The best news for Ireland thus far in this developing sailing season of 2023 is that, at last weekend’s 400-boat four-day Spi Ouest Easter Regatta at La Trinite in Southern Brittany, Meath’s own Tom Dolan won the hyper-keen Figaro 3 Class racing Smurfit Kappa Kingspan. Admittedly it was by just one point in a real ding-dong series, but a win is a win, and anyone who has thrown themselves into the maelstrom of Spi Ouest will tell you that this is a very big deal indeed.
Before that, in the last weekend of February, before the real winter arrived (though little did we know it at the time), the University College Dublin Firsts team skippered by Jack Fahy found themselves involved in the absurdly elitist Top Gun Series hosted by Oxford University.
Easter eggs in the basket – Big Tom Dolan at the centre of last weekend’s prize-giving at Spi Ouest. Photo: Justin Burke
That event makes no pretence whatever at being an everyday happening – it’s an invitation-only series, and the social highlight is a black-tie ball in the historic St Edmund’s Hall in the heart of college. But the racing on Farmoor Reservoir is totally a meritocracy, yet although UCD found themselves up against all the might of Cambridge in the finals, they won – the first time for an Irish team.
The image of a sunlit evening in late winter is belied by the ferocity of the actual competition afloat in the Top Guns Team racing at Farmoor in England. Photo: Nigel Vick
UCD Firsts as Top Guns were Jack Fahy & Emily Riordan, Liam Glynn & Triona Hinkson, and Tom Higgins & Cian Lynch. Photo: Nigel Vick
For your reasonably switched-on club sailor in Ireland, these two international achievements mean that Irish sailing is in good heart in 2023, as a late winter finally gives way to welcome spring. Yet if you take the narrow official view of our international competitive sailing as it challenges the world from Ireland, then - so far - 2023 has been little short of disastrous.
NEWS IS BAD THROUGH NARROW OFFICIAL LENS
Admittedly 2022 was such a golden year in every way - emerging as we did with a glorious flourish from the pandemic - that 2023 would have had to take successful flight with full rocket boosting to be in any way comparable. Yet without delving into the depressing details, the fact is that the final outcome of the first official major of the season, the recently-concluded Princess Sofia Regatta in Palma de Mallorca, was little other than bad news.
Oh for sure, we can find glimmers of hope for the Irish squad in specific episodes in this very significant event. But such bright spots are ultimately obscured by the darkness of the final results, which in today’s rapidly-churning news cycle, is all that will be remembered in a couple of weeks’ time, as equally will be the fact that the British squad returned with six medals.
It’s a matter of regret that fringe sports such as sailing are only evaluated at official and governmental level in Ireland by the number of high-value medals they collect in major world championships and Olympics-related events. But that’s the way it is, and with only 15 months to go to the 2024 Paris Olympics and its sailing events at Marseille, the national funding focus closes ever more closely on the accumulating Olympic countdown results.
GULF BETWEEN THE PUBLIC AND ENTHUSIASTS’ VIEW
Politicians are dictated to by fickle public opinion, and whereas sailors are fascinated by the minutiae of their sport and its boat and equipment and the lovingly-analysed details of each and every race in events such as Spi Ouest and Top Gun, the public - and hence the government - are only interested in narrowly-focused high-profile value for money in the hope of a return in the form of medals. Consequently, the public funding for sailing – a sport in which only a tiny minority will ever have a serious interest in Olympic participation – is inevitably skewed in favour of national high-performance squads.
International sailing success as understood by sailors – Annalise Murphy makes a neat and admirable job of consolidating her position in the final leg at the Rio Olympics in 2016 to bring home the Silver Medal
That in turn means there is a very biased reliance on the success of rising stars. In fact, an entire mini-industry has grown up around the hope of the continuing emergence of young Irish sailors who will have the ability and character – almost inevitably with exceptional and extraordinary support from their families and circles of friends – to bring home the Olympic-flavoured bacon. Ultimately, it’s just as crude as that.
International sailing success as understood by the public and politicians – Annalise Murphy returns in style to the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire with her Silver Medal.
It’s something of which everyone is particularly aware this weekend, with the Youth Nationals 2023 at Howth seeing the adult stars of tomorrow being put into the pressure cooker of junior performance to become the youth stars of today.
EXTREME PRESSURE ON YOUNG STARS
For some, it’s magic. For others? It’s tough, and heaven only knows what longterm psychological problems it might be engendering. And as for its relationship with the gentler yet genuinely competitive club sailing which is the backbone of our sport, there are times when you’d be hard put to see any natural connection at all.
So is there a way in which we can build a healthier funding relationship between Irish sailing in general and government expenditure? True sailing by its very nature – and through its special history in Ireland – may be largely a private and self-reliant activity. Yet sailors are tax-payers like everyone else, and while they aren’t looking for government handouts at every turn, it would induce a pleasanter atmosphere if there was even a feeling that their rather weird activity is better understood.
