It has been a remarkable week for Irish sailing, with our clubs last weekend managing to get in the complete programme of Autumn League racing despite being close in on the tail end of Storm Babet. Meanwhile, Eve McMahon confirmed her Gold in the ILCA 6 U21 Worlds in Morocco. And on the other side of the world, the Irish Ruffian 23 Class won the Golden Jubilee International Inter-Port Series in Hong Kong.
As well, every sailing enthusiast’s thoughts will have been returning now and again to dedicated solo star Tom Dolan’s potentially stressful time in Greystones, as he patiently waits for the volatile weather to develop enough of a regular pattern of the right kind to make a Figaro 3 Round Ireland Record challenge a viable proposition.
GORDON MAGUIRE’S CLASS WIN IN MIDDLE SEA
But meanwhile in Malta, the presence on board of Gordon Maguire as tactician can only have been helpful on Max Klink’s all-conquering Botin 52 Caro in winning Class 2 in the difficult Rolex Middle Sea Race, another gong to add to her collection, which already includes the overall win in the Fastnet Race 2023.
We’ll reflect on that in due course this morning, but tomorrow (Sunday’s) start of the 30th Anniversary Transat Jacques Vabre is top of the bill, with Greystones offshore star Pamela Lee at the heart of it co-skippering in the highly-competitive two-handed Class 40.
Remember that number 154 – we hope to see and hear a lot more of it in the days and weeks ahead
While many of the offshore racing majors in which the French have made themselves specialists start from the ports with a holiday flavour on or near the Atlantic coast, one of the biggest, the Transat JacquesVabre - which is now raced to Martinique via a turn at the Cape Verde Islands off West Africa - was first sailed in 1993 as a solo event. And it started far eastward along La Manche, at the rather workaday port of Le Havre in Normandy, which was important for the sponsor’s leading position in the coffee trade.
SAILING’S SPECTATOR APPEAL FOR THE FRENCH
With the very Autumnal starting time, this start location has often meant that the toughest part of the race has simply been being getting clear of what the rest of us know as the English Channel, as it funnels in the seasonal westerly gales. Yet if anything, the prospect of instant challenge and possible – indeed probable – mayhem in the first stage was undoubtedly - in its early days - one of the event’s slightly ghoulish attractions, and crowds of many thousands from all over France flocked to the coast at Le Havre in the manner of a people unaccustomed to the sea as an everyday part of their life.
A workaday port transformed – one of the docks at Le Havre in TJV Week
In other words, so many people in France think of the sea as something so odd and mysterious that they cherish any visit to it, particularly when there’s a potential spectacle and a crash or two involved. But in Ireland by contrast, everyone lives at or within easy distance of the sea, and maritime disasters are almost a historical familiarity.
BRAY AIR SHOW OUR BEST COASTAL CROWD-PULLER
Thus anything which will draw them in crowds to the coast here has to be very special indeed, and the great irony is that the best spectator-attended coastal event in Ireland is the Bray Air Show.
In France by contrast, it was reckoned that a gale-plagued start to an early Transat Jacques Vabre attracted more than half a million visitors from the very deepest rural depths of France to the unfamiliar clifftop viewing points near Le Havre.
A few days after the racers had battered their way westward, the word came back from some village in the middle of nowhere that two of its citizens – making their first ever seaside visit, and unaccustomed to sea-coast hazards – had failed to return. Sadly, their bodies were eventually found at the foot of the cliffs.
DEMANDS OF IN-PORT RACE VILLAGE
Despite that, Irish interest gradually grew over the years, and in 2019 Ireland’s first female co-skipper in the TJV, Joan Mulloy of Westport, raced with the distinctly vintage Imoca 4MyPlanet.
Nowadays, with the fleet obliged to be in port in the Race Village for a week beforehand, public interest has become much more savvy and the top sailors have a large and extremely well-informed fan base to which they have to be readily available, informative and maybe even friendly.
With the start of a very daunting sailing challenge coming ever closer, it’s wouldn’t be every skipper’s preferred way of spending the count-down, and so the superstars can ration their appearances. But the fact is that the keen fans for this year’s TJV have been going into the village in Le Havre seeking a sense of involvement and a share of stardust ever since it opened in the rain on Monday, and by this morning it will be jammed just as the sailors might hope to have a moment of peace to themselves.
