The Cruising Association (CA) has launched an updated online portal and web pages for orca information and reporting, resulting from a year-long effort to gather and analyse data on orca interactions.

The updates to the portal and web pages reflect the research and analysis that the CA has undertaken since June 2022 and include the sharing of additional safety and deterrent advice, updated reporting forms and links to other resources, including current orca locations.

In June 2022, the CA launched its portal – available in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish – in collaboration with Grupo Trabajo Orca Atlantica (GTOA), to share information and gather reports from skippers on orca interactions and uneventful passages. The initiative was in response to the increasing trend of behaviour demonstrated since 2020 within a population of orcas that feeds on and follows the migration of tuna exiting the Mediterranean from the Strait of Gibraltar and heading West and North around the Iberian Peninsula.

In 2022 two yachts were sunk due to interactions with orcas, and another yacht met the same fate in early May 2023. While fortunately, all crew members were rescued, this situation is of great concern to cruising sailors located within or transiting through the affected area, and there is only limited evidence-led advice available to help.

Research and Analysis

The CA orca project team has analysed over 300 interactions and uneventful passage reports received in 2022, and some patterns have emerged, which are shared on the portal. Of the 132 interactions, 99 yachts experienced damage.

The comparative data is published, with the CA portal the only database that is publicly accessible for use by sailors, scientists, and others interested in the data.

By gathering as much information as possible, the CA and GTOA will be better equipped to identify factors that may help reduce the risk of an interaction, along with those actions taken by a skipper, which are effective or not.

Online Reporting

Skippers are urged to submit orca interaction, and uneventful passage reports through interaction hotspots. The CA reporting portal is considered the central platform to monitor in detail interactions and uneventful passages, as it gathers comprehensive information in a structured way.

Data gathered includes sea state/wind speed, boat speed, day/night, cloud cover, distance off the land, sea depth, hull/antifoul colour, type of rudder, use of autopilot and depth sounder etc. Additional data fields added for 2023 include details on the number of orcas (whether adult or juvenile) in contact with the boat, whether trailing a fishing lure and reversing technique. These new fields are intended to test scientific theory-based advice and to look for best practices when reversing.

Stay Safe

Although various deterrent measures are discussed, there are currently no reliable legal methods. The CA portal provides a ‘Safety Protocol’ and a list of potential, yet unproven, deterrent measures. Examples include staying close to shore, staying in shallow water, using sand as a screen, reversing and making a noise onboard.

The CA will continue to share progress and information with the cruising community. You can find out more at www.theca.org.uk/orcas.

The Irish Cruising Club (ICC) gathers in County Sligo for its annual dinner this weekend, at which Commodore Dave Beattie will launch a new edition of Conor O'Brien's 'Across Three Oceans' to mark the centenary of the circumnavigation.

As Afloat reported previously, The new Irish Cruising Club/Royal Cruising Club book is the sixth edition of O’Brien’s pioneering account of his global circumnavigation south of the Great Capes with the 42ft Baltimore-built traditional gaff ketch Saoirse in 1923-1925. Compiled by Alex Blackwell and a special ICC/RCC Publications Committee, it includes extra material about O’Brien’s personal background and other after-thoughts on ocean sailing, which he added with additional analysis and further sea-going experience.

A new edition of Conor O'Brien's 'Across Three Oceans' marks the centenary of the circumnavigation and will be launched at the ICC dinner in Sligo

Fastnet Award

The ICC Dinner will also see the presentation to W M Nixon, of this parish, with the club's premier trophy for his 'exceptional achievements and for excellence in or closely related to cruising under sail'.

The Fastnet Award is a perpetual trophy that is not awarded every year, and Sligo will be the ninth occasion on which it has been presented.

Previous recipients include Paddy Barry and Jarlath Cunnane (inaugural Award, 2005), Robin Knox-Johnston, Commander Bill King, Killian Bushe and, in 2020, the Royal Cork Yacht Club.

That headline may suggest the latest Viking television melodrama. And at times Sailing To Antarctica, this new multi-aspect book of memoirs - written moreover in an Irish sea village with strong links to the Scandinavian sea rovers - brings the reader through epic events in remote areas which have Viking history written all over them. Initially, too, blood is very much there. But it was a peaceful interaction, with a first very junior job many decades ago in a primitive early blood transfusion service laboratory. It was to lead Joe Phelan into a distinguished career, to national and international levels, in pioneering medical and surgical technologies, and their support systems.

Meanwhile, in a remarkably balanced life, he took up sailing, and rose through the ranks as owner and crew with exceptional achievements in racing both inshore and offshore, and in world-standard cruising under sail which led to voyages in the ice-bound polar regions that went some way to meeting his lifelong interest in all aspects of nature, and his concern for the well-being of our planet.

When you’re not trying to market the place, you can be a bit more realistic in the naming – this is Cape Desolation. Photo: Joe Phelan

Now, at the age of 81 - albeit in very youthful style - Joe Phelan and his wife Trish, his emphatically equal partner and soul-mate of more than fifty years, continue to sail from Howth with their Hallberg-Rassy 31 Lydia, one of the best and most attractive performance cruisers of her size in Ireland. And Lydia is one of several sensibly-chosen boats they have owned in the course of a long sailing career.

SAILING AND THE OUTDOOR LIFE

Their children and grandchildren share their enthusiasm for sailing and the outdoor life. So the fact that they celebrated their Golden Jubilee Wedding Anniversary in the midst of the Irish Cruising Club Cruise-in-Company in Northwest Spain will suggest to a casual observer that they must be of high-level Dublin sailing establishment stock through several generations, and on both sides of the family.

