nationals – Howth – 8th to 10th September

The 2023 calendar still strongly emphasises its coastal series with six races on the Irish side of the Cross Channel.

A highlight of the year for the ISORA fleet will be June's Dun Laoghaire Dingle Race which has already attracted the Volvo 70, Wizard.

Ryan says that sailors can expect coastal races as part of July's VDLR, August's Greystones Regatta and the ICRA nationals in September too.

Ryan was speaking at the Royal St. George Yacht Club hosted ICRA Cruiser-Racer Conference at Dun Laoghaire Harbour, where key regatta organisers unveiled 2023 sailing season plans.

ISORA has finalised its 2023 racing schedule reducing the number of fixtures to avoid clashes with other events.

The programme released in draft form in Afloat here in November is built around a busy racing calendar and is aimed to provide a full series of coastal races in Ireland and Wales.

'We can’t fit any more ISORA races in without clashes', ISORA boss Peter Ryan told Afloat.

The 'Offshore Series has been designed to provide a challenging series with a variety of ports and a complexity of courses.

Ryan says the main influencing events which helped ISORA shape the final programme are:

• IRC Welsh Nationals Championships –12th to 14th May
• D2D Race – 7th June
• RDYC Offshore Championship / Lyver Race – 1st July
• VDLR – 6th to 9th July
• Greystones Regatta – 26th to 27th August
• ICRA Nationals – Howth – 1st to 3rd September

The 2023 calendar still strongly emphasises its coastal series with six races on the Irish side of the Cross Channel.

Ryan says that sailors can expect coastal races as part of July's VDLR, August's Greystones Regatta and the ICRA nationals in September too.

2023 ISORA Calendar

Download a pdf version of the calendar below

With no current record time established, could the IRC record course from Pwllheli in North Wales to Dun Laoghaire in Ireland have appeal for the high-speed fledgeling Cape 31 fleets now established on both sides of the Irish Sea?

ISORA Chief Peter Ryan, a promoter of the new challenge, seems to think so. "It might be attractive for the Cape 31s if they want to have a blast! It is also handy for any Irish Sea boat attempting it as it could be done in two days, including the delivery, Ryan says.

The Cape 31s have been taking the scene by storm since their arrival in Ireland earlier in 2022, clocking up high speeds in local Dublin Bay races, as Afloat previously reported here. 

Ryan reckons if a Cape could average ten knots for the voyage, a new record time could realistically be 7.5 hours or lower.

The historic course, raced by ISORA for decades as the ‘James Eadie Race’, is a coastal leg followed by open sea across to Ireland.

New challenge, old course: The 75-mile IRC record course from Pwllheli in North Wales to Dun Laoghaire on the south shore of Dublin Bay, Ireland

The new challenge is part of a new concept to the world of sailing records, ‘Corrected Time Records’, that allows boats of different shapes and sizes to compete on a level playing field.  

Ryan told Afloat: "Boats attempting this record bid will have to get time and wind right as they will have to deal with the tides and sea conditions at Bardsey Sound".

ISORA's Peter Ryan - promoting Irish Sea record challenges

The aim of IRC Records is to re-create the thrill of making and breaking records. Corrected Time Records allows yacht owners to compete with their own equipment lowering the barrier to entry.

"For decades the setting of records in the world of sailing has been mainly reserved for adventurers, pioneers, designers, eccentrics and the elite, usually requiring specific boat designs optimised for a single purpose, IRC Records state 

Launching with the world-renowned ‘International Rating Certificate System’ (IRC), IRCRecords.com™ provides the platform to enable Corrected Time Records, with attempts calculated from a boat’s elapsed time on the course and their measured  ‘handicap’   the boat’s IRC TCC figure, say IRC Records.

"We will be able to supply the YB tracker to any boat that may consider this challenge. We may also be able to supply a starter in Pwllheli," Ryan says. 

Is most “ocean racing” today really oceanic? Does “offshore racing” really involve going truly offshore? Are boats touted as being “cruiser-racers” ever really used for genuine cruising? And are sailing enthusiasts who like to think of themselves as being devoted adherents of some - or indeed all - of the above, surely tending to over-egg the cake more than somewhat, in order to cut a bit of a dash and enhance a reputation for seagoing toughness when they get together to socialise with other sailing enthusiasts?

It’s an effect which is accentuated when such dedicated matelots are meeting within earshot of civilians at mid-week. And it’s much more prevalent in England or Scotland or France, where many sailors live at some considerable distance from their boats, whereas in Ireland, we’d tend to regard such a situation as plain silly.

