19 boats came to the start line of ISORA coast race 2 this morning at 10:00. The course took the boats around East Kish, then back into the Killiney and Bray outfall marks before returning to a finish between the pier heads in Dun Laoire, leaving Muglins to port.
A spinnaker start soon saw the fleet split to the left and right of the rhumb line, with those staying closer to shore getting the better wind and building a lead over those boats that chose to go to the left.
Rockabill rounded East Kish first, with Aurelia close behind, followed by Hot Cookie and Indian. Winner of Race the left side of the course.
Rockabill increased its lead over Aurelia to 3 minutes at Killiney outfall. Wow stormed back on this reaching leg to round in third place,cutting the lead of Rockabill to just 6 minutes. They were followed by Hot Cookie, and the first two class one boats Indian and Justtina. In Class Two Black Velvet was leading from Windjammer.
A short beat to Bray outfall saw Rockabill hold its lead over Aurelia, while Wow clawed back another two minutes. Hotcookie was next, followed closely by Indian and Justtina.
By now the wind had shifted to the South East and its was a spinnaker run to the Muglins and then to the finish.
On passing the Muglins Aurelia was two minutes astern of Rockabill, with Wow a further two minutes behind. Indian lead Justtina by less than a minute when they gybed for home off the Muglins. Black Velvet was the first of the Class two boats 14 minutes behind.
At the finish Rockabill took line honours from Aurelia, with Wow third. Indian and Justtina were the first of the Class two boats home, with Black Velvet being the first over the line in Class 2.
Rockabill won on IRC, with Indian second and Black Velvet third. These were also the class winners in classes zero, one and two respectively.
Next up for ISORA is the Coastal night race on July 24th.
Report and photos on afloat.ie here
Full results are available here.
ISORA Report
Noel Butler, Windjammer Class IRC2
Windjammer started with Samatom at what we considered to be the heavily biased starboard end of the start line. We then gybed onto the long port tack to East Kish and worked hard to stay in the stronger patches of pressure. There was a big split in the fleet off the line. The group of class 0 and 1 boats that opted to go right into Scotsman’s bay eventually made a big gain on the fleet with more pressure and less tide. Having made a big gain off the line and being furthest right in the early going, we consolidated into the middle and kept in touch with the class 2 boats, eventually crossing just ahead of Black Velvet and Red Alert as they came back from the left and also took the inshore route With 20:20 hindsight it would have been a better decision to have gone with them to the right but the we persisted on the long gybe to limit the risk of overstanding the port layline as the Easterly developed. As it turned out the breeze went even further, into the Southeast, and we found ourselves beating to the the mark with Wow above us on their code zero. The leaders had rounded earlier in the easterly and had gybe set onto starboard while we, Wow and Red Alert bore off onto a shy port reach in the southerly to Killiney Outfall, eventually dropping the kite just before the mark. Prima Forte also passed us on this leg. We made some gains on this leg but eventual class 2 winner Block Velvet had also gybed with the shift and were not to be caught.
We went right out of the tide on the short beat to Bray Outfall and then had an uneventful broad reach back to the Muglins where we gybed into the bay and on the finish at the harbour mouth. It was a very tricky day, the defining moments of which were the bias at the start, the inshore route on the way out of the bay and the significant right shift from NW at the start all the way round to SE by the finish. Well done to Black Velvet on a flawless race and a great class win and to Peter Ryan and his team for organising another great ISORA race, under circumstances which a few short weeks ago had us confined to port.
Rockabill VI takes line honours, IRC Class ) and Overall win in the Viking Marine Coastal Race on Saturday 11th July
Indian - Class 1 win and 2nd Overall
Black Velvet - Class 2 win and 3rd Overall
Follow the link below for the race results and overall series placings
STARTING LINE at Dun Laoghaire Outfall Buoy
Pass through the Muglins - ISORA Dublin Virtual Mark Gate - Muglins (S) and the ISORA Dublin Virtual Mark (P)
East Kish (S)
Killiney Outfall (P)
Bray Outfall (P)
Pass through the Muglins - ISORA Dublin Virtual Mark Gate - Muglins (P) - and the ISORA Dublin Mark (S)
FINISH LINE between Dun Laoghaire Pier Heads
Approx 24 miles.
