It seems the sailing world has “recovered from recovering from the pandemic lockdowns”, as the world’s year-round programme of major events – particularly high-profile offshore challenges – swings back into top gear. Not that some of these events didn’t somehow continue in certain places, but because of differing restrictions in different countries, some entries were precluded from travelling to participate in other jurisdictions, a situation that inevitably caused friction.
But memories of any unpleasantness are fading as new events try to find their place on the international stage. Yet with some international majors already through their Centenary, it takes a lot of doing, and then some, to establish your new place in the sun among the existing pillars of the fixtures list.
THE “FAMOUS FIVE” RACE TO AUCKLAND
Thus, there was some excitement a couple of months ago when the new Sydney-Auckland Race was announced by Australia’s Royal Prince Alfred YC, partly to find a worthy use for the club’s historic and prized Lipton Cup. But although something like twenty boats filed expressions of interest, when the 1,300-mile race started this morning in Sydney Harbour, the entry was just five boats.
Once upon a time, she was Eamonn Conneely’s TP52 Patches. But now she is Mike Martin’s Frantic, and she sails today in the new Trans-Tasman Sydney-Auckland race
It seems that as far as the Australian sailors and their public are concerned, their limited portion of sailing interest is consumed by the annual Sydney-Hobart Race at Christmas, the yearly betting-dominated battles of the Sydney Harbour 18 footers, and occasionally the America’s Cup if there’s Australian involvement.
And from a practical angle, you can see that where Sydney-Hobart Race participation can take less than a week all in, racing to the distant wilds of New Zealand – always an iffy business for an Australian in any case – is much more time-consuming when you add in having to get your boat back again across the temperamental Tasman Sea.
CLONTARF INVOLVEMENT
But as former Clontarf sailor Trevor Smyth – brother of Nicky and Pete, who are currently cutting the mustard with the Dun Laoghaire fleets – is racing to Auckland on Mick Martin’s TP52 Frantic, we have a specific interest in the outcome, increased if anything by the fact that Frantic was formerly Eamon Conneelly’s multi-successful Patches.
By the time they get to Auckland, Valetta in Malta will be a-buzz with the buildup to the Rolex Middle Sea Race, starting in a fortnight’s time With an entry of 109 boats with Conor Doyle’s 50ft Freya from Kinsale involved again after ORC success last year, and including some serious maxis, it’s holding up well.
That’s even though the 2021 staging of this annual classic is still a matter of some disgruntlement, as the prizes list was amended when the Maltese Coastguard came down heavily against the latter half of the fleet being permitted to even try to finish in Grand Harbour when a forecast severe northeasterly gale threatened to make the entrance extra-hazardous.
Maxis and Super-Maxis racing out of the entrance to Valetta Harbour. The threat of a severe nor’easterly in 2021 made this entrance potentially hazardous, and the Middle Sea Race times had to be adjusted to accommodate non-finishing boats
The subsequent re-jigging of the times deprived Tom Kneen’s JPK 11.80 Sunrise of a remarkable double – first overall in both the 2021 Fastnet and the 2021 Middle Sea – but right now the thoughts of the organisers should be inclining towards a very different problem.
MIDDLE SEA RACE HEADING FOR TROUBLED WATERS?
For the most southerly turning point in the Middle Sea Race is the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa. Until the Middle Sea Race brought this very special outpost of European civilisation centre stage, many of us only knew of Lampedusa as the ancestral home of Guiseppe Tomasini di Lampedusa, author of that magnificent novel The Leopard - reading it at least a couple of times helped many of us to get through the lockdowns.
But now for much of the world, Lampedusa is synonymous with some of the worst tragedies of the Mediterranean refugee crisis. The very thought of a yacht race. with a fleet including superyachts, using it as no more than a mark of their race-course makes for dreadful optics. Yet what else are the organisers to do? In times past, getting over those later stages to Lampedusa and back up to Malta has seen the race won and lost.
A recently-issued image of the course for the 606-mile Rolex Middle Sea Race, with Lampedusa the most southerly turning point, but somehow Africa has disappeared
So it simply wouldn’t be the Middle Sea Race without this now-tragic little place being a major turning mark of the time-honoured course. Thus the Royal Malta faces an unenviable quandary, as they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t, caught between those who think that Lampedusa should be left out this time round as a mark of respect, and those who reckon that it’s in human nature that life must go on.
HAVE OFFSHORE RACERS TUNNEL VISION?
For many offshore racers are decidedly tough-thinking and ultra-focused types, who see a coastline only as somewhere to be raced along, rather than as places where people’s existences are lived out in all their sometimes tragic complexity.
Thus when the important marina offices at Falmouth Harbour in Antigua burnt down the other day just as the Caribbean sailing season is gearing up to swing into its busiest season, the powers-that-be wasted no time in assuring everybody that this local disaster would have no adverse effect on the annual staging of the RORC Caribbean 600 Race in February. So that’s all right then.