Be that as it may, in the profoundly English rural depths of the Cotswolds, there are so many weekend sailors living in the area that they felt such a need for mid-week get-togethers that they formed the Chipping Norton Yacht Club. It would meet at least once a week (and may still do so) in some totally non-nautical pub (the Pug & Ferret perhaps) in order to talk boats, and the members tended to wear their sailing clothes – or outfits, or whatever you want to call our unmistakably salty gear – at these gatherings, and chat with increasing volume about the past weekend’s experiences, and the excitements to come.

Far from the sea in the Cotswolds, clear definitions of “offshore” and “ocean” come with added significance Photo: Saffron Blaze/Wikimedia

Thus any non-sailing country-living typically straw-chewing hedge fund manager or venture capitalist doing a spot of ear-wigging nearby would be increasingly impressed by the frequent use of the word “rawk”, particularly once he or she had cottoned on to the fact that it meant RORC. For its use implied that the weather–beaten speaker had just returned from a weekend’s rugged participation in some major event staged from the South Coast by the Royal Ocean Racing Club.

THE AURA OF GREAT OCEAN SAILING LEGENDS

Yes indeed, the use of “ocean” implies regularly taking on the risk-laden deep sea challenges faced by Slocum and O’Brien and Chichester and Knox-Johnston and Tabarly on a daily basis. Whereas the reality has been a cross-channel summertime sprint to northern France, and no greater risk than some allergic reaction to an over-indulgence in fruits de mer and calvados.

Don’t get me wrong. The Royal Ocean Racing Club does indeed stage some genuinely trans-oceanic events in its busy calendar. But the use of “Ocean” in the blanket title of a distinguished organisation which will begin celebrating its Centenary in just 26 months time tends to muddy the waters as to our meaning for various terms in defining non-inshore racing.

SIT-REPS FROM ISORA AND ICRA

Last weekend’s publication of what we might interpret as Situation Papers, from both the Irish Cruiser-Racer Association and the Irish Sea Offshore Racing Association, underlined the increasingly blurred borders, and the fact that the racing of boats with a lid – “truck racing” as dinghy sailors call it until they get involved – is going through one of its inevitable upheavals, as people’s changing commitments and societal and family expectations interact dynamically with a complex sport which is always quietly changing in itself.

Peter Ryan of Dun Laoghaire, Chairman of ISORA, at the helm on Mojito during the 2013 Fastnet Race

Thus names and categories which might have been completely appropriate fifty or even twenty years ago have become almost misleading in recreational sailing today, and inevitably produce an adverse reaction in those traditionalists who take the basis of their definitions from the great days of commercial sail, when “ocean-going” and “offshore” and “coasting” had clear legal meaning, and straightforward significance.

COMPLYING WITH THE DEFINITIONS OF THE DAYS OF SAIL

Consequently, when Dublin Bay’s Corinthian-emphasising Royal Alfred Yacht Club ran one of its regular races from Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead in the late 1800s, it would be described as a Cross-Channel Match. No casual use of “offshore” or “ocean” there. But that said, when the ultra-pioneering 1860 race from Dublin Bay to Cork Harbour was staged, it was promoted and reported as “The Ocean Race”, a name which has such a zing to it that years later, the annual Cork Harbour to Kinsale Race for cruisers and Cork Harbour One Designs on the August Bank Holiday Weekend became known as “The Ocean Race”.

The start of a Royal Alfred YC cross-channel “match race” from Dublin Bay to Holyhead in 1888

Cork Harbour ODs dominate the start of the “Ocean Race” from Cork to Kinsale in the 1940s – the two cruisers are Michael Sullivan’s Marchwood Maid (left) and possibly Denis Doyle’s ex-6 Metre Vaara. Photo: RCYC

So in the midst of these confusing angles and interpretations, let us grasp what is tangible. The ICRA report of its many prize-winners – topped by Mike & Richie Evans with their J/99 Snapshot – reveals that 109 boats were eligible for the title. And those of us who raced with ISORA in its first defining decade in the 1970s will recall that in its peak years its annual championship – based on a minimum of seven genuinely offshore races – was contested by 107 boats.

