ISORA has published its race schedule for 2011 and to win the overall sailing series next year boats must complete four of the six 'qualifying' events. Points for the overall series will then be taken from the best five results from ALL the races completed.

The offshore body has also changed the scoring of each race to the High Score system and it will apply weightings for those qualifying races depending on the complexity of the race. The aim is to better reward the winner and participants of longer races with bigger fleets.

To provide opportunities for those boats who have not been winning to win prizes and trophies, it was also agreed to create a "Silver" fleet in both Class 1 and Class 2. The selection of boats to enter the "Silver" fleet for 2011 will be based on their performance in 2010. The success of these new classes will depend on maintaining the number of boats entering and racing at least at last year's numbers.

Round Ireland organiser, Wicklow Sailing Club has elected its first Lady President in the 60th anniversary year of the club.

Long time resident of Wicklow, Sadie Phelan, has been very involved in many roles in the club previously, having served as its Honorary Secretary for several years. Phelan also served as Wicklow SC ISORA representative as well as organising many fundraising and social events including the Round Ireland Prizegiving dinners.

This is a great honour for Sadie and her family and she will be a worthy ambassador for the members of WSC with her wide circle of sailing friends from both sides of the Irish Sea.

 

ISORA has published its race schedule for 2011 and to win the overall series next year boats must complete 4 of the 6 "qualifying". Points for the overall series will then be taken from the Best 5 results from ALL the races completed.

The offshore body has also changed the scoring of each race to the High Score system and it will apply weightings for those qualifying races depending on the complexity of the race. The aim is to better reward the winner and participants of longer races with bigger fleets.

To provide opportunities for those boats who have not been winning to win prizes and trophies, it was also agreed at last weeks agm to create a "Silver" fleet in both Class 1 and Class 2. The selection of boats to enter the "Silver" fleet for 2011 will be based on their performance in 2010. The success of these new classes will depend on maintaining the number of boats entering and racing at least at last years numbers.

The NOR and Entry forms for ISORA 2011 will be published later this month.

The Race Programme is attached for download below.

 

In spite of several lead changes at the top of Afloat's 'Who will win ICRA boat of the Year' Poll its the ISORA sailing supremo Raging Bull from Skerries (Matt Davies) that stays readers favourite after 2,500 vote cast so far. 

Irish Sea Offshore sailing Chief Peter Ryan has circulated the Notice and Agenda for next Saturday's ISORA AGM at the National Yacht Club and told Ireland's biggest band of offshore crews to wear dinner jackets so they can vote on next year's sailing, watch Ireland play South Africa and attend the formal ISORA prize giving dinner all at the same waterfront venue.

The AGM takes place at 14.00 at the NYC. The rugby match is on at 17.30 and Ryan says if sailors are interested they can dress up in your tux and watch the match.

Immediately after the match at 19.45, the pre-dinner drinks reception will be held in the JB Room of the Dun Laoghaire club with complimentary sparkling wine and classical music by the Neptune Trio.

Dinner will be at 20.30 sharp to enable the prize giving to take place at 22.00 and finish of ceremonies by 23.00 latest. After this sailors can relax or dance the night away at the ISORA disco.

AGM papers are attached for download.

Marinerscove leads Afloat's sailing Boat of the Year opinion poll that has attracted over 1700 votes to date. After 20 days of voting the lead has changed several times in the fun poll and early leader Erisslanan, who shared boat of the week with Mariners at Cork week is now in third place on 227 votes, some distance behind ISORA winner Raging bull on 607 votes. 81 votes clear ahead is the Crosshaven boat that also bagged the British IRC title this year. Dave Dwyer's Marinerscove was of course also the middle boat in the victorious Irish Commodores Cup team in August. The ICRA boat of the year award will be awarded on November 13th at the Cruiser Racer conference in Carrigaline. You can vote by using the poll on the left hand side of Afloat's home page.

 

Offshore boss Peter Ryan has submitted two sailing issues for consideration at ISORA's AGM in the National YC on the 6th November.

The first is a proposed race schedule for 2011. Due to the number of races and the large variation in the distance and complexity, Ryan is proposing to identify some of the main races as those that qualify for the Overall ISORA Series - "The Wolf's Head Trophy". The other races will qualify for another lesser series that involves all races. Trophies and prizes will be awarded for all races irrespective of status.

The second issue is the proposed use of the High Score system and incorporating a difficulty coefficient to reflect the type of race involved. The use of the high scoring system will also be preferable when dealing with a series where many boats will not do most of the races and the variation in the fleet numbers can be significant.