For Joe has also served as a committee member and flag officer to Commodore level in several clubs, which will add to this easy assumption of a privileged background. But this week’s publication of his fascinating and very impressive memoir Sailing To Antarctica has revealed that they both emerged from families that were strangers to sailing, from fairly ordinary agricultural backgrounds, and folk who were only relatively new to Dublin.

Boat for the job. Although the Amel Super Maramu is a renowned ocean voyager, when Pure Magic returned to Europe in 2005 it emerged that she was the first to have visited Antarctica

Yet the packed-out, remarkably varied and very convivial gathering which filled Howth Yacht Club on last Wednesday night for the book launch - despite appalling weather – was a telling indicator of just how many interesting people’s lives, work and sport the Phelans have interacted with during their fascinating and increasingly high-flying careers ashore, and success-blessed projects afloat.

CREWS OF EXPERIENCED FRIENDS

The memoir is titled Sailing To Antarctica because Joe sees the highlight of his sailing achievement as being the right-hand man for owner-skipper Peter Killen of Malahide, headed to Antarctica in the 54ft Amel Super Maramu ketch Pure Magic in 2004-2005.

Made with a crew of experienced friends drawn mainly from the Howth-Sutton-Baldoyle-Malahide areas, it was apparently the first time that an Amel had made a detailed visit so far south, and thus their achievement was a matter of particular pride to the quality-renowned builders, and it most certainly was something very special indeed for those taking part.

FOUR BOOKS IN ONE

But perhaps the most remarkable thing about the great voyage south was that, while it was the personal high for Joe and his shipmates, for all of them it was just the highest peak in personal mountain ranges of notable lifelong sailing achievements. And Joe’s memoirs give such a vivid picture of growing up and spreading your wings in what is now the very different Ireland of our time, that Sailing To Antarctica is really three or four books in one.

At the core of it, the intensely personal picture in “Book 1” of an intelligent and energetic but sometimes rebellious boy finding his true nature in the Dublin of the late 1940s and the supposedly grim 1950s is done so well that at times you feel you’ve wandered into a more recent version of an episode of Ulysses, or a biographical account of the early life of James Joyce.

For like Joyce, Joe had an improvident father who managed to plough through much of the money from the sale of family farms in Kilkenny in the father’s case, and north Kerry in the mother’s case, thanks to getting into various crash-and-burn business ventures.

“And I’ve got my own white coat”. Joe Phelan in his “first indoor job”, starting a distinguished career in medical technology, analysis and testing, in 1960

But unlike Joyce, Joe’s mother was made of much sterner stuff than the unfortunate May Joyce. Born Elizabeth Barrett, she’d been a woman athlete to national standards when young, but the advent of the Irish Free State in 1922 had seen the iron grip of the Catholic bishops tightening its remorseless claws of repression, until eventually women’s athletics was banned as being unseemly and anti-Catholic. However, as her father Edward Barrett had been Captain of St Anne’s Golf Club, the friendly “people’s club” at the north end of the Bull Island, she found fulfillment through a successful golf career which also saw her being involved in the sport’s administration.

Meanwhile she was holding the family together by ensuring that a substantial house was acquired and retained in Drumcondra even though her husband – despite conspicuous daily displays of religious piety – was still prone to financial misadventures. Nevertheless despite this pillar of maternal strength, it wasn’t always a comfortable environment, and young Joe seemed happiest escaping to the nearby beaches and the Hill of Howth, where on one occasion he almost fell over the cliffs in pursuit of his lifelong interest in ornithology and all sorts of marine animal life.

FIRST JOB AS A BREADMAN’S BOY

It says much about his uncomfortable time in school that his most vivid memory is from 1955 when – aged 14 – he got a holiday job as assistant to the local Johnston Mooney & O’Brien breadman, with the traditional cart drawn by an enormous horse. Joe proved so adept and keen to learn and be helpful that within weeks the breadman felt able to take a holiday, and left little Joe in sole charge of the giant horse, its cart, and the bread round.

Johnston, Mooney & O’Brien’s horde-drawn bread vans were a feature of Dublin life until well into the 1950s

Joe’s account of setting up the entire outfit at first light over Dublin each morning is vivid. You can sense the presence of the massive and occasionally stamping horse, the aroma of the leather bridle and straps, and the tinkle and crashing of the metalwork. There is no way any kid of 14 would be allowed alone near such a potentially lethal setup in a dangerously confined space nowadays, but that’s the way it was in Joe’s schooldays, when he found it difficult to fit into the prescribed range of organised activities in sport in school, and felt happiest roaming outdoors.

Nevertheless, he managed to get through the Leaving Cert, but while many were leaving for England or America in search of better job opportunities, and some managed to go on to University College Dublin, Joe stayed on somewhat aimlessly for a while among his dwindling group of friends. And one night, most appropriately while playing poker with the select few, he heard of a job on offer as an assistant trainee laboratory technician in the nascent Irish Blood Transfusion Service, and he went for it.

A FIRST WIN IN THE GAME OF LIFE

He doesn’t say how he was doing in the poker, but he’d pulled a mighty win the game of life. In those days, the medical profession in Dublin was even more rigidly stratified than it is today, and most would have regarded this lowly post as a dead-end job. But Joe – with his energy, intelligence, and endless curiosity - made it a gateway to achievement, initially through this novel setup which was so new that it was not to receive statutory recognition until 1965, while Joe meanwhile was ascending the career path so steadily that by 1966 he was in a key role in Jervis Street Hospital.

