Two historic though very different international sailing events have concluded during the past week, and in each, Irish sailors have logged sixth place. To the casual observer, this may seem commendable enough, yet scarcely worthy of the celebration they have attracted. But the competitions involved are given added distinction by their decidedly non-mainstream quality – in fact, they’re so off-the-wall they verge into another world altogether.
Top Ten Push — Ireland’s Peter O’Leary and Joost Houweling racing Dafne at the 99th Bacardi Cup in Miami, where the Cork helm has climbed back into seventh overall after three races Photo: Anna Suslova
Peter O’Leary of Crosshaven – crewed by Joost Huweling - was sixth in the 2026 staging of the Bacardi Cup in Miami for those decidedly strange beasts, the International Star Class. And Jakub Ziemkiewicz of Cork took sixth in Antigua in his own-built boat in the McIntyre Mini Globe, the first round-the-world race for the 19ft “cheapos” of the Globe 5.80 class that 71-year-old Australian maritime adventurer Don McIntyre has devised to bring solo ocean voyaging and long distance racing in your own new boat within an affordable range.
The Don McIntyre-inspired Globe 5.80. The overall length may have been compressed to 19ft, but there are no miniaturized items available for many important items, and when the smallest standard size of some equipment is fitted to the boat, it seems to emphasise that you run out of boat length rather quickly.
WIN ON 46TH ATTEMPT
The main point of interest about the latest Star Class series for the 77-boat invitational Bacardi Cup is that it was won – after 46 attempts, according to the man himself – by San Francisco’s Paul Cayard (66), crewed by Frithjof Kleen.
Cayard is one of the greatest sailors in the world, with an extraordinary CV in everything from the Olympics through the America’s Cup to the Round the World races in their various incarnations. Yet he’s typical of the Star sailors in that it’s such a demanding machine that he can’t resist the personal sport in a notably well-run international setup.
Charisma to spare. Paul Cayard at the height of his extremely impressive sailing career
The class has been thriving mightily since being released from the strait-jacket of the Olympics, which constrained the boat’s popular appeal between 1932 and 2012. But you still would scarcely talk of popular appeal, in that the performance levels are so high that it has become something of an elite club, with a finish in the top twenty in any of their major events seen as a laudable achievement, meaning that sixth is mighty.
Done it at last. The 66-year-old Paul Cayard with crew Frithjof Kleen and the Bacardi silverware.
THE BOAT DESIGN FROM THE GREAT WHITE WAY
The idea that the 23ft Star would achieve such stratospheric status would have been thought laughable when the design first emerged from the offices of naval architect William Gardner in 1910. That said, you might well feel as though you’re sliding into an early Damon Runyon story, as Gardner trumpeted his address as being at One Broadway, New York City.
Yet the new boat was definitely down-market, as it was hard-chined for ease of building at a time when it was said that no gentleman would ever be seen in a hard-chined boat. And as it was planked in an era when marine ply was still at an early development stage, it was so heavy that Gardner gave it a little water-tight cockpit.
The original Star Class gunter-rigged sailplan had the C/E of the mainsail so far aft……..
…..that the keel had to be well aft to maintain balance. This drawing also shows how the original wooden hard-chine construction would have benefitted from the use of marine ply, but as reliable marine ply was not available in 1910, the hull was heavily planked.
THAT FAR-OUT FAR-AFT KEEL…..
The odd-looking hull profile had the keel set well aft to offset the sternwards location of the centre of effort, an effect caused by the large gunter mainsail. But when, in the 1920s and 1930s, the class was translating to Bermuda rig, instead of moving the keel forward a couple of feet, they worshipped the original hull profile as the Sacred Shape, to be preserved above everything else.
In order to avoid lee helm – regarded as one of the Seven Deadly Sins of yacht design – they’d to provide the enormous Bermudan mainsail which is now the hallmark of these decidedly odd-looking boats. Yet though the hull shape may be pure 1910, the hulls are now built by professor-like specialists in laboratory conditions using all sorts of plastics, with the full exploitation of any measurement tolerances expected as part of the deal.
The relatively huge Bermudan mainsails are the hallmark of the Star Class in its contemporary form.
