There are sailors from the National YC in Dun Laoghaire, and sailors from Howth, and they’re on the other side of the Atlantic to race against boats from many nations on a 600-mile course writes W M Nixon And yet right now they’re battling closely against each other, both within classes, and in clawing their way up the overall table.
The Michael Wright-chartered IRC 46 Pata Negra (HYC) currently lies 13th overall, and third in Class 1. The Kevin McLaughlin-owned J/44 Spice (he’s Irish-American, but his crew includes the NYC’s Will Byrne and Chris Raymond) is 16th overall, and fourth in Class 1. And between them is Conor Fogerty’s Sunfast 3600 Bam! (HYC) in 15th overall, and leading Class 3.
It could all be happening at home. And racing the RORC Caribbean 600 is an experience similar in at least one way to the Volvo Round Ireland Race. In both latitudes, you’re on the lee side of the Atlantic when the prevailing winds are blowing. And the famed nor’east tradewinds are blowing big time right now in the Caribbean, with all the fetch of the wide Atlantic fully behind them.
Making knots. Rambler today, making her pitch for the treble in the RORC Caribbean 600
So although the temperatures are so absurdly warm that it feels like you’re stepping into an oven when you get off the plane in Antigua, there’s still a west of Ireland power to those big blue breaking seas that you’ll meet as you sail the more exposed parts of this unique course, taking in eleven islands. And with 14 boats now retired from the original count of 74 mono-hulls, the sea is taking its toll on boats and crew.
Yet if everything holds together, the sailing is magic on the knife edge between speed and crippling damage. Designing and building a top offshore racer is a finely-judged choice between weight-saving and weakness. But when it comes to it, it’s amazing what modern boats can withstand.
As Conor Fogerty said after winning the Gipsy Moth Trophy with his Sunfast 3600 Bam! in last year’s OSTAR: “There you are, out in the ocean in the night in this light little boat in a gale, climbing up the side of a big sea that seems to go on up for ever in the darkness, and then you shoot out the top and become airborne for what seems a lifetime, and you’ve time to think that there’s no way this little plastic thing is going to survive hitting that very hard bit of water way down in the bottom of the trough, and then comes the crash which surely nothing can survive….but she does, she does survive without splitting open. And then she picks herself up, and just sails on, climbing the next mini-mountain that you know is right there in the dark”.
The fact that Bam! came through such conditions in the cold part of the Atlantic goes some way to explain how Fogerty is driving his boat – one of the smallest in the fleet – round the Caribbean 600 course with such flat-out style that he and his Howth crew currently lead Class 3 by two hours. And in a big boat race, the sheer chutzpah of the Fogerty style is putting his mark on the event, though as he still has 380 miles to race, that balancing act between successful speed and bailout breakdown has a long way to go yet.
Ron O’Hanley’s Cookson 50 Privateer currently leads IRC
Meanwhile, at the head of the fleet George David’s mighty Rambler 88 continues her awesome progress, 115 miles still to race, but within sight of repeating his Volvo Round Ireland treble of mono-hull line honours, a new course record, and most treasured of all – the overall IRC win.
But there’s strong competition. In a big boat race, any boat that sails as though she’s bigger than she actually is must be right in there with a shout. And no boat fills this role better than the perpetually successful Cookson 50. Adrian Lee’s Cookson Lee Overlay Partners may be out of the race, but American Ron O’Hanley’s sister-ship Privateer is going indecently well, and at one stage today she was first in everything except that line honours slot so tightly held by Rambler 88, and she still lies first overall on IRC to Rambler’s second.
Race tracker here
