Peter Dunlop, skipper of the only Irish Sea boat entered for the now-cancelled IRC Worlds in New York, updates on plans for the former ISORA Championship winning J109, Mojito, on this side of the Atlantic
It's a bit of a shame that the worlds have been cancelled. I was hoping that by the end of September we would have made enough progress against COVID-19 that the event could go ahead.
It looked that we wouldn't be able to get Mojito shipped, so we came up with a backup plan. We secured the use of a J/109 that was already at the venue. Bill Kneller, ex-US J/109 class president, kindly agreed to lend us his boat. We would take our sails, forestay and head foil so we could set up the boat as close to Mojito as possible.
Wave Regatta
Nearly all of the events we had planned have been affected. We hope to get back to sailing later in the summer. I expect the first event will be an ISORA rally and later some ISORA races. ISORA will be ready to go as soon as it's possible. I expect we will be sailing with a limited crew. Our crew are Welsh, Irish, and English so we have varying sets of regulations to deal with. I really hope we can make August's Welsh IRC nationals and Howth's Wave Regatta in September, with some ISORAs in-between. The rudder needs refitting and the rig putting up
September's Wave Regatta in Howth is on the schedule for former ISORA champion J109, Mojito Photo: Afloat
Mojito is not yet ready. She was in the shed having the bottom done when lockdown came in and nothing has been done since March. The rudder needs refitting and the rig putting up, then we will be good to go, but there is still no schedule for when that might be possible.
