It says everything about owner/skipper Stephen O’Flaherty’s enthusiastic and imaginative use of his hyper-elegant Spirit 54 Soufriere that we’d more or less forgotten that she featured in the James Bond film Casino Royale writes W M Nixon.
He and his crew of friends and shipmates have done so much since - both at home and abroad - with this gorgeous 2006-built yacht. So it wasn’t until international advertising appeared listing her for sale, and mentioning the Bond connection, that it all came back to us. We recalled that when Soufriere was nearing completion, the Bond film production company came seeking the best-looking sailing boat they could find for an attractive sequence in Venice, and it’s there on YouTube if you want to see it.
Soufriere in pre-start mode at the Autumn League in Howth. Photo: W M Nixon
But since then, Soufriere must have been the busiest Spirit 54 of them all. It’s truly sporting to race under IRC in such a vessel, but Stephen O’Flaherty is game for it. He races regularly in Dublin Bay and at Howth, sharing his home berths between Dun Laoghaire and HYC Marina, and he keeps up crew numbers by – among other techniques – taking on board folk who have boats of their own. He then crews for them in exchange, notably with Stephen Quinn with the little J/97 Lambay Rules, in which they’ve contested the Scottish Series and the Volvo Round Ireland – and they’ve done vey well in both.
But Stephen has also been enthusiastic about taking Soufriere on the circuit - she has been a star performer in the big Classics regattas at Cowes several times. And with David Cagney as co-skipper, he is an enthusiast for two-handed racing. Maybe it’s because a Sprit 54 is just about the last boat most people would think of for two-handed sailing, but Stephen and David are both guys whose natural response is to think outside the box, and they’ve scored successes, including a very good showing in last year’s Volvo Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race.
Yet despite this busy life, Soufriere is still as good as new. Nothing has been stinted in her maintenance. As agent Ben Cooper of Berthon puts it, she “gleams”. Needless to say, the price reflects her supreme quality and provenance - it’s €630,000. She’s on view at Howth Marina, and if she’s sold away – as almost invariably she will, for this is a seriously international proposition – we’ll miss her very much, as she improves the look of the place no end.