ISORA boats in Howth in 1978 at the end of the James C Eadie Cup Race from Abersoch were (left to right) a North Sea 31 designed by Holman & Pye, a Sadler 25, the J/24 Pathfinder (Philip Watson), the S&s 40 Dai Mouse III (David Hague, now Sunstone), the McGruer yawl Frenesi, and the High Tension 36 Force Tension, skippered by Johnny Morris and line honours winner of the first Round Ireland race in 1980. Photo: W M Nixon

Thus ICRA is now – and has been for several years – accommodating the sport of a fleet of boats comparable to ISORA at its height. Yet when ICRA was first mooted in 2002 by Fintan Cairns of Dun Laoghaire and the late Jim Donegan of Cork in a meeting at the notably ecumenical location of the Granville Hotel in Waterford, there were many – this writer included – who felt that an association of potentially offshore sailing boats based entirely around a land-mass would be unhelpful for the development of a sport in which the enthusiastic use of definably offshore waters was surely essential.

But the ICRA promoters made the point that inshore cruiser-racing - right up to regatta level - was the fastest-growing area of interest in Irish sailing. And its adherents – particularly those who had no wish to go far offshore and most particularly had no wish to spend nights racing at sea – were a very significant sector of the sport, a sector which urgently needed meaningful representation in a dedicated national Ireland-oriented organization, rather than solely by some sea area-based setup.

With ICRA, you certainly do get to race round the Fastnet, but it’s at Calves Week out of Schull. In winning form aboard 2022 ICRA Boat of the Year Snapshot, it’s Des Flood on the trim, Richie Evans on the tiller, and Mike Evans reading the runes. 

TWO CORRECT YET OPPOSING POINTS OF VIEW

Both points of view were right. ICRA has become such a central part of the Irish sailing scene that it is difficult to imagine the contemporary world afloat without it, with its enthusiastic committee playing a key role in giving day-racing cruiser-racer sailors - with their prestigious annual regatta-style National Championship and season-long series for the “Boat of the Year” - a major role in the bigger picture.

And the growth of ICRA in turn has accelerated the decline in numbers of those prepared to dedicate themselves to the traditional offshore pattern of an extended weekend – sometimes a very extended weekend - with its time-consuming deliveries and crew-location logistics challenges, and all in order to race just one classic offshore race.

But ISORA itself is continually mutating in order to accommodate new trends in its members’ enthusiasms. Last weekend’s convivial prize-giving and celebration in the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire of its Golden Jubilee may have saluted memories of great Irish Sea offshore races of times past, and the special flavour of competitive nights at sea. Yet a straw poll indicated a preference for more coastal races, with the double implication that no nights are going to be spent at sea, and the race will end comfortably back at the home port.

And though the deservedly-lauded overall champion, the J/109 Mojito (Vicky Cox & Peter Dunlop, Pwllheli SC) has achieved honours in serious offshore events as various as the Fastnet Race, the Round Ireland, and the Dun Laoghaire-Dingle, she is equally at home at the front of the fleet in a regatta in Tremadog Bay.

This blurring of roles is further emphasized – in what was a very good year for J Boats – by the J/99 Snapshot’s taking of the ICRA “Boat of the Year” title in the same year as she won the “Best Irish” with a very close second in her first major offshore event, the Round Ireland.

Snapshot gliding to a seemingly effortless overall class win in the Beshoff Motors Autumn League 2022 at Howth, one of the many successes which contributed to her becoming ICRA “Boat of the Year”.

Until then, Snapshot had seemed the regatta boat par excellence. And though Richie Evans had sailed a couple of Round Irelands, his co-owning brother Mike hadn’t done any. Their approach to the challenge of the big one seemed to be to regard the round Ireland as a string of full-on day races with some brief but intensive June night contests in between. It certainly worked. Their impressive closing in on the winner’s lead in the last dozen miles, leaving all other opposition in their wake, was sailed with the dedication and energy of a crew who might have stepped fresh on board only that morning.

YOUNG TURKS AND SENIOR SAILORS HAVE DIFFERENT PRIORITIES

With this blurring of distinctions between long-established categories, we find other divides emerging, and some seem to relate to age and professionalism. The more senior sailors enjoy a one-race-per-day event, with an attractive coastal element. They tend to think that the excitement of just one heart-rate-accelerating start sequence in each daily programme is quite enough to be going along with, and they reckon a coastal course, with its scenery and the chance of some cunning work with tides, is what cruiser-racing should be all about.

But the Young Turks and the Pros want longer races to be kept away from coastal influences, and they’d happily charge into at least two starts every day, and more if it can be arranged. As for the senior sailors’ lack of enthusiasm for one damned windward-leeward course after another, it’s something the Young Turks and the Pros don’t understand at all – they’re gladiators when all is said and done, they can’t get enough of confrontation and very direct competition.

