Jean Pierre (JP) Mleko, a familiar figure in Irish sailing circles through his associations with Poolbeg Yacht Club, Howth and Dún Laoghaire, died at sea on 30 July 2026, aged 73. Born in France to Polish parents, he made Ireland his adopted home before embarking on a lifetime of cruising that took him across the Mediterranean, along the North African coast and repeatedly across the Atlantic.
An accomplished boatbuilder and resourceful sailor, JP worked at Poolbeg boatyard and BJ Marine before setting off with his family from Dunmore East in 1986. For almost three decades, his catamaran Toucan was his home as he sailed between the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, the Caribbean, the Azores and Madeira.
In this personal tribute, his daughter Kasha Mleko remembers a remarkable character whose love of sailing, travel, music and people shaped an unconventional life.
Remembering My Dad, JP Mleko
By Kasha Mleko
Plenty of people say their dad was unique, but I believe mine really was a one-off!
The only son of Polish immigrants who moved to northern France after the war, and brother to three sisters, I don't think Dad ever saw France as home. Already a bit of a rebel and nicknamed 'Le Sauvage', he left on his motorbike at 17 and never looked back.
He travelled around Europe and North Africa for a few years, even driving trucks in Mali for a time and contracting malaria, before washing up on Ireland's western coast.
There he worked diving for shellfish with a friend of his (who happened to have a plane!) and transporting the catch to France, where Irish shellfish was hugely prized.
The wildness of Ireland's west coast and the 'flexible' approach to life and rules in 1970s Ireland really appealed to Dad's wild spirit. He accumulated a great cast of characters as friends and acquaintances, many of whom were involved in the traditional music scene and went on to become household names. A few, I understand, were still in touch with him.
Though not a musician himself, Dad was deeply interested in music. Music of all kinds.
He must have been one of Van Morrison's biggest fans and saw him more times than I can count over the years. Although I remember him being just as impressed by running into the Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour in a dentist's waiting room in Dakar.
And in recent years, he was probably one of the oldest in the audience at some of Spanish rapper Mala Rodríguez's early gigs!
A Life Around Boats
Dad eventually moved to the east coast and Dublin, where he worked for a time customising motorbikes and where he met my mum, Kathie Larkin, who was waitressing at the time.
The story of how they met speaks to Dad's totally generous nature. He would give anyone anything if he had it and they needed it.
Mum had been saving for a trip to Trinidad and had £1,000 in cash in an envelope beneath the counter, ready to pop to the travel agent after the lunchtime rush.
Dad was a regular, though they hadn't spoken much, and that day found Mum crying because the envelope had been stolen.
The next day he showed up with £1,000 for her trip and handed it over, no questions asked.
The rest was history.
While I was young, Dad worked at the boatyard down in Poolbeg and also for BJ Marine. He was, by all accounts, quite the artist when it came to fibreglass and yachts.
He could literally turn his hand to anything practical and set up a number of what would now be called 'side hustles'.
He made fibreglass furniture for playgrounds. I was particularly envious of the 'Old Woman Who Lived in the Shoe' boot houses that occasionally appeared overnight in our garden in Sandymount before being delivered to their permanent homes!
Mum was equally crafty, and they teamed up at one point making children's puppet theatres, complete with puppets, which even made it onto The Late Late Toy Show one year.
From Dunmore East to the Atlantic
Dad was, in his soul, a sailor, and we had lots of family adventures around Ireland's south coast on our little sailing boat Tom Boy.
However, Dad was keen to travel again, and having upgraded little Tom Boy for the 32ft Ronnach Sona, which he largely built and fitted out himself, we set sail from Dunmore East in 1986 on a bigger adventure.
We crossed the Bay of Biscay and spent over five years travelling around the Mediterranean and North Africa.
When Mum eventually brought me back to Ireland to start secondary school, Dad kept going.
He traded Ronnach Sona in for a 1986 catamaran, Toucan, having always wanted a multihull.
Under the Irish flag – Toucan, the catamaran that carried JP Mleko between the Atlantic islands and the Caribbean. Photo: Mleko family
He and Toucan forged a well-worn route across the Atlantic, which he traversed year after year, building an eclectic network of friends, from harbourmasters to hoteliers to others who had made the ocean their home.
Dad navigated the Atlantic between the Canaries, Cape Verde, Martinique, Guadeloupe, the Azores and Madeira, returning to Gran Canaria for the winter, for almost 30 years. Sometimes he detoured to Senegal, Brazil or Uruguay.
He often took crew across to the Caribbean: professionals taking a sabbatical, world travellers en route from Europe to South America. But he always sailed back single-handed, though for a number of years he was ably crewed by his dog, Nina.
Four-legged crew – Nina, JP Mleko’s sailing companion, pictured aboard Toucan. Photo: Mleko family
He was a fantastic, if somewhat autocratic, cook, and woe betide the crew member who took over his galley only to produce a mediocre meal!
A Citizen of the World, but Irish at Heart
Though not an academic, Dad was an amazing linguist, fluent in French, English and Spanish and proficient in Polish, Italian, Portuguese and Arabic.
I remember him taking orders and doing food shopping for the entire marina when we got stuck for a while in Bizerte, Tunisia, during the first Gulf War.
A sheltered anchorage – Toucan at anchor during JP Mleko’s many years of cruising. Photo: Mleko family
There were some volatile anti-Western demonstrations at the time, and it was hard to move around the city, but Dad could pass for a local with his black curly hair, dark skin and passable Arabic.
Ever curious about people, he read multiple newspapers every day from across the political and geographical spectrum, from The Times to El País to Pravda and everything in between.
Dad was hugely social and could get talking to anyone.
With friends from all walks of life and countries all over the world, the only real common denominator was that they were all originals, either in life choices, career or outlook.
Although he didn't really consider himself a citizen of anywhere, I know he thought of himself as Irish.
He told me he was proud to travel with an Irish passport, for which he swapped his French one in the late 1970s, and to sail under an Irish flag.
He still had friends here from those days in Galway and Dublin with whom he kept in touch.
Atlantic home – Toucan, the catamaran aboard which JP Mleko made repeated Atlantic passages for almost three decades. Photo: Mleko family
Remembering Dad
Dad taught me to love dogs, to row and sail, to cook with whatever you had to hand and to wire a basic electrical circuit.
He taught me to be straight with people and to help when you can, to be resilient and stoic.
That life is about people and experiencing places more than acquiring things.
He was full of boyish fun, loved a practical joke, could fix absolutely anything and make even the most terrifying storm at sea seem completely safe.
He was the kind of person with whom you could go months without speaking and then pick up from exactly where you left off.
Dad ended life exactly as he lived it – completely on his own terms and at sea.
I will miss him more than I can possibly say, but hope his many friends all around the world will remember him fondly from time to time and continue to tell their stories about him.
RIP JP Mleko