He rose through ranks and positions in areas of health research and testing, some of which seem to have been created mainly in order to provide him with a pathway to success and genuine pioneering achievement, though at other times moving things forward was a real challenge. Initially, working conditions were primitive and very basic in equipment terms. But at the height of his career ,which included being in the forefront of organ transfer and transplant technologies and their logistics, when the new super-hospital was finally being built at Beaumont, it seemed the enormous laboratory facilities were being provided mainly to provide an outlet and testing ground for the wide variety of work being undertaken by Joe Phelan and his by-now large team.

Roy Dickson's Holland 39 Imp – with Joe Phelan in the crew – on her way to winning the Philip Whitehead Cup in the 1987 Fastnet Race. By 1994, Joe and lab colleague Jim Barden were able to persuade the expanded Beaumont Hospital that it should sponsor the Dickson boat in the Round Ireland race.

Indeed, so well-placed was he in the complex Beaumont Hospital hierarchy in its glamour days that in order to help promote the place’s zippy image, he persuaded the management to sponsor a Roy Dickson boat – with himself as a leading crew member - in the 1994 Round Ireland Race. In today’s environment of an over-stressed Health Service, this may seem unlikely, but back in 1994’s get-up-and-go approach to developing and promoting health facilities, it seemed entirely appropriate.

GETTING STARTED IN SAILING

So how does sailing suddenly enter the Joe Phelan story? Well, by the early 1960s, thanks to his dashing style in picking up girls at bus-stops as he tootled past while work-bound on his Heinkel scooter, he and fellow-worker Patricia “Trish” O’Driscoll had become an item, and soon had the makings of a quietly under-stated power couple.

Thus when a colleague at the research bench in the early Blood Transfuson Service labs in Pelican House mentioned she was much enjoying the sailing at Sutton Dinghy Club, it was a joint decision of Joe and Trish to borrow the barely affordable £90 through a sailing-friendly Finance Company manager to buy an IDRA 14, No 5, and head along – totally ignorant of the ins and outs of sailing – to the welcoming Sutton Dinghy Club, where they became members for a £1 annual sub, and were allocated a berth in the dinghy park for ten shillings.

Trish and Joe in their second IDRA 14, coming in from a race at Dunmore East

There’s an appropriate circularity to all this, as Sutton Dinghy Club is just across Sutton Creek from St Anne’s Golf Club, where Joe’s mother had found an alternative outlet for her frustrated athletic talents. And now in 1963, close north cross the water in the friendly little sailing club, Joe and Trish were to find a fulfilling interest which was to add many new dimensions to their already interesting lives, and resulted in their home for a growing family becoming a slightly eccentric but extremely effective house overlooking Baldoyle Estuary, where the friendlier ghosts of the Viking era still linger, and the view across the wildfowl-active and sealife-filled tidal waters made for a nature-lover’s paradise.

The IDRA 14s in one of their heartlands at Clontarf, with Joe and Trish third from right. This is 1974 – the last year before the Ringsend Smokestacks arrived to dominate the view.

Sailing is one of those sports where, the more you put into it, the more you get from it. Thanks to the positive and generous approach of Joe and Trish – with useful guidance from the friendly Sargent family, particularly the ever-helpful Gerry Sargent – Joe soon found his sailing horizons broadening rapidly.

SAILING WITH FOUR SUPERSTAR SKIPPERS

Not only was he progressing his own racing career as a skipper by up-grading the family’s IDRA 14 and broadening the campaigning scope, but his ready enthusiasm and can-do approach saw him - over the coming decades - racing and cruising regularly, both inshore and offshore, with top skippers of the calibre of Mungo Park, Neville Maguire, Roy Dickson and Peter Killen.

Those four names really say it all. By the time he was winding down his offshore racing career with the first three, he’d notched a class win the Fastnet Race of 1987 with the legendary Imp and Roy Dickson, and had sailed with Mungo Park in many ventures on the Sigma 36 Black Pepper, including the overall win in the 900-mile Brighton to Cadiz Race in 1990.

Mungo Park (left) with Black Pepper’s winning crew after the 900-mile Brighton-Cadiz Race – front row (left to right) are Joe Phelan, Jamie McBride, Paddy Cronin and Aidan MacManus.

Before that, while maintaining his personal sailing through involvement with the Lasers and Squibs in Howth, he’d also been on the strength with the hyper-talented Neville Maguire in the Club Shamrock Demelza, working their way towards the overall win in the annual ISORA Championship, and getting a class podium place in the 1986 Round Ireland Race.

There was also a hard-driving Transatlantic race to Cork in a generously-canvassed yet decidedly hefty 50-footer which was being driven downwind to within an inch of her life by a crew of all-Dublin head-bangers. All was well and good until in gale force winds she had a mighty broach-gybe from which she lay down so thoroughly that only the quick thinking of Captain Cool, aka Brian Mathews, got them up again. Yet within half an hour they’d it all together once more with all sail set and back at warp speed, and demented whoops from helm and crew as new speed-burst records were set.

“PROPER CRUISING”

With such a varied suite of offshore racing memories in place, the time was approaching for Joe to give more emphasis to another of his sailing interests – proper cruising. And the Sigma 36 Black Pepper – for discerning sailors, the best of all the Sigma range – comes back into the story, as Mungo Park had sold her on to former Malahide Yacht Club Commodore, Peter Killen, who’d already made his mark with a high-powered cruise round Iceland in a little S&S 30 in 1983.

Ten years later, Peter was already contemplating his retirement life plans after an exceptionally busy career in merchant banking, and having much enjoyed the Iceland venture, his thoughts were drawn towards longer cruises into higher latitudes and more icy waters, for having sailed with him a couple of times, I can attest that his tolerance of cold conditions verges on the superhuman.