Stephen Tudor of PSC has used the results from 2010 to illustrate the proposed system and these are attached below. Unfortunately (or fortunately) in the example the places of the top boats are generally unaltered but this is due to the fact that the top boats did most or all the races.

Ryan also says he has contacted RORC and they have agreed in principle to accept any ISORA race of over 75 miles and incorporating a night passage as a qualifier for next year's Fastnet Race.

The main purpose of the exercise is to encourage boats to do as many of the races as possible but not the penalise them too much for races missed. It is also to reward those boats more that win in large fleets over a win in a smaller fleets. Day races will be used to encourage and entice more new entries to ISORA in 2011.

The Race Schedule and Scoring System will be agreed at the AGM.

Irish Sea Offshore Racing (ISORA) Chairman Peter Ryan is to address next month's Irish Cruiser Racer (ICRA) conference in Carrigaline, Co.Cork. The National YC commodore will speak on the promotion of offshore racing and how in the course of a few seasons Ryan has rekindled a section of the sport that had been in decline on both sides of the Irish Sea. 

The Conference takes place on Saturday, November 13th at Carrigaline Court Hotel. The day-long conference chaired by Commodore Barry Rose with two sessions 11-1 and 2-4pm will take in all aspects of cruiser racing including how Ireland won this year's Commodores Cup. A special event is being arranged to mark the Cup coming to Ireland for the first time.

Alterations to future sailing series plus a change to how races are scored will be considered at November's ISORA agm. The 2010 season has been a watershed year for the body after the National YC rekindled interest in Irish sea racing, boosting numbers from single figures to a fleet of 30. Now ISORA commodore, Peter Ryan, intends to capitalise on the new interest by circulating issues for discussion to take place at the AGM at the National YC on the 6th November at 14.00. Already on the table, according to Ryan, is  a proposal to change the scoring system to the High Point System as used by the Royal Alfred YC, a system which rewards the winners of the bigger races.

Race 10 – Pwllheli to Howth – James Eadie Sailing Race 11th September 2010. From an entry list of 31 boats, 13 boats came to the line in Pwllheli for the last race in the 2010 ISORA Offshore series writes Peter Ryan. It was the James Eadie Trophy race. While in the past this race was one of the most popular, the bad weather on Thursday night and Friday put off many boats from delivering to Pwllheli. Those boats that braved the weather were reward with another great race. The race was started by Richard Tudor of Pwllheli sailing Club.

Due to the extraordinary strong spring tides it was decided to omit Bardsey Sound from the course and to take Bardsey Island to starboard. From there the course was direct to Howth – 75 miles. The start was at 09.00.

The forecast for the race was for south-west winds 10-15 knots to veer west then continue and increase north west. The forecast was correct at the start with a beat to Bardsey and the wind increasing to 20 knots. The strong tides produced some spectacular overfalls at Bardsey Island. First around Bardsey was "Tsunami", Vincent Farrell followed closely by "Raging Bull", Matt Davis and "Team Windmill", Andrew Sarratt. The overfalls appeared to take toll on the fleet with the remainder of the fleet having difficulty in rounding Bardsey. This caused a split in the fleet with the first three boats taking advantage of the last of the north going tide.

The course to Howth first seemed like a simple reach but this changed regularly and often with the wind oscillating and fluctuating continuously. The front-runners appeared to escape the holes that formed and held the bulk of the fleet back. What started as a reach ended in a beat into Howth into a 20 knot north westerly.

The first into Howth was "Tsunami", crossing the line at 23:19 followed closely by "Raging Bull" at 23:27 and "Team Windmill" at 23:54. "Lula Belle", Liam Coyne and "Dinah" Barry Hurley were separated by only 2 seconds on the line at 00:51. Four boats crossed the finish around 01:40 while the last boat "Sarnia", Michael Creeedon, crossed the line at 08.35. John Doran of Howth Yacht Club stood the long watch and recorded the boats finishing.

"Raging Bull" took 1st in Class 1 and Overall while "Tsunami" took 2nd in Class 1 and Overall and "Team Windmill" took 3rd Class 1 and Overall. "Just Enough" took 1st Class 2 with "Dinah" taking 2nd Class 2 and "Lula Belle" taking 3rd Class 2.

The Overall ISORA Champion of 2010 is Matt Davis and "Raging Bull" from Skerries Sailing Club. "Just Enough", Stephen Tudor from Pwllheli Sailing Club took 2nd place while "Tsunami", Vincent Farrell from the National Yacht Club took 3rd. The prize giving dinner will be in the National Yacht Club on the 6th November.