LE HAVRE’S SAILING GREATNESS EXPRESSED THROUGH JOLIE BRISE
For those of us with a broader view of offshore racing history, Le Havre is equally important as the birthplace in 1913 of the sailing pilot cutter Jolie Brise.
By 1917, the acceleration of maritime technology thanks to World War I meant that every port’s superb sailing pilot boats were being rapidly replaced by steam or diesel-powered motor-craft. But back in 1913, although the leading cutter-building Albert Paumelle Yard in Le Havre were already aware of the developing change, they reckoned the sailing designs of 33-year-old Alexander Paris had reached such a peak of perfection that his best creation could still be profitable in this increasingly demanding pilotage trade.
The 1913-built 56ft Pilot Cutter Jolie Brise, long-lived symbol of Le Havre’s maritime heritage
Thus the 56ft Jolie Brise was born. Yet while she was indeed the ultimate expression of the type, by 1917 she’d been displacd by steamboats, and reduced to the humble role of a fishing boat with only limited success, such that by the early 1920s her very future was in doubt.
THE SAVING OF JOLIE BRISE
But miraculously she was snapped up in 1923 and restored as a rugged yacht by George Martin, who was one of those promoting the idea of the Fastnet Race. And when the first Fastnet was sailed in 1925 with a fleet of seven including Harry Donegan’s Gull from Cork, Jolie Brise took line honours and the overall win to begin spreading her reputation – which has increased over years of offshore success - of being the greatest seagoing gaff cutter ever built.
Harry Donegan’s Gull from Cork was one of the boats making history with Jolie Brise in the first Fastnet Race in 1925. Having led at one stage, she was third at the finish. Photo RCYC
Today, she is well preserved and actively used by Dauntsey’s School in England in their sea training programme, looking better than ever in her 110th anniversary year. And she’s very much in mind to be the Star of the Show at the Centenary Fastnet race in 2025, with her every handsom line a reminder to us that Le Havre is a sacred place for those who appreciate the remoter depths of offshore racing history.
PRE-RACE TENSION IN LE HAVRE
But today in Le Havre, thinking of Jolie Brise would only be an escapist move for the crews in the final stages of mental preparation, as there’s a lot at stake and they’re relying on a break in the weather and fast progress southwards once they’ve got west of France, as some forecasts are suggesting there might be a depression with central pressure as low as 950 to the west of Ireland by the middle of next week.
The three courses to be sailed by different classes in the 90-plus fleet in the TJV 2023. Getting out of the English Channel may well be the greatest challenge of all
The 16th edition tomorrow (Sunday) of the Transat Jacques Vabre will bring 95 boats divided into four classes to the start line off Le Havre. In addition to the 44 Class40s (Pamela Lee & Tiphanie Ragenau’s class), there are five Ultim trimarans, six Ocean Fiftys and 40 Imoca60s. Among the skippers, 77 are rookies and 18 are women. For the Class40s – the largest category – the route consists of 4,600 miles of navigation along the great circle, with that obligatory passage in the Cape Verde archipelago, keeping the island of Sal on the starboard side.
Each class has a diversified southbound route: the Ultims will sail for 7,500 miles, the Ocean Fiftys for 5,800, and the Imocas for 5,400. The goal is to coordinate the arrival between the different classes, scheduled from November 12 in Martinique. There are 14 nationalities represented, and Italy accounts for the lion’s share from outside France, with as many as six sailors, including five in Class40 and one in the Imoca class.
LEE’S MULTIPLE ATLANTIC CROSSING
Pamela Lee started her sailing as a child with her father, the renowned Norman Lee who has played a key role in the development of sailing in Greystones. Her enthusiasm and enjoyment in the sport is such that despite being a law graduate of Trinity College in Dublin, sailing at the top level is now her life at age 35. And though she and Catherine Hunt established an impressive new two-handed Round Ireland record with the Beneteau Figaro 3 Maigenta in October 2020 to add to a victory in the sailing Tour of Italy, it is the deep-sea long distance challenges which most appeals to her, and she at least ten Atlantic crossings in a variety of high performance boats to her credit.