Peter Killen wears cold weather gear more as a concession to his shipmates……..

…..for in reality he is almost completely immune to the cold

Joe is more normal on his response to the cold, but he found the lure of high latitudes irresistible, so in 1994 with a brilliantly selected crew, they took Black Pepper to East Greenland. Several Arctic experts had told them that a Sigms 36 wasn’t really suitable for ice work. But she was the boat available, she’d served them well already, and 1994 provided a vertical learning curve in coping with ice which was much more widespread than it is today.

Tricky spot. Black Pepper being pushed to the limit at the east end of Prinz Christian Sund in Greenland in 1994. Photo: Joe Phelan

ANTARCTIC AMBITION

By the turn of the Millennium, the two key men in the Greenland cruise were both contemplating retirement in the early years of the 21st century, and they found they shared an ambition to sail from Ireland to Antarctica to explore as much as possible of the great Southern Continent within the limits of ice levels, then to cruise in detail among the channels of the lower tip of South America in order to assuage Joe’s fascination with Charles Darwin and particularly the voyage of the Beagle. This was to be followed by visiting South Georgia for its own interest and its links to Ernest Shackleton. And then – after an off-season layoff in Capetown - to return to Europe and eventually bring the new boat back to Lawrence Cove on Bere island in Bantry Bay, where the Killen family had long had an alternative home in a very special place whose attractions they now shared with the Phelans.

Dream venue? It is for some – Pure Magic enjoying the summer in Antarctica. Photo: Joe Phelan

FOUR BOOKS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE

But in effect, by the time we get to the story of how the new Peter Killen-owned Super Maramu 54 ketch Pure Magic sailed to Antarctica with Joe Phelan in a central role, we’re into Book 3 of Sailing To Antarctica. Book 1 is the story of Joe’s youth and childhood and youth and early sailing, Book 2 is the story of his very active sailing life in successful racing boats, and Book 3 (with exemplary maps by John Clementson ICC) is the voyaging of Pure Magic, which went on to to include an Atlantic circuit. In typical Killen-Phelan style, this took in a return visit to Greenland, while a subsequent year saw a voyage to Svalbard which means that the Killen ketch is now one of the few voyaging boats in the world which has lain to her own anchor off both the most northerly and the most southerly settlements on the planet.

Official business. The former Commodore of Sutton Dinghy Club and Rear Commodore of the Irish Cruising Club makes a formal visit to the most southerly yacht club in the world.

After this very epic stuff, Book 4 is the more relatable story of how Joe and Trish re-affirmed their dedication to having a boat of their own. There’d always been boats of some kind around the waterfront house in Baldoyle for both adults and children, but even while still actively involved in Pure Magic projects, Joe had up-graded to the ultimately immaculate Shipman 28 Skua, and then when the family SSIA bore fruit, they made the glorious choice of the very able and well-performing yet family-friendly Hallberg-Rassy 31 Lydia to keep life afloat central to three generations of Phelans.

Another dream fulfilled. The Hallberg-Rassy 31 Lydia in Lawrnce Cove on Bere island with three generations of Phelans. Photo: Joe Phelan

This soothing relaxation was well-earned by the successful completion of the Pure Magic voyages. Joe is an invaluable senior member of any crew in many capacities, not least for his tendency to research in meticulous detail anything and everything about the areas they’re about to visit. So although most readers will be drawn to the sheer excitement of accessing the volcanic crater anchorage in the midst of the Antarctic Deception Island when a very sudden total deterioration of the weather clamped down the visibility in the narrow entrance channel known (for reasons you’ll discover in the bk) as Neptune’s Bellows, others will be drawn to Joe’s take on mid-19^th Century voyaging, exploration and theorizing of Charles Darwin and Captain FitzRoy aboard the Beagle (and often in her small open boats) in the rugged waters of the Beagle Channel.

After the storm. A brief peaceful period in Telefon Cove off the crater harbour in Deception Island. Photo: Robert Barker

It could be northern Norway, but it’s Caleta Ola in FitzRoy-Darwin territory in the Beagle Channel area

COPING WITH THE TANGO SCHOOL

Against that there’ll be those whose interest will come more alive with the account of being in Argentina while still southward bound, when the entire crew – easygoing friends for many years – found themselves persuaded to enrol together in a Tango school. The appropriately-attractive instructress did not believe in excess clothing, as it hampered her movements, but inevitably photos and stories circulated about these apparently respectable members of the Malahide, Portmarnock, Baldoyle, Sutton and Howth communities “cavorting with a half-naked woman”.

What on earth will they say back home? Bill Walsh takes on the Tango challenge in Argentina

In the interests of truth to the narrative, this could not be excluded from the story under Lambay Rules. But fortunately in making a book out of Joe’s very many words and zillions of photographs, the Editor was Emma Walsh of The Literary Professionals, working in tandem with Carrowmore Books. As one of the crew in the Tango one-to-one class was her father Bill Walsh, she was quite happy to ensure that it is Bill who is seen as bringing Pure Magic to the dance floor.

Joe Phelan in serious mood in Antarctica

SHACKLETON’S GRAVE

On an altogether more solemn note, no Irish sailor can go to South Georgia without visiting Shackleton’s Grave. It is very effectively simple and totally moving, and its impact is increased with the realisation that the great explorer had so worn himself out in saving his Endurance crew and raising funds for Antarctic cruising that he was only 46 when he died of a heart attack, and not 47 as is commonly thought. Forty-six may not seem so very different from 47, but when you’re fully alive and already well senior of Shackleton at his end, it makes for quite an impact.

