The searchlight of international sailing attention is sweeping southward, with focus until now towards the 37th America's Cup's increasing drama at Barcelona. But that focus is taking on an added dimension today, with the start of the 45th Rolex Middle Sea Race from Valetta in Malta, while beyond that interest is building in the Sydney-Hobart Race on December 26th.
But inevitably the gladiatorial circumstances of Emirates team New Zealand needing just one more win this weekend off Barcelona gives a certain bloodthirsty fascination to the duel afloat. Only one more win in order to see The Auld Mug returning to Auckland…
What will be, will be. Meanwhile, the most notable successes for Ireland in the Middle Sea Race in the current era have included high placings for Barry Hurley of Cobh (now Malta-based), and podium success for Conor Doyle's xP50 Freya from Kinsale.
TWO-HANDED WIN
Extra special achievement came nine years ago when father-and-son duo Dermot and Paddy Cronin of Malahide won the two-handed division in a stormy race with their First 40.7 Encore, scooping the Afloat.ie "Sailors of the Month (Offshore), October 2015" title while they were at it.
Powering into it. Paddy Cronin alone at the helm as Encore from Malahide makes knots towards the Two-Handed win in the Rolex Middle Sea Race 2015. Photo: Carlo Borlenghi
The much-travelled Encore is now Azores-based where, during the 2024 summer, it's whispered that Dermot Cronin was awarded an international cruising and racing trophy worked out on such a complex formula that we're waiting to see it in writing and with diagrams before saying anything further.
Paddy Cronin and his father Dermot launching into the two-handed celebration early in the morning in Valetta after their Middle Sea Race win
GALWAY BAY'S TWO-PRONGED CAMPAIGN
But meanwhile Galway Bay Sailing Club is taking up Middle Sea mantle of challenge, with a combined effort from several successful western boats focused on a charter of the "race hot" J/122 Noisy Oyster.
Mark Wilson of the successful Sigma 33 Scorpio heads this challenge of all the talents, the crew sheet showing its range:
- Mark Wilson (Scorpio) : Skipper
- Nigel Moss (Woofer) - Watch Leader
- Conor Lyons (Out of the Blue)- Helm
- Aaron O'Reilly (Koncho Buntz) - Helm
- Padraig Dennison (Scorpio) - Trimmer/Navigation
- Pat Dowd (Scorpio)- Trimmer/Navigation
- Iso Inan (Scorpio)- PIt/Trimmer
- Michael Fleming (Scorpio)- Trimmer
- Paddy Hennelly (Out of the Blue) - Bow/Trimmer
- Cronan Quirke (Scorpio)- Bow/Trimmer
FORMER ROUND IRELAND WINNER
The other Galway entry, Paul Sheehan's Mallorca-based X-37 Chillax, also has proven talent on board as she is co-skippered by Aodhan Fitzgerald, overall winner of the Round Ireland Race with the First 40.7 Ireland West in 2008, and winner before that of the double handed division in 2004 in the same boat with Yannick Lemonnier as his crew-skipper.
Noisy Oyster making knots. Mark Wilson of GBSC's successful Scorpio is skipper of a Galway Bay crew of all the talents on this "race hot" J/122 in today (Saturday's) marathon Middle Sea Race
And while those top achievements were being reached two decades ago, the Aodhan Fitzgerald name continues to feature in western sailing. But neither he nor any others of this significant Galway challenge in Malta are in any doubt that the Mediterranean can be quite a challenge in October.
BULLET FOR BULLITT
The Middle Sea Race winner in 2023 was the Italian Wally 93 Bullitt skippered by Andrea Recordati (now there's a useful surname for a fast sailor), and the fine 2024 entry of 112 boats has a comprehensive range of all sizes up to the 100ft Reichel Pugh 30 Black Jack, formerly a star on the Australian Big Boat Scene and now owned in Europe by Remon Vos, with Tristan Le Brun as skipper.
An awful lot of boat….the 100ft Reichel Pugh 30 Blackjack is a serious contender for line honours in the Middle Sea Race starting today
There'll be an element of déjà vu about Black Jack's involvement, as another hundred footer she's up against is the Dovell 100 Scallywag, formerly of Sydney but now owned by Seng Huang Lee of Hong Kong.
At the other end of the size scale, the smallest - taking on what will seem to her crew to be a very big course – is the 9.43m Farr 30 Calypso, jointly skippered by Sebastian Ripard and Daniel Calascione of the host club, the Royal Malta YC.