Pamela Lee’s father Norman, one of the leading developers of Greystones sailing. Photo: W M Nixon
She was selected for this race as a standout candidate in the Cap Pour Elles initiative to encourage and empower women in ocean racing, and the CPE’s “Godmother”, France’s celebrity International Football Referee Stephanie Frappart, has been active in her personal interest and active support of the campaign
Pamela Lee (right) in Le Havre on the Class40 with co-skipper Tiphanie Ragenau and France’s celebrity first female International Football Referee Stephanie Rappart in Le Havre. Photo: Team Cap Pour Elles
TRAINING TOGETHER FOR SIX MONTHS
Lee and Ragenau have now been busy training together for six months, yet as regular readers of Afloat.ie will be well aware, she has also found the time to get the support of Brittany Ferries as lead sponsor, something which - from an Irish-French perspective - looks to be a very neat fit.
But this (Saturday) morning, with just 26 hours to the start, we’re into peak pressure. Back in the day when we used to bring our own boat to the line for the start of the Round Ireland Line, the goldfish-bowl feeling in the natural ampitheatre of the start area off Wickow Harbour became so demanding that I used to wish that the race would start at night, with the boats being sent off individually at one minute intervals.
Record-breaking sailing – Pamela Lee on track with the Figar 3 for the Round Ireland Two-Handed record in 2020
Yet the Round Ireland start is a relaxed affair compared to the hugely-publicised start of the Transat Jacque Vabre off Le Havre. But at least it does have the effect that the challenge of battering your way down channel to turn south out to the west of Ouessant (or Ushant if you prefer) comes as something of a relief. We wish them well.
MAGUIRE MAGIC
When Max Klink’s sparkling new Botin 52 Caro first appeared among the TP52s at Hamilton Island Race Week in northeast Australia in August 2022, it was the cat among the pigeons. Built in New Zealand by a team led wizard boat creator Mark Downey (who used to race whenever he could with friend and client Roy Dickson of Howth in Cracklin’ Rosie and Rosie), Caro was rightly seen as a threat to the established, and she succeeded in giving the Australian TP52 class a knockout punch from which it is still reeling, as she raised performance to an entirely new level.
A scary sight - for the opposition. Caro developing full power in a four-sail reach in a lot of wind
Among those bested was Gordon Maguire at the helm of the previously all-conquering Ichi Ban owned by Matt Allen. So with Ichi Ban taking leave of absence after the Hamilton Island Experience, it was only a matter of time before Maguire appeared on the roster of hyper-talent aboard Caro.
The first really public manifestation of this dream team came in Valette in Malta a week ago, when he sailed out to do the Rolex Middle Sea Race as tactician aboard Caro, knowing that it would be a resumption of the battle against American Chris Sheehan’s TP 52 Warrior Won aboard which Don Street of Glandore’s grandson Dylan Vogel is a regular crewman.
Warrior Won put up a gallant fight in a decidedly rough and varied 609-mile race, and at the west end of Sicily and heading south for Lampedusa, she was two miles ahead. But it was almost painful to watch the way each tracker fix showed that Caro was remorselessly closing the gap, and by the finish she had won Class 2 from Warrior Won by three-and-a-half from Warrior Won on CT, as Warrior had slipped back to fourth.
It was a race for the biggest and the smallest boats, as the Wally 93 Bulitt – with Jamie McWilliam on the crew – won by just 24 seconds overall from the Sun Fast 3300 Red Ruby, which is good news for the Kinsale Sun Fast 3300 Cinnamon Girl team of Cian McCarthy & Sam Hunt, heading to Sydney for a Sun Fast 3300 campaign in the Hobart Race.
The Sun Fast 3300 Red Ruby (Justin & Christine Wolfe) was pipped at the post for the overall win in the Rolex Middle Sea Race 2023. Photo: Paul Wyeth
Meanwhile the two other boats of Irish and Irish Sea interest – Conor Doyle’s xP50 Freya from Kinsale and the Hall family’s J/125 Jacknife from Pwllheli – seemed to be glued together on the time sheets throughout the race, as Jackknife finished fourth in IRC 4 some 37 minutes ahead of Freya in fifth.
First in Class 4 was the Podesta family’s souped-up First 45 Elusive II, originally brought to the Mediterranean by the late John Sisk, and no stranger to silverware in offshore racing ever since, including a Middle Sea overall win.
But all that is now in the record books. This weekend, world sailing’s attention is swinging toward Le Havre.
It isn’t always a rough start – the Transat Jacques Vabre 2021 got going in very manageable conditions