Time for thought. At Shackleton’s grave are (left to right) Joe Phelan, Robert Barker, Sean Colbert, Peter Killen and John Marrow.

The voyage from South Georgia to Capetown may look fairly straightforward on the chart, but you’re in the lumpy bumpy weather of the Antarctic Convergence for much of it, and though you’re so far north that there are 12 hours of darkness, you’re still in the region of the huge tabular icebergs which in turn suggests there might be smaller less visible ice-made sinkers of fibreglass boats lurking ahead, while the bigger bergs make constant radar watch essential at night.

“You lookin’ at me?” King of the South, the Emperor penguin. Photo: Joe Phelan

An air of menace. Substantial tabular bergs can drift well north into the area of dark nights. Photo: Joe Phelan

CAPETOWN AND ST HELENA’S VIRILE TORTOISE

But they got there to the utterly different atmosphere of sunny Capetown, and after the scheduled long stop, resumed the voyage back to Europe with one of the most entertaining stopovers (in hindsight) being at St Helena, laden for ever with its associations with the last days of Napoleon. This seems to have resulted in a comic opera sort of place, with Napoleon’s house now French national territory, while the rest of the island is administered as though it’s a London borough, complete with a surely excessive police force of six constables. They’ve so little to do that they’ll slap a parking ticket on one of the locals if he or she has presumed to park his car out of alignment with the while lines in the car park.

That however is as nothing to the problems of the few yachts lying in the rolly anchorage as the peace of evening descends, and sleep beckons. For the most famous resident of St Helena when Pure Magic was there was the 174-year-old giant tortoise Jonathon, who was dominant in the garden of the Governor’s residence, Plantation House. Jonathon was seeing out his days as pleasantly as possible with the company of a much younger female tortoise whom he fancied so much that, on some nights, he asserted his conjugal rights with such noisy vigour that it kept the whole island awake, including the crews on the boats in the anchorage.

Dream conditions. When the running rig was in proper action, the going was very good indeed. Photo: Joe Phelan

Such unexpected little snippets of entertainment shouldn’t be allowed to distract us from realizing that Pure Magic made many remarkable cruises, of which the voyage to Antarctica was both a sailing highlight, and a life highlight for those involved. Sailing to Antarctica concludes with what I’d call Book 4, the picaresque story of how a multi-generational sailing family has led Joe and Trish into all sorts of remarkable experiences, including a cruise in the Friesian sandflats on a traditional Dutch barge, re-tracing Erskine Childer’s route for Riddle of the Sands.

Don’t ask. If you want to find out how a re-tracing of Erskine Childers’ Riddle of the Sands with a traditional Dutch barge comes to be in a book called Sailing To Antarctica, you’ll just have to buy it and read it all for yourself.

Sailing to Antarctica is a wonderful read, a real insight into why and how Ireland has developed into one of the most entertaining, fascinating and stimulating places in which to live (and sail) today. But would we be reading it at all if Joe Phelan’s father had turned out to be an absolute whizz in business, and the Bishops had emerged as Lighthouses of Liberality in the new Irish Free State?  

Book published - let’s get ready to go sailing soon. Trish and Joe Phelan at Wednesday’s book launch in Howth Yacht Club

SAILING TO ANTARCTICA

A Memoir by Joe Phelan

Price €30 

Published March 2023 by Carrowmore Books

The UK-based Cruising Association (CA) is hosting a Zoom talk to feature several short presentations focusing on advice cruisers can use in practice. 

The talks will be followed by a panel discussion and Q&As from the audience at 1900 hrs on Wednesday, 8 March 2023.

The topics, led by the CA’s expert Regulatory and Technical Services Group (RATS), are: 

• Orca Interactions - a presentation of the experiences, both interactions and uneventful passages, of sailors during the 2022 season in the waters where the Gibraltar Strait orca pod live, what has been learnt and what is planned for 2023 to help with the problem.
• Windfarms - there are more than 40 operational offshore wind farms off the shores of the UK, with many more under construction or in various planning stages. The talk will explain the hazards and advise how best to navigate around and through a wind farm, both in the UK and elsewhere.
• Cruising in Europe Now - we are still getting used to myriad changes and learning how to live in post-Brexit times, as well as finding out much more about how we can continue to go sailing and enjoy the delights of being ‘abroad’. The talk will summarise how the main changes are working in practice.
• VAT - dealing with VAT issues is now an everyday reality for yacht cruising, particularly for those who cruise between the UK and the EU. This talk will provide practical guidance on what needs to be done to avoid inadvertent VAT liabilities.
• CE/RCD issues - following the UK leaving the EU, the UK is replacing the well-known CE mark with its own version, UKCA, with full implementation now delayed until the end of 2024. This talk will summarise how the new UK system will work for yachts, which it may impact and how it may affect yacht movements or transactions.

For those who wish to take part but are not CA members, use this link here

The RYA Northern Ireland Cruising Conference will take place on Saturday, 28 January at the Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club on Belfast Lough.

The event is set to provide an opportunity for the cruising community to come together, learn about the latest issues and opportunities and hear from experts on a wide range of informative and enjoyable topics. 

With a packed agenda, the Conference will have plenty of networking opportunities with other sailors, RYA staff, volunteers and speakers.

Registration will begin at 9.30 am, with the conference running from 10 am until 4.30 pm.

Speakers for the day include Carol Paddison and Mel Hyde from RYA. They will also be joined by Paul Magee from PGM Training, discussing Sea Survival and Margie Crawford from East Down Yacht Club, telling of her experiences cruising Antarctica.

Tickets for the event, which includes a two-course lunch, cost £35, and there is a reduced fee of £30 for RYA Personal Members.