Delights of a downtown start. The Middle Sea Race poses the immediate problem of making a good start from a line well into Grand Harbour in Valetta
SYDNEY BUILD UP
It may seem premature to be thinking of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race 2024 as it's still more than two months away, but the Sydney area offshore programme was swinging into top gear last weekend, and interest has been further piqued with the news that the Botin 52 Caro, outright winner of the epic 2023 Fastnet Race, has gone back again, and with her will be Cian Guilfoyle of Dun Laoghaire, who was very much on the strength on 2023's Fastnet victory.
Who can forget the 2023 Hobart race's crawling finish off the Hobart waterfront in the early morning for line honours between the hundred footers Law Connect and Andoo Comanche? Or the gallant struggle against logistics and sickness by Kinsale's Cian McCarthy and Sam Hunt in their Sun Fast 3300 Cinnamon Girl (same name, but sister-ship boat of the Kinsale-based superstar Cinnamon Girl)?
The Torture chamber finish of the 2023 Hobart Race
OVERALL WINNER
Although popular attention was on that slow-moving finish, when the numbers were crunched in the final roundup it was Philip Turner's Reichel Pugh 66 Alive that took the serious IRC overall win, a hugely popular win in Hobart as she was racing under Tasmanian colours.
There are many possible permutations for the 2024 Hobart Race that will air during the next two months, but meanwhile any uber-dedicated sailhead will be cross-eyed by this evening in trying to keep tabs across the Western Mediterranean.
The outer approaches to Hobart, along Tasmania's super-rugged East Coast, is just one of many challenge's faced by Tasmanian RP66 Alive on her way to the overall win in 2923's Sydney-Hobart race
MIDDLE SEA ODYSSEY
The early stages of the Middle Sea Race – an Odyssey for our times – is classic in every way, as it takes the fleet through the Straits of Messina with the classical world's Charybdis on one side and the Sirenes on the other.
That will have us focused in one direction, but meanwhile, whether we like it or not, the America's Cup is now hard-wired into the shared global sailing consciousness, and for many this has been the case for a long time.
Yesterday (Friday's) two races were definitely a must see, a battle royal between the challenging Royal Yacht Squadron's Ineos Britannia and the Royal Zealand Yacht Squadron's Emirates New Zealand. That said, it was something of a smack in the chops for those whose spirits had been raised by the underdog success of the two Ineos wins on Wednesday.
Coup de grace? Emirates NZ speeds towards the lead in yesterday (Friday's) second race, putting her in six wins and just one race away from the magic seven victories
WE'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE
It was ever thus. I remember years ago being asked to take the Father of Shannon Sailing, the great Dr Alf Delany, to Portumna so that he could perform the opening ceremony for the first-in-Ireland Interspray Booth that had been installed by Reggie & Hjordis Goodbody in their boatyard, at that strategic location where the River Shannon enters Lough Derg.
Alf – with whom I'd had my first sailing in a Shannon One Design during their Golden Jubilee Regattta in 1972 – performed his role with the usual grace and style, setting the welcome new development in its regional and historical context.
DR DELANY AND RYAN'S OF PARKGATE STREET
Then after a leisurely lunch, we were asked to give the two management people from International Paints a lift back to Dublin Airport. As there was plenty of time in those days of much lighter traffic, I was able to comply with their request to see one of these classic Dublin pubs they were starting to hear much about, simply by swooshing to a halt outside Ryan's of Parkgate Street, one of the very best.
When we entered its magnificently atmospheric interior, Alf went completely silent, and I asked was he okay. After a further moment of complete hush, he replied:
"I'm fine. Absolutely fine. It's just that the last time I was in here was September 1934, and Sopwith had just won his second race with Endeavour in the America's Cup.
The J Cass Endeavour racing in the 1934 America's Cup, when she came within one race of winning. This was despite sailing with an amateur crew. Her professionals had struck for higher wages, and when Sopwith the owner refused to budge, the London-based American dinghy sailor Beecher Moore put together a volunteer crew of dinghy sailors recruited from the Royal Corinthian YC.
"No challenger had ever notched two races against the Americans until then" continued Alf. "I was one of a bunch of very junior medics at St James's Hospital. As we all sailed, it was a matter of everyone across the river to Ryan's for a celebratory pint.
"But Sherman Hoyt won the next race for Harold Vanderbilt and Rainbow. So that was as far as Endeavour was to get. And I haven't been back here since."
