The past two years would have been difficult enough for Irish sailing as we navigated our way - usually with reasonable success – towards keeping our sport as active as possible through various manifestations of the pandemic regulations. But in addition to that constant background challenge, there have been specific instances of some very conspicuous self-inflicted wounds on the international stage. And these are happenings which – with warnings at the time, and in hindsight since – simply should not have happened at all.
Yet happen they did, and as a small sailing nation on a small island on the outer fringes of Europe, we have had to endure reputational damage which – when set against the modest size of our overall population – makes the bruising very painful indeed, for that’s one of the perils when you’re accustomed to punching way above your weight.
But already we’re bouncing back, even if it may not have seemed so at a national administrative level last weekend. In Dun Laoghaire, the Annual General Meeting of Irish Sailing was considering a year in which - after high initial hopes – it emerged that we had sent forth one of the most managerially ill-starred Olympic Sailing Squads ever in our 73 years of Olympic sailing involvement.
And around Cork Harbour as a weekend of fabulous sunshine and gentle early sailing developed, it was becoming abundantly clear that Cork’s 2024 America’s Cup staging bid had been a Quixotic venture in which the gallant Don’s loyal mount Rocinante had become a minor stalking horse, blown away by a mega-bid from Barcelona which in turn was asserting its superiority over a €121 million bid from Malaga.
But even as these gloomy outcomes were being considered in dark rooms ashore, by contrast afloat on Cork Harbour, in Dublin Bay and at several other centres, there were many sailors of all kinds taking advantage of the unseasonably warm and bright weather of early Spring, and getting into action.
Another win for Cork, as Munster Technological University shape up for a convincing overall victory in the Intervarsity Keelboat Nats in the J/80s at Howth. Photo: Annraoi Blaney
Thus the peak of the weekend’s sailing interest was not in oppressive meetings ashore, but rather it was in the Irish Universities Sailing Association Keelboat Nationals raced at Howth in the HYC flotilla of J/80s, with the relatively newly-formed Munster Technological University making a successful debut to win overall under the command of Harry Durcan of Royal Cork YC.
A specialized event like this is outside the bureaucratic remit of national Performance Groups and other similar mainstream setups, and so it is a sort of DIY happening, reliant on the skills of Race Officer Scorie Walls – who was hugely tested to get the 18 races completed in often light airs – together with umpire Emmet Dalton and others working with the IUSA Committee and the HYC J/80 Maintenance Team to get this event successfully through to completion, utilising what was essentially a combination of local efforts.
For there’s an underlying local strength in Ireland’s local sailing which continues to thrive no matter what setbacks are being endured by central officialdom on the international scene. In fact, there’s arguably a lively alternative sailing scene in Ireland that shuns the hidebound established bureaucracy. And in the final analysis, its alternative vitality ultimately depends on determined individuals, people who will stay with their vision of an event or a sailing campaign, doing it in a way which shows that it is self-reliance and self-belief which makes the breakthrough and gets the deeds done.
Aboard Denis Doyle’s Moonduster in the 1984 Round Ireland Race, with Neil Hegarty on the helm, the Fastnet Rock astern, and an overall win and long-standing course record already in sight.
A classic case in point is the biennial Round Ireland Race from Wicklow since 1980. By any reasonable standards of national sailing administration, such an event should have long since been in being, with an officially-sanctioned start in Dublin or Cork. But after a successfully innovative all-comers Cruiser Rally at Wicklow in 1979, Michael Jones of Wicklow SC decided that the time was ripe for a non-stop Round Ireland Race – and only from Wicklow - in 1980. And once the announcement was made, he was like a terrier in following up any level of interest shown, and then going beyond that in persuading people who had shown no previous interest that they should be going.
Nevertheless, it was a modest affair with just 16 starters when the first race went off in June 1980. And as the main handicap system was one devised by Michael himself to encourage fleet numbers rather than the IOR which was then favoured by the dedicated offshore racing brigade, only half the fleet had IOR ratings.
Yet the event was successfully inaugurated, Michael Jones and Wicklow Sailing Club were validated in their ambitions, and in 1982 for the next staging they made the breakthrough, as Denis Doyle with the Frers 51 Moonduster from Cork came to Wicklow to compete. In Denis Doyle, Michael Jones had the support of another of the great individualists of Irish sailing, a moral compass of unimpeachable integrity whose support was a pearl beyond price.
Indeed, such was The Doyler’s force for the good that in licking our wounds after the recent international setbacks, we can draw solace from considering those exceptional sailing individuals who have added to Ireland’s lustre on the global sailing scene.
A well-established international event built on one man’s belief and determination – the start of the 2018 Round Ireland race from Wicklow with the Class40 Corum and Teasing Machine – both from France – neck-and-neck shortly after the start. Photo: W M Nixon
Sometimes they do it while through backroom work while being almost invisible, a classic case being Brian Craig of Dun Laoghaire who has been involved with more major happenings than you could possibly imagine, yet he does it while giving a passable impression of being the invisible man, whereas others have polished their individualistic image by spectacular yet doggedly achieved success.
Thus although Denis Doyle was taken from among us in the Autumn of 2001 after sailing his final Fastnet Race that summer in Moonduster at the age of 81, within a few years another exceptional character of noted single-mindedness was flying the flag. Ger O’Rourke of Limerick had been introduced to sailing almost by accident by another of our great sailing individualists. This was fellow Limerick man Gary MacMahon, who has since ploughed his own very special furrow with the restoration of the 1926-built 56ft Limerick Trading Ketch Ilen.