This week's announcement of the 2022 Cruising Club of America awards for adventurous use of the seas puts the spotlight on achievements ranging from ocean crossings by young and old, a rescue at sea, and a new award recognising sailing innovation, to service to the Club itself.

As Afloat reported previously, for a lifetime of ocean-crossing achievement, Japan’s best-known ocean sailor, Kenichi Hori, has been named winner of the prestigious Blue Water Medal, awarded 95 times since 1923. 

His most recent voyage began in March 2022, when he sailed alone from San Francisco to Chiba, Japan, at age 83.

Young Voyager Award: Cal Currier

Young Voyager Award: Cal Currier

This high-school student from Palo Alto, California, had a big year in 2022—first learning to sail, then buying and preparing a modest, 30-foot sloop. Last summer, he set sail alone from Marion, Massachusetts, and sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to Lagos, Portugal, via the Azores. 

Rod Stephens Seamanship Trophy: Kirsten Neuschäfer

Rod Stephens Seamanship Trophy: Kirsten Neuschäfer

The South African sailor is this year’s recipient of the CCA’s seamanship award for playing a pivotal role in the successful rescue of a fellow 2022 Golden Globe Race competitor, Tapio Lehtinen. The race is on-going, and Neuschäfer’s 36-foot Minnehaha is contending for the lead with 12,000 nautical miles still to sail to the finish in Les Sables d’Olonne, France. 

Diana Russell Award: Mary Crowley

Diana Russell Award: Mary Crowley

The winner of the inaugural CCA award, which recognises a club member for innovation in sailing design, methodology, education, training, safety, and the adventurous use and enjoyment of the sea, is a lifelong sailor. She is recognized for founding and directing the Ocean Voyages Institute, as well as her active support for several other non-profits dedicated to the marine environment. 

Richard S. Nye Award: Barbara Watson

Richard S. Nye Award: Barbara Watson

The 2022 winner has served, and continues to serve, the Cruising Club of America (CCA) at the highest levels. She has served as a station Rear Commodore and historian, on the Club Nominating Committee, chair of the Events Committee, an editor of Voyages Magazine, and is currently the Yearbook Editor. Read more

Far Horizons Award: David Tunick

David Tunick often sails solo on his 55-foot Sparkman & Stephens yawl, Night Watch

Recognisng CCA members for a particularly meritorious cruise or series of cruises, the 2022 award, recognises the winner’s pair of transatlantic passages solo aboard his 55-foot Sparkman & Stephens yawl, Night Watch, more than two decades apart—the “bookends” to an extended cruise through the Baltic and Northern Europe.

The awards will be presented at the CCA’s Spring Meeting in New York, March 4, 2023. 

Photo credits: Cal Currier, Ocean Voyages Institute, Barbara Watson, GGR2022, David Tunick

Ballyronan Boat Club is a small club on the Northwestern shore of Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland, the largest body of inland water in the British Isles, and it was from this small outfit that the Commodore, Elwyn Agnew and four friends embarked on an ambitious adventure in the autumn of 2022.

Ballyronan is an RYA training centre and provides powerboat, sailing and windsurfing lessons from beginner to advanced. In his mission statement, Elwyn Agnew says, “The Club is keen to create great experiences and long-lasting memories”. And this venture has certainly done that.

Ballyronan Boat Club on Lough Neagh

From a throwaway remark developed the idea that the ARC – Atlantic Rally for Cruisers in Elwyn’s aptly named Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 45 Optimistic could be a runner. Optimistic is berthed in Carrickfergus Marina, and she was delivered in just under three weeks to Gran Canaria in September in preparation for the 37th edition of the Race. That trip covered 2300 nm and apparently was quite an adventure with sightings of whales and dolphins, fish jumping on board, glorious sunshine and lightning storms.

Optimistic's ARC track across the Atlantic

The first stage of the rally sails from Las Palmas to Mindelo Marina, São Vicente on Cape Verde, approximately 850nm. Following the four to six day stopover, it’s on to Port Louis Marina, Grenada. The passage to Grenada in the Caribbean is approximately 2150nm.

The crew consisted of Elwyn and his daughter Emily and Michael Brown from Ballyronan, Anna Richmond from Vancouver, Canada and Matt Ruiz from London.

The crew in Grenada (l to r) Emily Agnew (Ballyronan BC), Elwyn Agnew (Commodore Ballyronan BC) Anna Richmond (Vancouver) Matt Ruiz (London) and Michael Browne (Ballyronan BC)

Michael Browne says that they were blessed with good weather, mostly 20 – 22 knots of wind with a few squally nights, and the voyage to Cape Verde took six days and then a further two weeks to Grenada which they reached on 2nd December.

Marking the final countdown to the start of ARC 2022 on Sunday, 20 November, a colourful Opening Ceremony parade was held today in Las Palmas Marina, celebrating the nations taking part in the 37th Atlantic Rally for Cruisers. At 11:30, crews from 144 boats representing 35 nations gathered in the southern corner of the marina to parade their country flags around the docks. Over 800 crew will be sailing on this year’s rally, and the assortment of cultures, languages and ages was keenly apparent in the ocean crossing community as the parade began.