Classic offshore racing – a cross channel ISORA race gets under way from Dublin Bay. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien

And then of course there are still those who think that the only authentic competitive use of a cruiser-racer is a straightforward passage race from one port to another, with your proper social duties fulfilled at start and finish. It may be more time-consuming in the long run, but it has an attractive simplicity in planning and purpose.

FACING UP TO 2023

In looking at the diversity of all this with its new interpretations, it’s fascinating to see how the different organisations are facing up to the season of 2023. ICRA will not hold its annual conference under Commodore Dave Cullen until the 4th March next year, but that’s perfectly reasonable as it has been known for a long time that the ICRA Nationals 2023 will be staged at Howth from 1st to 3rd September 2023, and other events contributing to the “Boat of the Year” award are date-dependent on the clubs and organisations running them.

But ISORA with its cross-channel membership faces a much greater diary challenge, and the preliminary draft of the 2023 programme was in circulation before the Golden Jubilee party. No matter how you look at it, it’s quite a complicated document, and it’s interesting to note that there’s the likelihood of a northern element being involved once more through the Royal Ulster Yacht Club. 

The ISORA Draft Programme for 2023 reflects the demands made on a cross-channel organisation

Back in the hugely ambitious first season of 1972, Chairman Dickie Richardson was heading an ISORA organisation whose events took in venues all the way from Scotland to Dunmore East, using both sides of the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George’s Channel in addition to the Isle of Man.

Despite the many events available, as the season drew to a close, northern skipper Dickie Brown with his own-built 35ft Ruffian may have been topping the Class 1 points table, but he was still one race short of the necessary seven with no more events scheduled for the North Channel. So he brought Ruffian to Holyhead to race the southern section’s final event, from Holyhead round Rockabill to Dun Laoghaire, and I was press-ganged to join in Holyhead to make up numbers in a motley crew for this final overnight dash.

Northern star – John Minnis’s A35 Final Call II (RUYC) racing to he class win in the Wave regatta at Howth at the beginning of June. Photo: Annraoi Blaney

The foredeck was being run by two legends of northern sailing, Victor Fusco and Colin Gleadhill – who were both well into their 50s, but well on top of the job nevertheless. This was just as well, as the first leg was a screaming spinnaker reach in a sou’wester, conditions in which Ruffian was unbeatable - if you could only hold onto her. But when you couldn’t as a long squall arrived, it was up to our seniors to snap the spinnaker in and then set it again as soon as possible, which they did very well, and so much better than most men half their age that when we arrived in Dun Laoghaire, the only boat ahead of us was Paddy Donegan’s lovely little 36ft Robb yawl Casquet from Skerries winning Class 3, but then her division had sailed direct, and didn’t have to make the long haul up to Rockabill and back.

Other Class I boats began to arrive in with the Class 2 winner, Bill Cuffe-Smith’s Mark 2 Arpege Leemara from Howth, successfully among them. But nobody challenged Ruffian’s lead and she took the race and the overall title, as did Leemara in Class 2 and Casquet in that race in Class 3, so we were quite the little Winner’s Enclosure that cold morning rafted against the East Pier in Dun Laoghaire.

Winners in Dun Laoghaire at the end of 1972’s first ISORA season were (left to right) Leemara (Bill Cuffe-Smith, Howth YC), Ruffian (Dick & Billy Brown, Royal Ulster YC), and Casquet (Paddy Donegan, Skerries SC). Photo: W M Nixon

Thus while ICRA and ISORA have to keep moving the goal posts in order to accommodate the changing patterns of “offshore” and “cruiser-racing”, it’s good to know that ISORA now also looks north again, where John Minnis’s A35 Final Call II is the Ruffian de nos jours. Offshore and cruiser racing formats may be changing, but the sport and the spirit and the camaraderie are as vibrant as ever.

ISORA will double its coastal races in 2023, the offshore body heard at last Saturday's AGM in the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire Harbour.

The move comes after a straw poll of all skippers voted in favour of more coastal racing on both sides of the Irish Sea. 

Bringing together crews from across Ireland, Wales and the UK, the meeting was held amid a weekend of golden jubilee celebrations for ISORA.

Saturday night featured a Dinner and Prizegiving at the NYC, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the offshore racing association (1972 to 2022).

As Afloat previously reported, Welsh yachts claimed the top two places overall in the 2022 ISORA Series.

A win for Peter Dunlop and Vicky Cox's J109 Mojito in the final cross-channel race from Pwllheli to Dun Laoghaire in September saw the crew also seize overall ISORA honours and lift the Wolf Head's Trophy. 

ISORA Golden Jubilee Dinner and Prizegiving photo gallery by GP Photo

23 races for 2023

Seven offshore and eight coastal races will be held in Dun Laoghaire and Pwllheli next year, where only four were held at each port in 2022.

