Friday's ISORA Lyver Race from Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire has been defered due to weather conditions.
Strong northerly winds are forecast to blow all day today at Dun Laoghaire.
'Due to weather conditions preventing boats delivering to Holyhead for the Lyver Race it has been decided to defer the race to Friday, July 21st at 2000 hours, ISORA Chief Peter Ryan told Afloat.ie.
The stage was set for a duel between the two leading J109s with the Lyver race counting for extra points.
Several other factors have arisen that also influenced the decision to postpone. The recent difficult D2D Race, where over half the fleet retired, had resulted in many of the boats who had entered the Lyver Race, withdrawing. It had been expected that 38 boats would have taken part in the race but the list of starters had dwindled to 22 and that number was expected to significantly reduce again due to the delivery difficulties.
One of the main concerns of participants doing the Lyver Race was the requirement to qualify for the Fastnet Race – 100 mile race with a night passage. To accommodate this, the new date for the race will allow those boats to still qualify for the Fastnet Race and still allow adequate time to make their passage to Cowes.
Peter Ryan, Chairman of ISORA, stated that as the Lyver Race was part of the RDYC Irish Sea Offshore Championship, the rescheduled race will remain part of that event. While it had been planned that the Irish Sea Offshore Championship would have been awarded at the end of the Volvo Dun Laoghaire regatta, this will now occur on the 22nd July after the postponed Lyver Race and as part of that prize giving.