HARD PHYSICAL WORK
But in the end, out there on the race course it is still decidedly hard physical work allied to tactical and strategic cunning as sailors of the calibre of Paul Cayard of the USA and Robert Scheidt of Brazil slug it out for a title for which anybody can dream, but very few can realistically challenge. And anyway, you have to be invited to take part…….
Although he is now entitled to the Free Bus Pass, Paul Cayard can still cut the mustard racing the Star
LITTLE ONES THINK LARGE
Quite a long time ago, we were heading towards Dunmore East from West Cork in a Galion 22 (a super little boat), driving quite hard under full sail on the wings of a beefy sou’wester. A friend who came past slugging westward in motor-sailing mode told us afterwards that we looked for all the world like a red ping-pong ball, bouncing merrily (his words) from one wave top to the next.
It made us think that around 22ft is surely the minimum for reasonable ocean sailing. Yet at much the same time in the 1972 east-west OSTAR from Plymouth, David Blagden with the Hunter 19 Willing Griffin came tenth overall in a fleet of 59 starters.
The Peter Poland-built Hunter 19 is basically a Squib with a lid. Some hardened sailors have told me they reckon the Squib is so small and light that it really doesn’t merit being considered as a proper keelboat, yet Willing Griffin did the business.
The Hunter Europa was a development of the Hunter 19, which in turn was ‘The Squib With A Lid’. At first glance this nicely-proportioned boat looks to be something larger until it’s realised that the bunks are more than a third of the overall length.
Nevertheless when the notion of the Minimal Ocean Sailor was put forward by Australian adventurer Don McIntyre with the Globe 5.80 concept, it looked a bit odd, as it could be suggested that the resulting boat looks like a 28-footer that has been compressed horizontally to 19ft overall, yet has retained all its vertical measurements.
Neat work, neat boat. Jakub Ziemkiewicz’s Globe 5.80 Bibi emerges in Cork from some very focused “amateur” boat-building
TRIP OVER HERSELF?
Thus it has to be confessed that she looks as though she’d easily trip over herself while running in severe weather round Cape Horn. So it was a relief when they announced that their first Round the World Race would be more of a rally than a non-stop challenge for the Great Southern Sea, as it would be east-west from Antigua, using the Panama Canal to by-pass The Horn, with the lone skippers well seasoned by the time they were taking on the challenge of the Cape of Good Hope and the long haul from Capetown to the finish.
MINI GLOBE RESULTS
Now we have the first-ever McIntyre Mini Globe Race’s champion, and he is from Switzerland (of course…) Renaud Stitelmann aboard #28 Capucinette (SUI) won every leg of the race and established the first official race record at 180 days, 11 hours, 25 minutes and 57 seconds.
The Swiss have come down from the mountains and taken over the sea – Mini-Globe clear winner Renaud Stitelmann
Provisional results overall: Second place Dan Turner (#05 Immortal Game / AUS ) sailed in 184 days 01 hour 20 minutes and 42 seconds. Third place Keri Harris (#47 Origami / UK ) sailed in 190 days, 21 hours, 4 minutes and 45 seconds and Fourth place Pilar Pasanau (#98 Peter Punk / ES) sailed in 191 days, 16 hours, 10 minutes and 4 seconds. Fifth place Adam Waugh (#170 Little Wren / UK ) 199 days, 21 hours, 59 minutes, 28 seconds. Sixth place Jakub Ziemkiewicz (#185 Bibi / IE ) 200 days, 13 hours, 18 minutes and 7 seconds.
GRP GLOBE 5.80?
One of the factors in the design’s success is that it cleverly uses modern marine ply both structurally and as the hull and deck covering. Now it so happens that some years ago when fitting new quarter bulkheads in a 25-footer, I would have preferred to go beyond glassing marine ply bulkheads in place, and would instead have gone for cutting them out of a sheet of GRP.
But although you could see 8x4 sheets of GRP for sale through outlets in the US, they seemed to be completely unavailable in Europe. Yet could it happen that, across The Pond, somebody will think to build a Globe 580 from sheets of marine grade GRP?
And why not? We only have to look at what has happened with the International Star to know that in boats, almost anything is ultimately possible.
Jakub Ziemkiewicz has turned a dream into reality.
