Everyone seems to relish the idea of sailing round Ireland. Indeed, such is our appreciation of it that it all seems to mean different things to different people. To start with, how far is it? Time was when you’d be told around 720 miles. Then Wicklow Sailing Club, organisers since 1980 of the biennial Round Ireland Race, did what they thought was precision measurement, and came up with the figure of 704 miles. Then somebody else did the tabulation with even newer instruments and electronics, and came up with the doleful news that it was actually 698 miles – the demotion below the magic 700 miles was painful. But now it has become worse again, as the number quoted on Tom Dolan’s publicity output for his current multi-definition Round Ireland challenge is 688 miles.
We know that all parts of the Irish coast are suffering from varying level of erosion, and some of it is quite marked. But a supposed reduction of the national territory’s recognised circumference by around 32 miles in the space of half a century makes you wonder just what is going on, and who is really in the know?
PRIVATE MEMORIES OF SAILING ROUND IRELAND
For there have long been those who sail round Ireland and don’t really talk that much about it because, for them, their memories speak for themselves and are something that should be privately cherished. And then there are those who love the idea of sailing round Ireland but never quite get around to it, yet there are times when they talk of little else.
Back around 1978, the late Michael Jones of Wicklow was starting to work on the idea of the Round Ireland Race, and he invited me down to the town to discuss ways of promoting it. His plan was a clockwise race from Wicklow “round Ireland and all her islands except Rockall”, which back in the late 1970s seemed a potentially contentious territorial claim. But as the British Army has several times since used participation in the Round Ireland Race as part of training programmes, we presume they’re happy enough to live with this assertion. And as the Scots tend to claim Rockall with more vigour than anyone else in their usual dulcet tones, we note that the Scottish boat Tanit won the Round Ireland in 2014 without a word about the matter.
INISHTRA WHERE?
But the abiding memory of that 1978 meeting – apart from Michael Jones’ hearteningly passionate belief in the potential of his home town – was the evidence of how little local sailors know of distant aspects of the Irish coast. So when I asked him if he was going to allow participants to take the safer passages inside the Black Rock in Mayo, and also inside Inishtrahull, his first response was: “Where or what is Inishtrahull?
Inishtrahull at Malin Head may be unknown in Wicklow, but those who have been there know that the safer passage is inside this most northerly of Ireland’s islands
It’s an attitude which has persisted in some quarters. When the World Sailing Speed Records Council was defining the Round Ireland course around 2005 or so for their approved times from the Kish Lighthouse off Dublin Bay, they effectively binned all the record times set in the Round Ireland Race with its Wicklow start. And then in trying to define the course with precision by taking the mandatory turning points from the positions of the strategic Irish Lighthouses, they made a monumental boo-boo in showing unawareness that at one of the most dangerous areas of all - the Blasket Islands with their theoretically most westerly mark at Inishtearaght Lighthouse - there’s a very significant hazard further out to seaward nearby, in the unmarked yet splendidly named Great Foze Rock.
THE GREAT UNKNOWN GREAT FOZE ROCK
Thus when Lloyd Thornburg in August 2016, with his Mod 70 Phaedo 3, was making his successful anti-clockwise challenge, the superb vid made a feature of the fact that Phaedo went between the Great Foze and Inishtearaght. The resulting images so perfectly capture what sailing can be like off the Blaskets that everyone lived with this. Nevertheless, just to be sure to be sure, on April 1st 2017 Afloat.ie was happy to announce that Phaedo has in fact sailed outside all the islands of Ireland except Rockall, as the Great Foze Rock had been ceded to Portugal and was now internationally recognised as part of the Azores Archipelago.
Glorious! Phaedo 3 making speed off the Kerry coast on a routing which had taken her inside the Great Foze Rock
Admittedly that came to an end when the 2017 April Fool’s Day setups became invalid at noon. But it did further highlight the fact that in terms of precise sailing records, the Round Ireland situation is a bit of a mess, made no easier by the fact that since 2006 or thereabouts, the Irish Coastguard has made it clear that sailing singlehanded for any significant distance within Irish coastal waters is illegal, as the ancient regulations maintain that there must always be a living breathing human being on watch – alarm-set radar and AIS aren’t though to cut the mustard.
