Following the death of Johnny Hooper, sailing historian Vincent Delany recalls the remarkable career of the double Olympian and National Yacht Club and Royal Irish Yacht Club sailor, whose achievements stretched across several decades of Irish sailing.
Johnny was born in 1934, the son of Sean Hooper, a prominent member of the National Yacht Club. The family home was at Pakenham Road, Monkstown, Co Dublin.
The earliest reports of his achievements came in his father’s International 12 Foot Dinghy No. 28, Gillian, when he won the 1947 Irish Juvenile Championships, held at the National Yacht Club. His family then gave him No. 30, Ean Gaile, to sail.
Following the 1952 Olympics, it was agreed by some of the competitors that leading European clubs should establish a junior championship under the title International Junior Regatta, or IJR.
The Irish representatives selected by the Irish Dinghy Racing Association to sail at Skovshoved, near Copenhagen, were Jennifer Miller (later Hudson), Ruth Crosbie, Peter Gray and John Hooper. Other competitors came from Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Finland, France, England, Holland and Sweden.
In 1953, the rivalry between the Water Wags and the IDRA 14s was at fever pitch, so a team race was organised to see which class could dominate.
Johnny Hooper, M. Walsh, Ronny Maddock, A.N. Other (possibly Alf Delany), Brian Cox and Adrian Henry represented the Water Wags and took the first three places against Len Hayes, Hugh Allen (1948 Olympian), Miss A. Smith, Jennifer Miller (later Hudson), P. Kennedy and Robin Benson.
In 1953, Johnny won the Helmsman’s Championship of Ireland at Sutton Dinghy Club against all the best dinghy sailors in the country at the time.
At the IDRA Team Championships of 1954 in Dun Laoghaire, the Water Wag Club was represented by Johnny Hooper, Adrian Henry and Peter Dobbs, who beat Sutton Dinghy Club’s Jimmy Mooney, Jem Sullivan and Bunny Conn in the final.
In 1955, George Jones, who had won the premier trophy of the Water Wag Club in 1911, 1913, 1914, 1919, 1920, 1921, 1923, 1924 and from 1927 until 1931, won it again. How did he manage that in 1955 and again in 1959?
The answer is that he lent Coquette to Johnny Hooper, who was the most successful Water Wag on Wednesday evenings in those years.
George Jones paid the entry fee for the boat, and Johnny paid ten shillings membership. His crew was Mrs Sean Hooper, his mother, or friends Mick Bolger or Peter Gray.
In the Water Wag handicap race of 30 May 1956, Johnny started five minutes after the slower boats in the fleet, while in the races of 18 July and 29 August he was required to start six minutes after the slower boats.
In the 1955 season, Hooper and Coquette won all the premier trophies of the Water Wag Club, including the First Helmsman’s Prize, Coquette Cup, Commemoration Trophy, Newsom Memorial Cup, Perry Prize and Phyllis Prize.
In 1955, Johnny won a race at the European Sailing Championship single-handed competition against 17 nations at Gmunden, Austria.
With more than 100 Firefly dinghies completing four laps of a nine-mile course at Benllech Bay, Anglesey, Johnny, representing Dublin University Sailing Club and with his brother Garry crewing, won a race at the National Firefly Championships.
He won the prestigious Sir Richard Fairey Points Cup for the week’s racing and finished second in the Sir Ralph Gore Cup, which was open only to the top half of the fleet.
At the time, it was said that this was Ireland’s finest international sailing result since the World Dinghy Championships in 1924. Johnny was then a law student at UCD.
In the 1956 Olympic trials, sailed at Skerries Sailing Club, Somers Payne of Cork and Johnny Hooper were on equal points after the first trial. A second series of six races was held as a play-off, and Payne finished on seven points, one point ahead of Hooper.
At the European 505 Class Championship at La Baule, sailing with his friend Peter Gray, Johnny Hooper recorded fifth and third places, behind overall winner Paul Elvstrøm with Gunnar Peterson crewing.
Despite all these hi-tech classes, Gerry Downer notes that George Jones of Water Wag Coquette turned up at Downer’s Sail Loft in Dun Laoghaire early in 1960 to order a set of the newly approved Terylene sails, which were far more efficient than the previously available cotton sails.
Gerry notes, probably incorrectly, that George was a “before-the-mast China clipper sailor”. The sails were, of course, for Johnny Hooper, who was sailing Coquette on behalf of her elderly owner.
Olympic History in Naples
Johnny Hooper made Irish Olympic history on 1 September 1960 when he and Peter Gray became the first Irish yachtsmen to win a race in Olympic competition, sailing their Dutch-built Flying Dutchman Three Leaves to victory in the fourth race of the Rome Olympic Regatta in Naples.
The race was awarded after the disqualification of the Italian boat Capio for omitting one of the turning marks of the racecourse.
Olympic Partnership: Johnny Hooper (left) and Peter Gray with Flying Dutchman Three Leaves, the partnership that made Irish Olympic sailing history with a race victory at Naples in 1960
Hooper and Gray, both members of the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire, had been nominated to represent Ireland at the Games after finishing third in the 1959 World Championships in the 505 class.
They travelled to Naples with their brand-new 6.1-metre Flying Dutchman secured to a roof rack on top of Hooper’s father’s 4.1-metre Volkswagen Beetle, completing the journey across Europe and competing in regattas in England, Holland and Germany en route.
A brush with the religious bunting of the locals at Cecina and a terrifying passage between two juggernauts in the St Gotthard Tunnel did not prevent them arriving in Naples fit and ready to compete.
Three Leaves had been purchased with a loan secured by a mortgage on the family home at Monkstown, Co Dublin — a weight Hooper carried throughout the summer — but he sold the yacht to an American after the Games and used the VW Beetle again to transport it to Amsterdam for shipping to the USA.
Hooper had qualified as a lawyer in 1959.
When in Denmark in 1960, en route to Naples for the Olympic Regatta, Johnny saw junior sailors competing in Optimist dinghies. In 1967, Optimist class boats appeared at the National Yacht Club under Johnny’s direction.
Johnny was selected to represent Ireland at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, where he sailed in the International Finn Class dinghy. He was ill-suited to the heavyweight single-handed dinghy and finished 23rd among the 33 countries competing.
In 1963, Johnny Hooper and the National Yacht Club team won the Irish Team Racing Championships in Dun Laoghaire Harbour.
Enduring Friendships: Johnny Hooper (second from right) with sailing contemporaries in later years, reflecting friendships formed over a lifetime in Irish dinghy racing.
In 1965, Johnny, Peter Gray and Michael O’Rahilly again led the National Yacht Club team at the IYA Team Racing Championships.
At the Dun Laoghaire-based Irish Yachting Association’s Easter meeting in 1967, when it was said that hard winds had been blowing since mid-February, Johnny and Peter Gray won all the races in icy conditions.
Johnny won the Irish 505 class at the IDRA Championships in Cork Harbour in 1967.
Later that year, at East Antrim Boat Club in Larne, as 505 Class champion, Johnny represented the class at the Irish Helmsman’s Championships.
In the 1970s, Johnny raced in the International Fireball Class, a class which attracted youthful sailors who could not afford the more costly 505 dinghies.
In the 1980s, he was to be seen racing in the highly competitive J/24 class.
Class Reunion from 2016: From left, Peter Gray, Johnny Hooper, Bernie Hooper, Michael O’Rahilly, Pat Pierce, Vincent Delany and David Killeen; front, Brian McDonagh and Pauline Walker. Absent were Dennis Kidney, Peter Allman and Rory McDonagh. Michael Bolger was deceased.