One man’s belief…..the restored Ilen in Greenland, July 2019. Photo: Gary MacMahon
But before that extraordinary project came to full fruition, the tyro sailor Ger O’Rourke had rocketed upwards to world sailing achievement, for in 2007 with the Cookson 50 Chieftain he became the first Irish overall winner of the Fastnet Race, thereby rounding out an exceptionally successful personal offshore racing programme which had included taking a class win with Chieftain in the Sydney-Hobart Race.
Ger O’Rourke’s Cookson 50 Chieftain sweeps in towards the finish line to become overall winner of the Rolex Fastnet Race 2007.
It’s remarkable how we can find links between these super-stars, for Gary Mac Mahon is very much of the broad group which includes high latitude voyagers Paddy Barry and Jarlath Cunnane, whose focus of interest at the time of Ger O’Rourke’s rising trajectory lay in the completion of a circuit cruise of the Arctic Circle with Jarlath’s own-built expedition yacht Northabout.
Northabout returns to Clew Bay in Mayo after completing the Arctic circumnavigation. Photo: Rory Casey
Meanwhile, on the racing scene the new international pace-setter from Ireland was Anthony O’Leary of Crosshaven, whose father Archie had far-sightedly set the biennial Cork Week firmly in place in 1978. Anthony had been setting a ferocious pace for years in various boats called Antix, but in 2010 he led the Irish Commodore’s Cup team to its first victory, and he re-gained the trophy in 2014. To outsiders this was a team effort, but to anyone in the know it was only the O’Leary name that really mattered.
Anthony O’Leary – his personal determination played the key role in Ireland’s regaining the Commodore’s Cup in 2014. Photo: Robert Bateman
You might well think that this high-achieving “alternative Irish sailing scene” is only to be found outside the strait-jacket of pre-ordained Performance Sailing Programmes and the narrow Olympic channels. But even in that rarefied world, a spark of determined individualism can make a significant difference, and this played a role in Annalise Murphy’s Silver Medal in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, one of the very few Olympiads where sailing was able to take centre stage.
It’s no secret that by the final stages the official budget was exhausted, and Annalise had to rely on the support of family, friends and sponsors to keep the show on the road. But as well, with sailing being way down the pecking order in sports rankings, the Irish sailing team were expected to accept basic shoreside accommodation which was at some distance from the sailing base, and that in a city where simply walking the streets can be hazardous.
Rio de Janeiro’s topography may have put the Olympic sailing events at centre stage, yet it took some personal initiative for Annalise Murphy to secure convenient accommodation which helped create the right mood for medal winning.
But Annalise sorted it by accessing herself a convenient waterside apartment, a world away from the official barracks. There may have been many factors in the very positive “I’m really enjoying my sailing” attitude she showed as the regatta drew towards it remarkable conclusion. But there can be no doubt that her determined individuality in acquiring a welcoming shore base had a lot to do with it.
There are many other special individuals who make a difference which in time manifests itself in improvements in the national sailing scene, and since 1978 Alistair Rumball’s Irish National Sailing School in Dun Laoghaire has been ploughing what was initially a very lonely furrow in encouraging everyday sailing and boating interest to what is now a very special level.
But while Alistair Rumball came from a sailing background in Malahide - that very special cradle of our sport - another of Irish sailing’s true innovators and inspiring individuals, Ronan o Siochru of Irish Offshore Sailing, came from a totally non-sailing background in Bishopstown in Cork city.
Yet so totally was he hooked by a boat experience in Kinsale that even while still a pre-teenager and very impecunious with it, he hitch-hiked his way to Kinsale through rain, hail and shine to work his way into the sailing scene, saving enough from various part-time jobs to buy a rather tired Flying Fifteen for £600 in the last of the pre-Euro days.
After many adventures – no other word will do – he set out to establish a serious offshore-related sailing school, and realized that available numbers for his customer base dictated that Dun Laoghaire was where it had to be located. So he and his new wife Salome sailed the basis of their fleet – a well-used ex-charter Jeanneau Sunfast 37 of 2002 vintage – from Southampton to their new base in Dun Laoghaire in 2010, and ever since Irish Offshore Sailing has been working there thrugh winter and summer, their specialities including a pathway to both Round Ireland and Fastnet Race participation.
Heroes of Ireland’s “Alternative Sailing Scene” – Ronan and Salome O Siochru of Irish Offshore Sailing. Photo: W M Nixon
Thus as the new-look Fastnet Race drew towards its novel August 2021 finish in Cherbourg, in that roller-coaster season of last year Irish observers were encouraged to note that IOS’s Ronan o Siochru with Desert Star – the same Sunfast 37 of 2002-vintage which had started it all – was on line to be on the podium for Class IV, after sailing a well nigh-perfect race despite being one of the oldest boats in the class.
In fact, they finished second in class and 14th overall, and were rapidly closing on the Class IV winning X332 in the final stages. Thus the happy situation is that when “alternative Irish sailing” is producing results of this calibre, with great individualists and achievers continuing to emerge out of the undergrowth, then we can live with things going astray in the official mainstream now and again.
