You can tell a lot about someone’s personality through the way in which they react generously – or not – to the fact that for 2022, the Post-Pandemic Year in which Life Afloat With All Its Apres Sailing Ashore Was Fully Resumed, here at Afloat.ie we’ve come up with fifty “Sailors of the Month” currently open for voting for the “Sailor of the Year”. The truly generous-hearted who really know their sailing in general - and Irish sailing in particular – have cheerfully wondered how on earth we managed to get it down to fifty which - when all is said and done - is slightly less than one a week. But against that, there are those for whom life has to be completely and rigidly defined and limited, folk who claim we should return to the original concept of 27 years ago – soon discarded as we analysed the total complexity if our sport – by returning the contest to just one-a-month.
We would argue that while sailing is now a global year-round sport with Irish talent in action twelve months of the year, nevertheless for most the busiest time is the six-month period around the summer months with late May to early September producing such a cornucopia of hugely-varied activity under sail - with events as spectacular as the Europeans for the reviving 1720 Sportsboats during Volvo Cork Week - that all of it deserves special recognition.
INTERNATIONAL WINTERS, BUSY HOME SUMMERS
For sure, the winter months will see an emphasis on international competitive achievement at majors in places where the sun still shines. But when it’s summer in Ireland, the adjudicators will find themselves considering feats of success in activities as diverse as the time-honoured racing of the Galway Hookers in the west, set in configuration against the latest buzzfest of the foiling Waszp Class in the east.
Essence of the west – the enduring traditions of the Galway Hookers were honoured with January 2022’s SoM award to Paul Kehoe of the Niamh Cronan Photo: Galway Hooker Association
Complete contrast – Wazps in action on Dublin Bay with Royal St George YC
In between those two extremes of sailing, there’s everything from intense racing in classics such as the Shannon One Designs or the Howth Seventeens or the Dublin Bay Water Wags through other One Design keelboat and dinghy classes, and on into the almost infinite varieties of inshore and offshore cruiser-racing. Beyond that again, there’s cruising itself in its extraordinary variety within a greater sailing matrix which would simply fall apart were it not for the voluntary input of organisers of all sorts, whose excellent work we try to recognise with our “Services to Sailing” category.
And then, on an almost invisible Everest-like peak, there’s the tightly-controlled area of High Performance Academy Sailing, ultimately focused on widely-recognised international trophies and preferably Olympic medals. For with a vehicle sport like sailing, with its diversity, individuality, and - for many - near incomprehensibility, the all-or-nothing nature of an Olympic Medal is about as much as they’re willing to grasp, whether it be the fast-changing attention of the general public or the self-interested focus of politicians seeing how best to spend government money for useful political returns.
Multiple Gold Medallist Eve McMahon may have official resources support, but she still relies on extensive backing of all kinds from family and friends
On the water, this results in a funded elite at one end of the spectrum which still needs support of all kinds from family and friends while knowing that they have the safety net of nationally-supported schemes to underpin their efforts, while at the other extreme there are those who are starting on their own.
EXTRA CHALLENGE OF MAKING IT ON YOUR OWN
Having failed to achieve recognition in the most junior phases of the national sailing programme, their performance suddenly starts to blossom when they move into a new class and maybe team up with a fresh crewmate from another club. Seemingly out of nowhere, we have an under-resourced gleam of young promise, and it certainly focuses the minds of the adjudicators when some choice of a Junior Sailor of the Month results in an email from a grateful parent stating unequivocally that the accolade is greatly helping fund-raising efforts.
In those circumstances, there’s a temptation to give an award to any achievement, however specialised the circumstances. But in the final analysis, the key to it all is defining the context, and seeing how the outcome fits in with what the sailor in question was trying to do in the first place.
Round Ireland Race start at Wicklow in the depths of the Recession in 2014, when many boats deserved an award simply for being there Photo: W M Nixon
The Round Ireland Race from Wicklow is a perfect case in point. Time was back in 1992 when, having prepared our own mature but still potent boat with much hard work for her first Ireland Race back, we’d have happily given an award to anyone who qualified to cross the starting line. Then there was a stage when we’d have been all for it when somebody simply finished the race, and indeed there are clubs in the more remote parts of Ireland which still do that when a local crew - on their first attempt - successfully complete the 704-mile course, regardless of their final placing.
BIG BOYS’ GAME, BIG BOYS’ RULES
But with national standards rising every year, so we see an upping of the ante, and 2022’s Round Ireland produced only one “Sailor of the Month”. For it’s now a case of being the Big Boys’ Game, playing by the Big Boys’ Rules. Thus, for instance, if you entered the Round Britain and Ireland Race from Plymouth via Galway, Lerwick in the Shetlands, Blyth in Northumberland, and back to Plymouth to complete 2000 miles, you’d have done quite something if you managed to get as far as Lerwick. But as that wasn’t the purpose of the challenge, it wouldn’t be eligible for “Sailor of the Month” consideration unless your retiral was related to a prolonged delay in order to assist another entry in difficulties.
Food….lovely food. Newly-arrived competitors in the 2022 RWYC Round Britain & Ireland Race dealing with their main priorities during the Galway stopover. Photo: GBSC
However, once we accept that definition of context is the primary consideration, the variety of awards can become almost infinite. Thus in late June and early July, the “Round Ireland Race on the Outside” was under way from Wicklow, while in the middle of Ireland a sort of “Round Ireland Race On The Inside” was taking place with the Shannon One Designs’ first special Centenary Regatta at Lough Derg YC.
OVER-LAPPNG OF DIVERSE SAILING WORLDS
It may seem at first that we’re considering sailing worlds so far apart as to be incapable of comparison. Yet the success of Mike and Richie Evans in their J/99 Snapshot in getting along the rugged Atlantic off the coast of County Clare so well that they went on to success in the Round Ireland race is in the same spirit as the good showing on fresh water, just a hundred miles away in County Tipperary, by Frank Guy and his family and friends racing Shannon OD No 142 in a steady points build-up which resulted – after the second Centenary regatta at Lough Ree – in the Centenary Champion title and a “Sailor of the Month” title for Frank Guy.
Champion in the making. Frank Guy’s Centenary Champion Shannon One Design No 142 making impressive progress in the Long Distance Race down-river from Lough Ree to Lough Derg, June 2022. Photo_ Shannon OD Association
In fact, we find that the true Irish Corinthian sailor will hope to enjoy as many different forms of sailing as our extraordinary island can offer. Mention of the Round Britain and Ireland Race and the Shannon One Designs in one breath is a reminder that top SOD sailors Jocelyn Waller of Lough Derg and current class Chairman (and Sailor of the Month awardee) Philip Mayne once successfully did the RB&I In the former’s First Class 12 Silk – just a slip of a boat.
And as for Mike Evans of Snapshot, the Round Ireland achievement was quite something, but for me the one photo which captures the spirit of Irish sailing is the image aboard Snapshot during Calves Week in August in West Cork, with Richie Evans on the tiller, Mike checking the numbers, and Des Flood on trim and looking forward to the forthcoming celebration of his great sailing father Sean’s 90th birthday in a few days’ time.
West Cork for sport – Des Flood, Richie Evans and Mike Evans aboard Snapshot with the Fastnet Rock astern and success ahead at Calves Week 2022 at Schull
As if that weren’t enough, when Howth YC got its cheekily-titled Spring Series 2023 under way early in January, didn’t Mike Evans turn up for some alternative sport with his RS800? Top that.
Just can’t get enough of it…..Mike Evans racing his RS800 in the current “Spring Series” at Howth. Photo: HYC