Antigua Yacht Club Marina offices burned down last Monday night
Starting pressures in the RORC Caribbean 600 Race, with crowded English Harbour and Nelson’s Dockyard in the background. The race will proceed in February 2024 despite the marina building at Falmouth Harbour next door being burnt down
GOOD NEWS FROM GREYSTONES
On a more cheerful note, the news that Pamela Lee of Greystones (though now based in France) has secured sponsorship from DFDS and Brittany Ferries for a two-handed Open 40 entry in the Transat Jacques Vabre from Le Havre to Martinique on October 29th scores high in many ways. She’s the first Irish female skipper to make the breakthrough, and she does so from a position of increasing strength, as the record two-handed Round Ireland time of 3 days 19 hours 41 minutes she set in October 2020 with Catherine Hunt in the Figaro 3 Iarracht Maigenta looks better and better with every passing month.
Pamela Lee (right) and shipmate Tiphaine Raganeau celebrate racing success aboard their Open 40
We’ll still be digesting the outcome of the Jacques Vabre when the Sydney-Hobart Race gets going on December 26th, a welcome relief from the Yuletide smother. As ever, Irish interest will first focus on which boat - if any - our own ex-Pat sailing superstar Gordon Maguire is racing. It’s particularly intriguing, as he raced this year’s Fastnet in Sean Langman of Sydney’s gaff-rigged Maluka, and got onto the podium in Class IV. But his exceptional talents would make him welcome in most boats in the healthy turnout.
Maluka launching into Cork Harbour, on her way to competing in the Fastnet Race 2023 with Sean Langman and Gordon Maguire leading the crew
2024 SHAPING UP TO BE SAILING’S “SUPERYEAR”
Thus there’s plenty of major sailing to carry us into 2024, but getting through 2024 with proper attention to every aspect of sailing is going to take some doing, as it’s filled with starred global events. European venues are particularly busy, as the 2024 Sailing Olympics are at Marseille in France from 28th July to 8th August, while just along the coast at Barcelona, they’re making a real meal of the 37th America’s Cup, as its various permutations will see action afloat from August 22nd until October 20th.
Olympic qualifier Finn Lynch at home in the ILCA 7. This weekend he’s a marked man racing Mermaids at Foynes in the Championship of Champions
For the Olympics, Finn Lynch has already secured his place for Ireland in the ILCA 7 class, which makes him something of a marked man in the multi-class Championship of Champions being raced in Mermaids at Foynes this weekend. But it will be edge-of-seat testing on the international stage for Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove to see if they can grab a final place in the 49ers, with the tension usually being maintained right into April.
INCREASING LATE SEASON PRESSURE ON DUN LAOGHAIRE
All of this taking place elsewhere should leave us with a relatively relaxed established programme in Ireland, but recent announcements show that it might be anything but relaxed. We’ll have the Round Ireland Race from Wicklow on Saturday, 22nd June, and then Volvo Cork Week from July 15th to 19th to leave a useful gap to get on further west for Calves Week in Schull which – if tradition is followed – should be from Tuesday, August 6th to Friday, August 9th.
The inaugural Key Yachting J Cup Ireland in August 2023, with forty boats in all, was the successful introduction of a new event
But there’ll be little relaxation among the organising classes after that, as the ICRA Nationals 2024 are scheduled for the Royal Irish Yacht Club on the weekend of August 30th-September 1st, the Key Yachting J-Cup Ireland 2024 is at the same host club on September 7-8th, and then on 10th to 15th September the IRC Europeans 2024 descend on Dun Laoghaire, an event which has the potential to be very big indeed.
THE YEAR WHEN IRELAND WAS REJECTED
We shall see. At least it’s a bit different from 1972, when the escalation of the Troubles in the north led to the RORC abruptly cancelling the scheduled RORC Cowes to Cork Race, and staging a Cowes to Santander Race instead.
Denis Doyle’s Robert Clark-designed and Crosshaven-built “White Moonduster” racing in the 1969 Fastnet. Three years later, she was obliged to race to Spain when Cork had been originally intended
This was more than brutal for Denis Doyle, as he was a flag officer of both the RORC and the Royal Cork. But as ever the gentleman, he raced his 47ft white Moonduster with good grace to Spain with the RORC fleet, and as usual Mary went on ahead to greet her husband and his crew when they reached the Real Club Maritimo de Santander.
Sure enough, there she was, fragrant and bright and cheerful as ever in her best summer frock. But she wasn’t waving a greeting from the club balcony. On the contrary, she was standing beside its still-smoking ruins, as the Basque separatists had seen fit to blow it up.
“Mary Doyle” called the skipper of Moonduster as the boat glided in engineless elegance towards the allotted berth. “Mary Doyle, I know you were very annoyed about them racing to Spain instead of Cork. But is that not going a bit too far?”
The Real Club Maritimo in Santander. The club was founded in 1927, but this clubhouse dates from the 1970s