This gives a total of 23 races for 2023 in a draft programme (see below), with the best five races of a yacht's series counting for points for the overall Wolf's Head Trophy.

60% of 48 skippers polled favoured more coastal races. The poll also saw 30% happy with the status quo and 10% favouring more offshore races. 

The fact crews had to take an extra day off work for the delivery of boats for offshore races was not favoured, the poll confirmed.

It is proposed the season will start on April 15th with a 35-mile coastal race, a fixture that will be repeated weekly until May 6th, when the first of seven offshore will race from Dun Laoghaire - Pwllheli and then a cross-channel return race on May 20th.

Dun Laoghaire Dingle Race

A season highlight is the Volvo Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race (D2D) on June 7th, leading into the Royal Dee Offshore Championships as part of Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta on July 9th, where four VDLR coastal races and July 1st's Holyhead - Dun Laoghaire Lyver race from will comprise the championship.

Another initiative of the 2023 ISORA calendar is a move that will see the fleet head North in a tie-in with Belfast Lough's Royal Ulster Yacht Club on August 5th. 

'Talk is cheap...'

ISORA Chief Peter Ryan cautions, however,  that while the plan looks good on paper, the reality on the water can often be different with some of 2022's fixtures bedevilled by some low turnouts, especially later in the season.

"Talk is cheap. Getting the boats to the start line is difficult. This season most races had 20-plus entries, but it is difficult getting more than 12 to the line", Ryan told Afloat.

Bearing in mind that 2022 was a big year for offshore racing that featured Grand Prix events like the Round Ireland Race in June and July's inaugural K2Q Dun Laoghaire to Cobh Race, there was always going to be pressure on crews. 

"Poor offshore race conditions did not help. There was crew exhaustion before the end of the season", Ryan says in response to the turnouts.  

Ryan reports that some key boats running for the overall Wolfs Head Trophy could not field a team for the season's last race.

Ryan is also worried some regular boats may be going up for sale or have been sold, which could be a further setback to ISORA numbers.

The ISORA Committee believe there was 'excellent momentum gained at the AGM' and has issued a draft 2023 Race Schedule below and wait for further feedback.

ISORA draft 2023 Race Schedule

In this its Golden Jubilee Season, the Irish Sea Offshore Racing Association lived up to its reputation of the points championship being contested right up to the final race. It was the immaculately-prepared J/109 Mojito (Vicky Cox & Peter Dunlop) from Pwllheli which came in from offstage in the concluding and historic James C Eadie Cup, snatching the 2022 Championship and the Wolf’s head Trophy with it.

For the enthsiastically and skillfully raced Mojito, it was another significant prize in a good season – she won her class in Cork Week 2022 in July.

Welsh yachts have claimed the top two places overall in the 2022 ISORA Series that came to a dramatic close off Dun Laoghaire Harbour on Saturday evening.

A win for Peter Dunlop and Vicky Cox's J109 Mojito in the final cross-channel race from Pwllheli to Dun Laoghaire saw the crew also seize overall ISORA honours and lift the Wolf Head's Trophy. 

As Afloat reported previously, the results of Saturday's final race of the Musto ISORA Series determined the 2022 overall champion for offshore racing's prestigious Wolf's Head Trophy.

Andrew Hall's J125 Jackknife from Pwhelli was in pole position after 14 races, with her best scores amounting to 510.9.

But in Saturday's final 11-boat James Eadie Trophy Race from Pwllheli in North Wales across the Irish Sea to Dun Laoghaire Harbour, a distance of 80 miles, it was Hall's Pwllheli clubmates in Mojito that won in a time of 13 hours, 35 minutes and 57 seconds to be first in IRC overall even though the larger Jackknife was the line honours winner in a time of 12 hours and 52 minutes.

Andrew Hall's J125 Jackknife from Pwhelli Photo: Afloat

Overall, the class one yacht Mojito ended the season on  520.6 points from Hall's Class zero entry on 510.9. Third was Howth Grand Soleil 44, Samatom on 501.4.

There had been doubt as to whether the race would sail from Pwhelli on Saturday due to the passing of Queen Elizabeth. As a mark of respect, competitors flew a black flag above the class flag on the backstay.

It completes a stand-out season for the Mojito team. They won July's inaugural 260-mile K2Q Dun Laoghaire to Cork via Fastnet Race, followed by an overall win of the IRC Coastal Division of Volvo Cork Week. 

More on the Mojito 2022 campaign here