With a spectacular, colourful carnival parade around the whole marina, crews waved their national flags patriotically and got into the spirit of the event. For many, this will be their longest ocean passage and for others, it is a regular trip across the pond, but for all, it has been the culmination of a lot of hard work and preparation in the build-up to this great adventure. Today’s Opening Ceremony recognised the crew coming from multiple different nations who are now forged together with a common goal of crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

The international conga line was led by the Banda Guiniguada, with the Batucada Samba Isleña beating a salsa rhythm at the back. Once the procession had completed its parade around the marina, World Cruising Club's Andrew Pickersgill welcomed sailors to the ARC. He acknowledged the support of the Tourist Board of Gran Canaria, the Ayuntamiento de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and the Port Authority who have supported participants as they prepare for departure. “I’m sure you will agree that Las Palmas Marina have been wonderful hosts for the start of your adventure, working hard to accommodate the myriad of yachts in the marina behind me. Whether this will be your first ocean crossing or you have sailed many before, we hope being a part of the 37th ARC is a great adventure for you. We hope the crossing will be a safe and enjoyable experience for you all and can guarantee that on the other side of the Atlantic, on the island of Saint Lucia, a warm Caribbean welcome awaits you.”

Juan Francisco Martin, Commercial Director of the Port Authority of Las Palmas, informed the listening crowd that for the start of their adventure, steady tradewinds had been ordered for a smooth departure from Gran Canaria and wished them a safe and enjoyable ocean crossing.

The flags of 35 nations were raised on poles overlooking the docks, which are now filled with a wide range of boats as eclectic as the crews on board. Around the marina are examples of almost every kind of ocean cruising boat available, with the ARC bringing together one of the most diverse fleets of any sailing event. From the largest yacht, Oyster 885 Karibu (GGY), to the smallest, French-flagged Vancouver 28 Oberoi (FRA), 105 monohulls, 38 Multihulls and one motorboat are set to make their departure with the ARC a week from today, on Sunday 20 November. There has been a significant swing towards multihulls once again this year, and 35 catamarans and three trimarans will be on the start line and perhaps again be the first to reach the rum punch at IGY Rodney Bay Marina.

As start day draws nearer, preparations for the crossing increase in urgency as provisions are stowed, equipment is checked and re-checked, and further crew members fly in daily to join the yachts. The average cruising boat can expect to be at sea for 18 to 21 days and there are plenty of jobs to be done for the boats and crews to undertake the adventures of sailing an ocean. In week two of the programme laid on by rally organisers World Cruising Club to support their preparations, many will take advantage of the free seminars led by some of the industry's most respected cruising sailors and marine specialists. Social events include the 70’s Disco costume party, the Farewell Drinks at the Real Club Náutico, and nightly sundowners.

The Start of ARC 2022 will take place on Sunday, 20 November. The atmosphere in Las Palmas Marina on the morning of the ARC start is not to be missed. The pontoons are buzzing with anticipation and final farewells as yachts begin to depart around 1100 to a soundtrack of music and calls of ‘Bon Voyage’ as they head out to the starting area. The sea wall alongside the Av. de Canarias (main road south) provides an opportunity to see the starts and watch the boats sail south from onshore, with the Multihulls leading the charge at 12:30, followed by the Racing Division at 12:45, and 13:00 for the largest Cruising Division fleet.

ARC+ 2022, World Cruising Club’s two-stage transatlantic rally to Grenada, set sail today, 6 November, from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria with 90 boats spirited away by the gentle tradewinds bound for Mindelo Marina, Cape Verde, for the first leg of their ocean adventure. Over 400 crew are taking part in this year’s rally onboard boats large and small, old and new, and each felt a mix of excitement and anticipation as their ocean crossing began.

With a full programme of preparations running since 26 October in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the crews of 69 monohulls, 20 multihulls and 1 motoryacht have got to know each other well prior to departure. “With seminars on weather routing under our belt and a smattering of celestial navigation, as well as important pointers on rigging and provisioning, it has been so worthwhile being part of the ARC+.” said South Africans Darrol and Kathy Martin and the crew of Disa (GBR), a 1988 Amel Mango. “We are filled with excitement and trepidation and have been saying goodbye to the good friends we have made on Pontoon K. We cannot wait to have the wind in our sails and be heading south to Cape Verde in our beautiful old boat, Disa.”

On the docks of Las Palmas Marina this morning, lines were slipped and the marina slowly emptied as the diverse fleet headed out to the starting area off the Avenue Maritima on Gran Canaria’s north-east coast. From the smallest boat on the ARC+ 2022 start line, Ciel Bleu (GBR), a Fountaine Pajot Maldives 32, to the biggest Oyster 675 Alika (GBR), it is the largest and most diverse fleet to be leaving Las Palmas de Gran Canaria since the event began in 2013. Celebrating its 10th edition this year, the two-stage Atlantic crossing has once again proved popular with adventurous families, with 36 children sailing on 18 different boats, the youngest being Herman Habenicht on Ballerina (SWE), aged just three years old. The youngest skipper, Ronja Dörnfeld, is aged 25 and one of four female skippers to set off on ARC+ 2022 today.

First to start, 20 yachts in the rally’s Multihull Division got into position for the signal at 12:45 local time. Balance3 (FIN) a Lagoon 42-2 skippered by Pasi Heiskanen with his family on board was first over the line, followed by Indrek Prants' Lagoon 50 Sirocco (EST), another family boat, then Hanuman (USA) a Catana 53 skippered by Steve May. Following their rockstar exit from the Marina with music and costumes, Piment Rouge (FRA) Pierre De Saint-Vincent's Outremer 51 sailed close to the Aduanas Patrol Vessel Condor used by Rally Control for the start to get the offshore edge out of the harbour and was soon leading the fleet on the 865nm first leg to Mindelo, Cape Verde.

Then came the turn of Cruising and Open Divisions, a total of 70 boats. On point to cross the line first were the all-Italian crew of Azuree 46 Enalia (ITA), skippered by Alberto Rizzotti followed by Richard Hill’s Mazi 1300 Kirima (GBR). The impressive cruiser-racer Mylius 60 Fra Diavolo (ITA) with Vincenzo Addessi and crew showed its regatta racing pedigree and cross the line in 3rd place.

