While sailing in Ireland has its conspicuously attention-getting aspects, the real backbone of the sport continues to be the active club sailor who can quietly keep a usefully large crew panel together in order to have the right mix of talents when taking on any special challenge.

Paul O’Higgins of the RIYC in Dun Laoghaire with the JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI is an excellent example of these quiet enthusiasts, these people who truly enjoy their sport, and his healthy approach was underlined during 2023 when – among other successes – Rockabill VI won the Irish Sea Offshore Racing Association Championship 2023 in a cliffhanger conclusion with success in the final race.

His many sailing friends on both sides of the Irish Sea have been saddened to learn of the death of Richard Tudor of Pwllheli, an inspirational figure in sailing and across a wide spectrum of interests in boats.

He was a former Commodore and dedicated committee member of Clwb Hwylio Pwllheli Sailing Club for many years, and among many other successful experiences, he was a round-the-world yachtsman.

A dedicated Irish Sea Offshore Racing Association participant, in 2021 he received the CHPSC Lifetime Achievement Award.

Our condolences are with his family, his many shipmates and his wider circle of friends.

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

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

In a big weekend for sailing prizegivings at Ireland's biggest boating centre, DBSC presented its awards on Friday night. 

Before the celebrations, the 2024 ISORA draft calendar was unveiled at the association's agm, as Afloat reports here. 

O'Higgins lifted 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.

O'Higgins also won the Vincent Farrell Trophy for his coastal series victory.

ISORA Chairman Peter Ryan, Peter Dunlop (Vice Chairman) Stephen Turor (Hon Sec) and ISORA 2023 Champion Paul O’Higgins, skipper of Rockabill VI from the Royal Irish Yacht Club Photo: GP Foto

Rockabill VI's crew included Philip Connor, Conor O'Higgins, Paul Gough, James Gunn, Ian O'Meara and John Kelly. Front: Finola Flanagan, Paul O'Higgins, Kieran Tarbett, Anna Walshe, Mark Pettitt, Oisin Collins, Rees Kavanagh, Adam Leddy, Harry Beausang, Graham Curran and Bill Nolan.

ISORA Chairman Peter Ryan used the occasion to honour Welsh sailor Richard Tudor – for services rendered to the association and for being part of ISORA for nearly 50 years.

Richard Tudor, Peter Ryan and Anne-Marie Ryan at the ISORA prizegiving, where Tudor was honoured for his long service of the association Photo: GP Foto

The guest enjoyed a reception before dinner and finished the night with a Jack Ryan whiskey toast and a live band to round out the Irish Sea's offshore sailing year.

Check out the prizewinners in the ISORA 2023 photo gallery by GP Foto below

ISORA has published a draft schedule for its 2024 fixtures that starts on May 6th with an early coastal series on both sides of the Irish Sea.

The first cross-channel race is May 11th with a Dun Laoghaire - Pwllheli race. 

A highlight of the seven-race offshore season will be the 12th July Kingstown – Queenstown (Dun Laoghaire to Cork) race that carries a weighting of 1.3

ISORA 2024 Fixtures (Draft)

• 6th, 13th, 20th & 27th May Irish Early Coastal Series – 4 races
• 11th May Dun Laoghaire - Pwllheli 1.2
• 25th May Pwllheli - Dun Laoghaire 1.2
• 8th June Holyhead – Rockabill – Kish - Dun Laoghaire 1.2
  
• 22nd June Round Ireland Race
• 12th July Kingstown – Queenstown (Dun Laoghaire to Cork) 1.3
  
• 15th-19th July Cork Week
• 2nd August Holyhead to Arklow TBC 1.3
• 4th August From Arklow – Wicklow Sea Finish TBC 1.1
• 25th August Pwllheli – Kish Light - Dun Laoghaire - James Eadie 1.3
• 20th September Irish Coastal Night Race

It’s prize-giving time down beside the Old Granite Pond. Last night (Friday), Commodore Eddie Totterdell presided over Dublin Bay Sailing Club’s annual re-distribution of their enormous cache of trophies in the National Maritime Museum in Dun Laoghaire. And tonight (Saturday), the Irish Sea Offshore Racing Association are holding their annual black-tie prize-giving dinner (and dance too, if the notion comes on you) just across the road in the waterfront National Yacht Club, the home club – as it happens – of both the DBSC Commodore, and ISORA Chairman Peter Ryan.