Shannon One Design veteran Alan Algeo in full flight. In 2022 the SODs very successfully celebrated their Centenary, yet how do we explain the enduring popularity of such a class and boat type in the generally-held context and image of “yachting”?
Thus it’s fascinating to observe how the Irish attitude compares with other nations as we see the accelerating buildup towards the Paris Olympics. Indeed, one of the most intriguing cases is France itself, as the remarkable French explosion in sailing is based on individual offshore superstars who go back in a direct line to Eric Tabarly.
OTHER NATIONS DEALING WITH SAME PROBLEM
In French sailing, Olympic effort is only one of several main lines. But with the Olympics in their home waters in 2024, don’t be at all surprised if the French still somehow manage to get an offshore category included, despite the fact that altering the course of a super-tanker is a doddle by comparison with getting that ponderous beast World Sailing to re-direct its line of progress.
Eric Tabarly in Cork, a place he visited whenever possible as his “pet boat”, the 1898-vintage 43ft gaff cutter Pen Duick, was built in Cork Harbour at Carrigaloe
Taking a broader view, we have to realise that sailing’s special requirements bring other factors into play. And there’s the national context, to begin with. There is absolutely no doubt that Ireland is one of the most sports-enthusiastic nations on earth. Yet there’s so much sport going on that sometimes the talent can get spread very thin indeed.
Let’s accept for a start that the country is horse mad, and puts so much interest, energy, resources and talent into equine competition that it attracts naturally athletic, competitive youngsters who – in a warmer climate – might equally think in terms of sailing.
And yes, climate is of huge significance, whether we like it or not. For sure, those pioneers of Irish sailing who went afloat with the Water Club of the Harbour of Cork 300 years ago did so when Ireland was marginally colder than it is now. But local factors of time and place and circumstances were involved, and there were far fewer options available for recreational sport at every level of society.
GAA MOVES IN ON HISTORIC SAILING HEARTLANDS
So now it’s very telling that on the eastern shores of Cork Harbour, the former site of Rostellan House – the ancestral home of the Earls of Inchiquin who led the way in forming the Water Club in 1720 – is the location of the extensive playing fields of the Aghada Gaelic Athletic Association. The GAA was still a very long way into the future when the Water Club was formed. Yet today it provides a non-vehicle sport to thousands, with a healthy social matrix to support it. So much so, in fact, that it’s difficult to escape the feeling that the Round Ireland Race won’t really have arrived until there’s a GAA entry.
Aghada GAA Club at Rostellan on the eastern shores of Cork Harbour. The now-demolished Rostellan House was the ancestral home of the Earls of Inchiquin, who provided the first Admiral of the Water Club of the Harbour of Cork in 1720
When you’re up against a sporting monolith like the GAA when searching for public funding, you become only too well aware of the crude metrics through which international success in minority sports is assessed, and so – depressingly – we come back again to the unhealthy reliance on the success or otherwise of young sailors who have to perform spectacularly well in a very narrow international spotlight.
The only consolation is that most other sailing nations have to cope – well or otherwise - with their own particular problems in seeking Olympic funding and success, and in this the British have set a standard to which most others can only hope to aspire. Ultimately, it all goes back to one man - John Major, arguably the most under-valued British PM since Clement Attlee was in the top position from 1945-1951.
For Major was in the hot seat when the British National Lottery came into being, and he sorted the debate about what should be done with the resulting funds by simply insisting that every last cent should be spent on sport at all levels, with enough ear-marked for the Olympics to provide no excuses for poor performance.
Former British Prime Minister John Major and Taoiseach the late Albert Reynold as they negotiated the vital early stages which led eventually to the Good Friday Peace Agreement. Major was Prime Minister when the British National Lottery was inaugurated, and it was his straightforward decision that all profits should go to developing British sport of all kinds and at every level which led to the emergence of Greet Britain as a leading force in Olympic sailing. Photo: Longford Leader
For sailing, this may have meant that would-be Olympians have had to relocate themselves to the top sailing hotspots in southeast England. But in terms of results, the Major Plan worked, and it’s still working - six medals from the Princess Sofia require no further comment.
But for Ireland, with a much smaller population and other sports carrying a higher profile, there’s a feeling of bouncing from one financial year to another, with the most recent Olympic-context successes – or lack of them - significantly affecting the future funding.
SHORT-TERMISM SEEMS INEVITABLE
It smacks of short-termism, and each time round, rumours circulate about budget over-runs, about families and friends being called on to divvy up for an extra round of essential fund-raising, and then inevitably the usual clichés of “heads will roll” as people seek to safeguard their own pensionable positions after a disappointing result.