The ARC+ fleet is now on their way to Mindelo, on 865NM to the southwest of Gran Canaria. The weather forecast suggests north-easterly trade winds building through the passage enabling the boats to make good mileage, and the majority of the fleet are expected to arrive at Mindelo Marina, in Cape Verde on Friday, 11 and Saturday, 12 November.

ARC and ARC Route Map Courtesy World Cruising Club

The latest YB Tracking Satellite trackers have been fitted on board each boat, allowing family and friends to follow the fleet from the comfort of their own homes via the online Fleet Viewer. Boats can also send blogs and photos, posted on to the rally website to share life on board.

As the ARC+ fleet left today, the pre-departure programme has only just begun for the crews of the ARC fleet sailing directly to Saint Lucia on 20 November. Before their own start two weeks from today, ARC crews can look forward to a full programme of activities to give them the best possible send off for their own ocean crossing.

Nick Kats of Clifden and originally America is always looking to the north for new cruises with his hefty 39ft Danish-built Bermudan ketch Teddy. And when we say “north”, we mean Arctic voyaging and a continuing fascination with Iceland and Greenland, for Nick and the Teddy every so often shape their course for high latitudes in much the same way most of the rest of us would contemplate another cruise to West Cork.

When Teddy with her international crew returned recently to Clifden without fuss or fanfare, it marked the completion of Nick’s tenth visit to Iceland, and his third detailed cruise in East Greenland. And as his voyages have included going on north to Jan Mayen, one of his crew managed to get a crystal-clear image of that remote island’s often fog-shrouded icy peak of Beerenberg, which is a rare pearl indeed.

Seldom seen, never forgotten……as recorded on one of Teddy’s ten Arctic cruises, the rarely fully visible Beerenberg on Jan Mayen is one of the most epic sights in high latitudes cruising

In fact, thanks to his online-recruited crew inevitably including some top class photographers, the collected images of the Teddy Arctic cruises make for an impressive and informative display. You can get the flavour of it in this year’s cruise blog Teddytoarctic2022.blogspot.com. And “flavour” is the operative word , for in addition to many other interests, Nick is a nutritionist and an organic grower at his place in West Connemara, which gives added insight to the many meals – some of them decidedly experimental – consumed during the course of this well-fed venture.

MEETING DANU FROM GALWAY

Yet while the assumption is that Arctic voyaging boats will be largely on their own, and will be the only visitor when they get to some hidden little port, one point of particular interest in this tenth northern cruise was the number of other boats now regularly cruising in the region, some of which they knew already. Thus they met up with Peter Owens and his researching crew aboard Danu from Galway, and as Nick drily records: “We socialized”. Where two Irish-based boats are involved, those two words are open to any and many interpretations.

Nick Kats is very much his own man

Greenland cruising expects some isolation, as with Teddy at this abandoned Innuit village, but there was also some high-powered socialising with sailing legends

NORTHABOUT FROM CLEW BAY SAILS ON WITH ALL-FEMALE CREW

Then there was a real blast from the past with a get-together at Scoresbysund with Northabout, the purpose-built alloy-constructed expedition yacht put together by owner Jarlath Cunnane of Mayo and Paddy Barry and their team more than twenty years ago. The boat built, they sailed Northabout out from Westport to an astonishing career which included a global circumnavigation via the two northern routes, and two awards of the ultra-elite Blue Water Medal of the Cruising Club of America.

In this the Centenary Year of the CCA, that in itself is enough to remember with celebration. But Nick Kats was further pleased to report that they found Northabout - now under French ownership - to be “one very happy boat - eight crew on board, all women, four sailors, three mountaineers, and one photographer.”

A true sailing marathon man met up with was Trevor Robertson, going solo on his Alajuela 38 – he logged his 400,000 ocean miles quite some time ago. And then there were Jurgen and Claudia Kirchberger from Austria with the Americas-circuiting La Belle Epoque – you can find more about them through Fortgeblasen.

The successful end of a great era – Northabout returns to Clew Bay after her award-winning Arctic global circuit

Men of the west and the Arctic – Jarlath Cunnane with Dr Mick Brogan and some of Northabout’s many crews at Westport Quay. Northabout continues Arctic voyaging, but now under French ownership 

GREENLAND CRUISING GUIDE

Another memorable gathering was with Germany’s senior Arctic voyager Arved Fuchs with his very traditional Dag Aaen. So clearly there are times when the North Water seems more like a highway than a destination. And the numbers visiting will be likely increased by John Henderson and Helen Gould from Scotland - another cruising team met by the Teddy crew - for they are sailing along through ice and clear water alike, preparing “a quality sailor’s guide” to Greenland.

Germany’s Arved Fuchs has long found his vocation in Arctic cruising

Pedants of language will wonder whether that will be a high quality publication, or a guide aimed at high quality sailors, or indeed if sales are going to be limited to members of “the quality” who happen to go sailing. Have it as you wish. But meanwhile Ireland’s west coast now scores remarkably well for seasoned Arctic sailors, with Jarlath Cunnane up on Clew Bay, Nick Kats in Clifden Harbour, Paddy Barry (just back from Svalbard) at Mannin Bay near Ballyconneelly, and Peter Owens back home with Vera Quinlan and their family near Kinvara. It’s a formidable line-up.

“Peace after stormy seas….” – Nick Kats’ Teddy (centre) in her sheltered drying berth at Clifden Quay. Photo: W M Nixon