The National Maritime Museum is still thought of by more than a few as the being primarily the 180-year-old Mariners’ Church, notwithstanding the fact that the lease for the Church of Ireland to hand it over to the Maritime Institute was signed way back in 1974, making next year the Golden Jubilee of the beginning of the journey to becoming the Museum.

You can’t miss it….the former Mariners Church, now the National Maritime Museum (right) and the “new” Lexicon (left), with Dun Laoghaire Harbour beyond. It was thought the Lexicon would over-shadow the National Maritime Museum, but its location in the conspicuous church – with its re-purposing marking its Golden Jubilee next year – still tops them all

It achieved that status in 1978, when the newly-located museum was officially opened by President Patrick Hillery – as we shall see, he was a sailing man himself. But regardless of the passage of time, and even with the visionary and sympathetic re-purposing within, from the outside there’s no doubting this was originally a church, highly visible from all directions.

President Patrick Hillery with designer Billy Brown of Portaferry aboard the new Ruffian 23, which was making her debut at the 1976 Dun Laoghaire Boat Show. Two years later, President Hillary officially opened the newly-housed National Maritime Museum nearby in the former Mariner’s Church, by which time the Ruffian 23 class was becoming so popular as the latest long-lived Dublin Bay SC One-Design in Dun Laoghaire that in 2023 it has been playing a leading role in the Ruffian 23 International Golden Jubilee celebrations

In fact, it dominated the view from the harbour such that, back in the day, the crew of any Royal Navy vessel which happened to be anchored or moored in what was then Kingstown on a Sunday would be marched - in uniformed procession - from Traders’ Wharf to Morning Service, following which non-commissioned ranks would return to the ship, but officers might avail of the Sunday lunch options at the waterfront yacht clubs.

THE CHALLENGE OF RE-PURPOSING A CLASSIC CHURCH BUILDING

Traditional churches must be among the most focused buildings ever created. And as they always carry a whiff of their former consecration, the re-purposing of a classic church such as this has only a very narrow selection of options. Indeed, there are those who would argue that becoming the National Maritime Museum was the only acceptable option to give the building any future with which people could feel comfortable.

Certainly most of us find that the re-purposing of classic churches to become something like a restaurant, or even someone’s home, can have a slightly distasteful feeling to it. That said, at tonight’s ISORA silverfest in the National, they’ll fondly remember the late Dickie Richardson (1926-2015) of Holyhead, who brought ISORA into being 51 years ago, in 1972.

HEART OF OFFSHORE RACING IN A FORMER METHODIST CHAPEL

Dickie and his wife Elspeth made their second home in a former Methodist Chapel at Porth y Fellyn, that attractive secluded western end of Holyhead Harbour. But one of the reasons Methodism succeeded so well in Wales was because its Elders did not build their chapels to over-awe the nearby buildings and their occupants. On the contrary, they built them to fit in with the local vernacular street-scape, and thus Chez Richardson had no trouble in being re-purposed as the friendly and hospitable heart of real sailing in Holyhead.

Dickie Richardson (1926-2015) of Liverpool and Holyhead in 1972. The founding chairman in 1972 of ISORA succeeded - with his wife Elspeth - in converting a former Methodist chapel at Porth-y-Fellyn in west Holyhead into a hospitable family home. Photo: W M Nixon

Yet even with the Mariners Church’s suitable fit as the Museum, it has taken time for the general consciousness to become fully aware of the change. But in any case, all museums these days are having to re-think their contemporary relationship with the community they serve, and the Maritime Museum’s growing significance as the focus for contemporary events is something which was foreseen – or more accurately hoped for – by some of those visionaries who saw a new and very useful museum role for the de-consecrated church, and one of them was the ubiquitous Hal Sisk - he played key roles in both the new life for the Maritime Museum, and before that in the up-grading of what had been the Northwest Offshore Association to become ISORA.