DAMIAN FOXALL’S SOLO BISCAY SWIM
Of course, people immediately point out that the Figaro Solo race has been in Ireland since, and will be here again in Kinsale this summer. But a special deal has been worked out whereby the Figaro boats are in effect being guided and protected by a flotilla of good shepherds. Maybe so, yet we recall that when our own Damian Foxall fell overboard from his Figaro boat racing across the Bay of Biscay some years ago, it was the next racer in line who picked him up, followed by a merry chase to re-unite him with his mount to go on for quite a decent placing. But it was all done without any help from the supposedly attendant sea shepherd boats.
Damian Foxall – when you take an unplanned swim in the Bay of Biscay, that’s when you really know just who are the real sea shepherds
Be that as it may, the last time a solo sailor got away with a fully publicised round Ireland challenge, it was Belgium’s Michael Kleinjans in a Class 40 in 2005. In doing it in an hour over four days, he wrested the title from Ireland’s Mick Liddy, who’d set a new solo record in a First 40 earlier the same year. After Kleinjans, the Irish coastal “solo verboten” position was made clear. But in 2006, there was a happy outcome, as Liddy and Kleinjans teamed up for the two-handed division in the Round Britain and Ireland and won.
RE-FOCUS ON TWO-HANDED RECORDS
Meanwhile, in Ireland, people were now re-focusing on two-handed records, and the four days and two hours time set by Galway’s Aodhan FitzGerald and Yannick Lemonnier in the 2004 Round Ireland Race in a Figaro acquired new significance. For 12 years, it was the time to beat, finally bested by Michael Kleinjans with his Class 40 in the 2016 Round Ireland Race to bring the time down to 3 days, 22 hours and 43 Minutes.
Tom Dolan collecting some well-earned prizes in France, which is a world apart from the rest of global sailing
2016 was of course also the year in which the MOD 70s and Rambler 88 broke all the open records in the Round Ireland race, with the MOD 70s finishing in such a tight finish that Lloyd Thornburg had another go using the WSSRC course from the Kish, knocking an hour or so off the time obtained five weeks earlier at Wicklow by Oman. Thus, for now the things are pretty much closed off at the top end of the size scale, but the two-handed challenge is very much open, and so too would be the solo record were it only possible.
TOM DOLAN HAVING IT BOTH WAYS
So it seems that Tom Dolan is trying to have it both ways. As far as the World Sailing Speed Record Council and the rest of humanity is concerned, he is on a two-handed challenge to best the 3 days 19 hours 41 minutes set so brilliantly by Pamela Lee and Cat Hunt in a Figaro 3 in October 2020.
But as far as sailing’s big following in France is concerned, he is sailing solo, as the cameraman with him is supposed to be only a recorder of events. Thus the Dolan challenge is against the Kleinjans single-handed time of 2005, which explains why the track chart shows how well (or not) Dolan is doing against the comparative Kleinjans times (admittedly in a bigger boat) 18 years ago.
Tom Dolan with his Figaro 3 in conditions when the foils are of doubtful benefit
Pam Lee and Cat Hunt head south on their way to the record in October 2020, with the foils definitely earning their keep
Meanwhile, in looking at the overall situation with regard to the direction in which the Dolan challenge took on the Round Ireland project in a certain weather pattern, the Irish sailing community are simply sitting back and thinking of our greatest aviator. The one and only Wrong Way Corrigan. Professor Google will tell you all about Wrong Way Corrigan. His wonderful story puts a positive spin on going the wrong way. Alas, that may not be the outcome this time round for l’Irlandais Volante.
Even a Figaro 3 at times simply has to plod to windward just like the rest of us – Pam Lee and Cat Hunt having a slow time transiting the North Coast in October 2020
As for those of you who have become Round Ireland Record Addicts, this Afloat.ie story from November 14th 2020 gives you something more to chew on, and we’ll continue to carry Tom Dolan updates from time to time.
