Moore is November Sailor of the Month

1st December 2008

Ian Moore of Carrickfergus, navigator on Green Dragon, is “Sailor of the Month” for November. The 37-year-old expert, who is now based in Cowes when he isn’t calling the tactical shots on some of the world's leading sailing machines, has been on the list before, after he won the Volvo Ocean Race in 2001-2002 as navigator on Illbruck.

But in his current role, Moore has been facing one of the most demanding challenges in his career. The pace is unrivalled in the history of the event, and the Irish-Chinese boat has been up against prodigiously powerful campaigns which are in a different league through superior resources of funding and time. Thus any success is gained against the odds, and it was Moore’s insistence on keeping the Dragon to the west of the fleet which enabled the Galway boat to be first at the vital scoring gate at the Fernando de Noronha islands off the coast of Brazil on Stage One. Then in at the start of the Second Stage from Cape Town to Cochin on the 15th November, the fleet was faced with strong winds in Table Bay, but sudden calms under the mountains. Moore called a highly individual course which saw the Dragon gain an advantage. As he drily puts it himself: “We had a good start, with a bit of a shimmy tactically, and that put us in a good position”. Since then, Green Dragon has had her share of problems, yet despite a broken mainboom Ian Moore plotted a course which saw her take a very useful third at the mid-stage scoring gate. Moore’s experience stands the entire team to the good, and it’s interesting to note that his own five favourite camoaigns include winning the TP 52 World Championship on Eamon Conneely’s Patches, a timely reminder that the Galway campaigner has played a key role in the Green Dragon project. For a list of all the Sailors of the Year to date just click here

Afloat will open a poll to vote for the sailor of the year on December 31st. Click here to find out more

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