The man who is everywhere – Hal Sisk in Dun Laoghaire with the historic schooner Atlantic in the background. His history of the 1870-founded Royal Alfred YC demonstrated the club’s pioneering role in promoting amateur sailing, he was involved in the early years of the Mariners Church in Dun Laoghaire becoming the National Maritime Museum, in 1971-72 he was a leading committee member in the NWOA becoming enlarged as ISORA, and currently he is much involved with Fionan de Barra in the revival of the Dublin Bay SC 21ft Class, which in 2024 will have their own designated line of moorings beside Dun Laoghaire’s East Pier off the National Yacht Club. Photo: W M Nixon

But now we’ve reached the happy stage of the Dun Laoghaire sailing community seeing the Museum as the natural location for any major social event which involves the members of all the harbour’s clubs, such as the launching of the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta or the annual distribution of the DBSC prizes. But equally there are more specialist events which lend themselves better to a clubhouse hosting, and the ISORA gathering in the National is something of a hot ticket.

DUBLIN BAY’S HOSPITABLE GOVERNING CLUB

Dublin Bay Sailing Club, on the other hand, has prided itself on being a club for everyone interested in all forms of sailing. Yet while it started in a very modest way in 1884, it developed with rocket-like speed to become the overall administrator of Dun Laoghaire racing. Within ten years of its founding, it was the harbour’s central authority for governing new One-Design classes, and less than twenty years after the very first DBSC race, it received the royal seal of approval, so to speak, when the Viceroy Lord Dudley joined the 1898-founded Dublin Bay 25 OD Class with his new boat Fodhla, built by James Doyle in what was then Kingstown.

The Seal of Royal Approval for DBSC – the Viceroy Lord Dudley threading several in-harbour needles with his new Dublin Bay 25 Fodhla to win a Kingstown regatta in 1902

You might think that this sort of direct involvement by those in power is now a long-lost relic of the rare old times. But under the state’s new management, we’ve seen the Sail Training Brigantine Asgard brought into being thanks to the somewhat unlikely combination - over time - of special efforts by Paddy Donegan and Charlie Haughey when they were in the role of Minister for Defence when their different parties were in power.

PRESIDENT HILLERY'S CALMING PRESENCE

But while both were personally seafaring enthusiasts, they could reasonably be described as representing the most colourful and contentious wings of their respective parties. So it was something of a relief for the more quiet-living section of the sailing community when the calming presence of President Hillery came with his new Ron Holland-designed Cork-built Club Shamrock Half Tonner Corcomroe to Dun Laoghaire, and entered into a friendly and long-standing agreement with leading Royal St George YC member Jack Craig to be his Sailing Master in the same way as – in the 1890s – Willie Jameson of the same club had been persuaded on board as Royal Sailing Master in the Prince of Wales’ mighty Watson-designed new cutter Britannia.

Thus President Hillery’s blessing in 1978 on the inauguration of the process of the Mariners Church becoming the National Maritime Museum carried weight. And it was preceded two years esrlier by his detailed visit to the newly-minted Ruffian 23 at the 1976 Dun Laoghaire Boat Show, so the celebration this year of the Golden Jubilee of the Ruffian 23 Class in Ireland and abroad – with Dun Laoghaire one of its continuing strongholds – is another example of Dublin Bay sailing going right to the top.

A light yet effective hand on the helm afloat and ashore – Tim Goodbody and his family’s contributions to sailing at many levels were recognised in two of the leading awards at last night’s DBSC prize-giving. Photo: Afloat.ie

But as it is a state of affairs which goes all the way back to the first Dun Laoghaire regatta of 1828, inevitably the end-of-season prize-giving roundup is a massively complex affair. And as with the racing afloat, it is a stress test for DBSC’s “standing army” of volunteers, led by Honorary Secretary Rosemary Roy.

Commodore Eddie Totterdell and his DBSC committee ahead of Friday night's packed annual prizegiving (below) in Dun Laoghaire's Maritime Museum Photos: Michael Chester

Thus we’ll highlight the premier awards, but getting to grips with the details of the new winners of the many other trophies can be a matter of personal study of the special DBSC Results below

DUBLIN BAY’S TOP PRIZE-WINNERS

Details of the DBSC Premier Awards 2023:

John Treanor and his victorious J112e Valentina Crew at the DBSC Prizegiving Photo: Michael Chester

The Dun Laoghaire Harbour Trophy

For the best new boat entered into DBSC Racing

Valentina. John Treanor

Tim and Richard Goodbody celebrate with the J109 White Mischief crew at the at the 2023 DBSC Prizegiving Photo: Michael Chester