The International 49er is the most athletically-demanding of all the Olympic classes. How can young sailors be expected to give consistently of their best in a boat like when their funding and management support is barely adequate, and constantly in doubt?
How can any young athlete can be expected to give of their best in such a stressful framework? And it’s very poor consolation to have to grasp at the idea that most other nations – regardless of their “natural” situation or otherwise as a foremost sailing country - can also have their structural support problems.
For instance, within the recent past, the French national sailing authority has to all intents and purposes experienced bankruptcy. In a corporate state like France, such a thing may seem unthinkable, yet apparently such was the case.
But being very much a corporate state in the administrative sense, French sailing administration was able to rely on enough support to continue functioning with barely a visible glitch. In the USA, however, the official ambition is to reduce the role of the State if at all possible – as Ronald Reagan put it, the thing most red-blooded Americans fear and detest is having someone in a uniform turning up and saying: “We are from the Government, and we are here to help you”.
AMERICA’S UNIQUE PROBLEMS MAY BE A POST-OLYMPIC ATTITUDE
Yet in America, corporatism is in a completely different non-State form of the huge resources of big business conglomerates, and funds can be raised for something like Olympic sailing through having the right person – someone of real power and status – approach the promotional expenditure controllers of these industrial and financial behemoths.
Paul Cayard, one of the world’s truly great sailors and an inspirational leader. Originally from France, he raised Italian sailing to new heights, but despite a successful sailing career in his adopted home of America, even he has failed to re-invigorate the US Olympic Sailing Programme
Perhaps. But American Olympic sailing has been in the doldrums for some time now. And there are many possible explanations. For a start, the world’s only super-power with its enormous population is allowed only the same number of entries in the Olympics as the smallest sailing nation on earth. Yet the reality is that American Olympic participation could be given a boost if a greater element of more local pride could be introduced into it, and sailing states like Florida, California or a combined New England squad were allowed to take part as full national entries in their own right.
As it is, it’s difficult to avoid the notion that the USA may have reached a post-Olympics attitude in its sailing history. Let’s face it, the repetitive nature of the Olympic Regatta sailing programme and its classes is hardly likely to float the boat – in every sense – in a huge and energetic nation in which novelty and innovation and continually improving vehicles is what they live for.
PAUL CAYARD’S RESIGNATION FROM US SAILING
So there may be more to the sensational news of a month ago that the great Paul Cayard – just two years in the job of American Olympic Sailing Overlord – had quit. His statement said much, yet leaves much to be conjectured about the nature of America’s sailing culture:
“Unfortunately, over the past couple of months, the US Sailing Association and I had a complete breakdown on several levels. The process of resolution was not good and ultimately unsuccessful. Despite my passion for our mission and my perseverance, I can no longer work with US Sailing.
In 2020, I was told that trying to build a successful Olympic Team, within US Sailing, would be very challenging. Changing the processes, culture, and support for the Team is an extremely difficult task. We are just starting to make gains. Raising two or three times the amount of money ever raised in the USA to support that goal is also a difficult task. Starting and building an endowment so that future leaders will have something to rely on financially is another tall order.
Ultimately, the relationship with US Sailing proved to be one that I could not cope with. It pains me to admit that, as I did sail around the world twice, and generally feel pretty capable of dealing with adversity”.
There’s so much in that brief statement that people are still chewing over it, and for some of us it may point to the fact that sailing in the magnificent and diverse and inventive United States of America is entering a post-Olympic phase, for it is such a universe unto itself that it holds events like the Super-Bowl and other world titles in which no other nation is involved.
Back to doing what he does best. Paul Cayard in winning form in the International Star, which has thrived as a class since it was de-coupled from the Olympics
And come to think of it, here in little old Ireland the USP for the success of the GAA is that an Irish team is always guaranteed to win. But enough of such thoughts. All we’re trying to say is that it’s disturbing to think that much of the government funding for sailing in Ireland is reliant on the international success of a few talented and very dedicated youngsters whom we may praise to the skies when they achieve international success, yet the apparent glamour of their position disguises the fact that they often find themselves on a very lonely mission.
TOM DOLAN CHEERS US ALL
So it’s much more cheering to think that, this weekend, the indomitable Tom Dolan is due in Dun Laoghaire to prepare for a round Ireland record challenge. At no stage in his courageous career has he been strait-jacketed into the official narrow vision of what constitutes performance progress under the international public service approach. Yet for ordinary sailors everywhere in Ireland, he’s right up there with the best of them. And he’s as welcome as the flowers in Spring, for he has brought the Spring back with him as he comes home to Ireland.
Tom Dolan nicely placed in a series in Brittany in the first weekend of April. Next on the agenda is a Round Ireland Record Challenge from Dun Laoghaire.
