Reigning ISORA Champion Rockabill VI (Paul O'Higgins) took a one-minute 35-second margin on corrected time to win the second ISORA Viking Marine Coastal Race on Dublin Bay this afternoon.
The JPK10.80 was the IRC overall and Class Zero winner according to provisional results published by ISORA via the association's tracker that are subject to official confirmation.
Second overall was the Howth Yacht Club J109 Indian (Colm Buckley and Simon Knowles) who was also the Class One winner.
The fleet contained a number of new entries for the second of the four-race mini-series including the new First 40 to Dublin Bay, Prima Forte and the Channel 32 Wavetrain from Greystones Sailing Club.
O'Higgins of the Royal Irish Yacht Club gave a fine display on how to navigate Dublin Bay's tidal currents even though hugging the Dublin Bay shoreline did not always look like the right move in the fickle sub-ten-knot westerlies as the 19-boat fleet started from the Dun Laoghaire Harbour's outfall Mark in Seapoint Bay.
Early into the 24-mile race, it appeared that boats such as first race winner George Sisk's WOW, an XP44, had secured the best pressure in the centre of the course in the light westerlies as the feet raced towards the first mark at the Muglins at the southern tip of Dublin Bay.
It became obvious though as the fleet exited the Bay that O'Higgins's ploy to hug the Scotsman's Bay shore in the south of the Bay in the last of the ebb tide was a race-winning move.
Second in Class One was the Grand Soleil 34, Justina, skippered by John Treanor, from the National Yacht Club who followed a similar strategy.
Class Two in the four-hour race was won by Leslie Parnell's First 34.7 Black Velvet who won from the Royal St. George J97 Windjammer.