The George Arthur Newsome Cup

For the most successful boat in one design racing

White Mischief. Tim Goodbody

The Waterhouse Shield

For the most successful boat in a handicap series

Windjammer. Lindsay Casey

The Dr. Alf Delany Memorial Cup

For the most successful Dinghy in the season

Orion. Noel Butler

The Brendan Ebril Memorial Cup

For the most successful boat that turns out week on week, not winning another trophy

Ruth. The Shanahan Family

The Viking Award

For selflessly giving of time and expertise for the betterment of the standard of sailing in Dublin Bay

Tim Goodbody.  for his support of DBSC and mainly for his work on course design for many years)

GOODBODY IN EVERY WAY

The prominence of the Goodbody clan and its Patriarch Tim Goodbody is so right and proper, as he’s a sailing genius both inshore and offshore - he was lead helm when the Dubois 40 Irish Independent was overall winner of the 1987 Fastnet Race and top scorer in that year’s Admiral’s Cup team. Yet he also is an exceptionally talented administrator, having been Commodore of the RAYC in its glory days when it led the sailing world with its innovative Heineken Super-League, he also found time to do his stint as Commodore Royal Irish YC, which is no sinecure, and yet he is happy to turn his talents to the most basic tasks, which for Dublin Bay SC was his massive input into the creation of challenging courses for racing within the relatively limited space which is available to the club.

The gang’s all here…..John Treanor’s new J/112E ValenTina took the DBSC’s Dun Laoghaire Harbour trophy for the best newcomer. Photo: Michael Chester

With the Royal Alfred YC now amalgamated into Dublin Bay SC, the key elements in the overall structure of the sailing for the entire membership of the four brick-and-mortar yacht clubs in Dun Laoghaire is unified, but the success in this arrangement is to be found in the strict restriction of DBSC’s remit to Dublin Bay sailing. This may seem so obvious as not to need clarification, but sometimes a hot-headed senior officer - having gained controls of the levers of power – will have a rush of blood to the head with ideas of geographic expansion.

In a year in which the great Liam Shanahan’s much-mourned death occurred at the age of 93, his family continued the tradition of keenly racing their award-winning J/109 Ruth. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien

However, after so many years of steady success, the DBSC administrators are well aware of the dictum that in order for the situation to stay the same, everything must quietly but steadily change. Thus traditionalists in DBSC are happy in the notion that their club is very directly still in the spirit established way back in 1884, yet those desiring innovation will – if their bright idea or new boat type is good – being quietly taken on board in the consistent yet ever-changing organization.

Former World Champion Noel Butler (in red) racing his RS Aero Orion to success and the DBSC Alf Delany Memorial Cup for 2023. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien

DUBLIN BAY DETAILS

With the nights closing in, an hour and more of a close study of all the DBSC results for 2023 proves to be an absorbing experience, and thanks to the steady collation of multiple reports by Hon.Sec. Rosemary Roy and her team, here they are in list form

ISORA SATURDAY NIGHT CONVIVIALITY

It’s in the best traditions of offshore racing’s proclivity for post-race conviviality that the Irish Sea overall results come to us as the menu for tonight’s ISORA dinner in the National YC. But with a sometimes convoluted history that goes back through several developing organisations to the channel matches of the late 1800s, inevitably some names veer slightly off course.

The mood of the ISORA prize-giving dinner in the National YC is well captured in this photo of Michael Boyd (at that time RORC Commodore) with champion Vicky Cox of Pwllheli, co-skipper of Mojito

RIPPLE EFFECT

Thus it takes an old hand of NWOA racing to realise that somewhere along the line, the “Ripple Cruising Club” emerged mistakenly from the Ribble Cruising Club, which since 1950 has been sailing on, and cruising from, the muddy waters of the River Ribble Estuary at Lytham in Lancashire. But as it was only seriously active on the offshore racing scene back in the early days of ISORA and before that in the early days of the Northwest Offshore Association and the Mersey & North Wales Joint Offshore Committee, it is now up there in lights as the Ripple Cruising Club Cup, won for the Class 2 Championship by Mark Thompson’s Jac y Do from the Welsh side.

ISORA’s 2023 results sheet

VIKING MARINE TROPHY

ISORA’s Viking Marine Irish Coastal series was one of the many trophies taken by Paul O’Higgins’ JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI (Royal Irish YC) racing in Class 0 - Rockabill also went on to successfully defend the overall trophy, challenged right to the end by Class 1 champions Vicky Cox and Peter Dunlop’s immaculate J/09 Mojito from Pwllheli SC, which also won Plas Heili Welsh Coastal series.

