It was the Year of Years. 2022 was the extended and invigorated season in which sailing in Ireland finally and fully emerged from the very complete set of pandemic-imposed restrictions. At home and abroad, our hugely varied individuals, groups and crowds of boat enthusiasts re-learned how to fulfill their interests afloat, whether it was in competition at the highest level internationally, nationally, regionally, or in the local setting, and in dinghies or keelboats, racing or cruising
Certainly, there'd been limited sport afloat for much of the lockdown time. But it was often in a very restricted way, in an atmosphere of behavioural boundaries which were totally at variance with our perception of freedom and self-reliance as being central to life on the water. Thus the increasingly fresh feeling of joy in boats as 2022 progressed resulted in an explosion of activity.
To do this justice, the Afloat.ie adjudication process had to accept that there would have to be an unprecedented number of nominations each month. For we have long since learned - having inaugurated the contest in 1996 - that just one nomination per month does not remotely reflect the reality of Irish life around boats.
Thus with an exceptional season of re-birth, as provided by 2022, the nominations inevitably increased even further and reached a remarkable total of fifty. This has not made the final assessment any easier. But as the ethos of Afloat.ie is based on accurately reflecting the reality of sailing and boating in Ireland, very special times deserved very special treatment, and every one of those fifty nominees has achieved something remarkable afloat.
The new "Irish Sailor of the Year" will be announced in Afloat's Sailing on Saturday column by WM Nixon this weekend, February 11th.