ISORA included the well-supported NYC Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race, which despite being raced in the 2023 summer’s supposedly only good weather month of June, is recalled as having been tough and cold if you were slugging it out towards Dingle.

Paul O’Higgins’s JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI (Royal Irish YC) successfully defended the ISORA overall title, but only by winning the concluding race in September

It was won by visiting American Cookson 50 Privateer (Ron O’Hanley), with Kinsale’s dynamic duo of Cian McCarthy & Sam Hunt racing two-handed in the Sun Fast 3300 Cinnamon Girl coming second, so the first ISORA boat to make the listings was Pete Smyth’s Sun Fast 3600 Searcher from Dun Laoghaire.

Finally, ISORA’s Pen Maen Plate (named for Pwllheli’s historic manor house of Penmaen, home of that heroically hospitable Welsh offshore racing enthusiast the late Anthony Jones) is for the member who best exemplified the spirit of ISORA in 2023. It was Sam Hall who was most personally was responsible for the vintage J/125 Jackknife (which he co-owns with his father Andrew) somehow appearing everywhere.

Only a slip of a boat, but she certainly gets about. The Hall family’s very special J/125 Jackknife from Pwllheli

This was exemplified by the Middle Sea Race from Malta in late October, when Jacknife successfully found herself in a head-to-head with Conor Doyle’s xP50 Freya from Kinsale. They were both well into the top of their class, but at the finish it was Jackknife which was leading this particular duel, spreading the word that in its 52nd season, ISORA is still very much a force to be reckoned with. And who knows, but in these health-aware times, we might actually see some dancing when Dead Ringers start to do their thing tonight, but back in the olden days when ISORA came into being, a dinner dance was usually described as “Drinking to Music”.

Friendships across the sea – ISORA is all about cross-channel camaraderie, and here, current Chairman Peter Ryan of Dun Laoghaire is helming the Pwllheli-based J/109 Mojito in the Fastnet Race

Decreasing fleet numbers this season is 'the elephant in the room', according to a Dublin yacht racing organiser who wants to raise his concerns before the 2024 season.

Irish Sea Offshore Racing Association (ISORA) Chairman Peter Ryan has asked fleet members for possible solutions to the drop in numbers prior to finalising ISORA's own 2024 fixture list next month.

"At our AGM in November, we must set out our 2024 race schedule. Despite reasonable entry numbers this season, the number of boats racing was disappointing", he told members.

ISORA organises cross-channel racing in Ireland and Wales and also coastal races on each side of the Irish Sea.

ISORA Chairman Peter Ryan

The call comes as the 2024 national calendar is already taking shape, as Afloat reported earlier.

The Round Ireland Race from Wicklow is on Saturday, 22nd June, and then Volvo Cork Week from July 15th to 19th to leave a useful gap to get on further west for Calves Week in Schull, which – if tradition is followed – should be from Tuesday, August 6th to Friday, August 9th.

But there’ll be little relaxation among the organising classes after that, as the ICRA Nationals 2024 are scheduled for the Royal Irish Yacht Club on the weekend of August 30th-September 1st, the Key Yachting J-Cup Ireland 2024 is at the same host club on September 7-8th, and then on 10th to 15th September the IRC Europeans 2024 descend on Dun Laoghaire, an event which has the potential to be very big indeed.

Ryan told Afloat, "In setting the ISORA race schedule for the 2023 season, we were asked to provide more coastal races. This was done, but it seemed to dilute the numbers in other races. More events next season will have the same effect". 

"I’m concerned about the decreasing fleet numbers. Nobody is talking about the elephant in the room", Ryan says.

Ryan's comments follow a separate survey by the Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) this month that also asked members pertinent questions on participation. 

ICRA is seeking members’ views on cruiser racing and events during the past year.

ICRA says the feedback will help it ensure that the association represents the views of its members, participants and non-participants alike, and makes targeted efforts to improve cruiser racing in Ireland.

For ISORA, Ryan suggested to members the possibility of "reverting to our traditional race schedule of offshores only and encouraging our host clubs to run the coastal races. What is the answer?

An 'open forum', chaired by Ryan, will influence the final race schedule to be voted on at ISORA's November AGM in Dun Laoghaire Harbour.

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.