The world’s senior offshore racing club has been pulling out all the stops to boost the 704-mile Volvo Round Ireland race which starts from Wicklow on Saturday June 18th, and Race Organiser Theo Phelan of Wicklow Sailing Club feels that the level of background support from this premier organisation deserves to be more widely known and enthusiastically acknowledged writes W M Nixon.

“I’m not sure that the race would have survived at all” says Phelan, “were it not for the continuing very positive support from the Royal Ocean Racing Club. The reality is that we’re a small rural sailing club, though with a great course to be raced. But in promoting this challenging event on this great course, we’re definitely competing with large organisations in the major league when trying to attract entries”.

Theo Phelan, organiser of the Volvo Round Ireland Race

“Yet since 1982 when Denis Doyle first gave the race international credibility by entering Moonduster, the RORC has included the Round Ireland in its programme. However, the recession hit the race of 2012 and entries fell back to just 36 boats, I knew we were facing a poissible wipe out. So I went to London after 2012's race and had a serious conversation with RORC CEO Eddie Warden–Owen about what we might do to make the event more attractive to an international fleet".

“As everyone will know, there’s no way the start is going to be staged anywhere other than at Wicklow. However, we ran the idea of a link–up past the Dun Laoghaire clubs, and in the end it was the Royal Irish Yacht Club which went most enthusiastically with the idea of supporting us in the event. It became possible to propose that we could now offer the RIYC as an associate pre-race reception club to accommodate larger boats".

To an outside observer, it seems that the RORC were testing the mettle of the Wicklow team during the 2014 event, for although it also attracted only 36 starters, there was no doubting Wicklow’s uncrushable determination to keep this particular show on the road. And once it was over, it became clear that in future the RORC support would be even more positive than it had been before.

Admittedly Wicklow now had an avid supporter at the heart of things, as 1996’s Round Ireland winner Michael Boyd of the RIYC was steadily rising through the officer ranks in the RORC, such that in December 2014 he became Commodore. Be that as it may, a plan of campaign to boost the Round Ireland was already being developed, and this went full ahead with the Rolex Fastnet Race 2015, when the almost-400 information packs being given out to each competing boat included a flyer for the Round Ireland 2016.

Michael Boyd, Commodore RORC, and Eddie Warden-Owen, CEO

On top of that, both Theo Phelan and Michael Ryan (the Wicklow-based campaigner of Monster Project, line honours winner in the 2014 Round Ireland) were invited to be in Plymouth as guests of the RORC for the legendary Rolex Fastnet Race prize-giving on Friday 21st August 2015, and they came away inspired both by the event, and by the level of interest already being shown in the Round Ireland Race 2016, not least because it was being shouted from the rooftops that it carried a points weighting of 1.4 for the coveted RORC Championship.

Most Irish sailors will be well aware of all that has happened since. In the Autumn, George David confirmed that he would indeed be racing round Ireland in 2016 in his new Rambler 88. And then the Wicklow committee confirmed that the event would also be open to multi-hulls. This was likewise an occurrence of international interest, for almost immediately it seemed that we had three of the wonderful MOD 70s lining up to take part, and it is part of a natural and inevitable progression that our own international sailing superstars should be aboard them, with Damian Foxall on Musandam-Oman sail and Justin Slattery on Phaedo 3.

Phaedo 3 streaks past the Needles Lighthouse

Then came the announcement that Volvo Cars Ireland were aboard as sponsors, while at the same time the interest from within Ireland was much more positive than it had been for six years. Thus in January Theo Phelan felt sufficiently confident to predict that entries would be between the 36 and 50 marks, and he and his team were making their management arrangements accordingly.

But he had underestimated the beneficial effects of having the RORC machine at full power supporting the event. As the Spring of 2016 came upon us, the magic 60 mark was passed. This would have presented logistical and administrative difficulties were it not for the complete commitment and experience which the RORC team brought with their support for the event.

“At a practical level” reports Theo Phelan, “they’ve organised it so that sixteen boats which are based in the main sailing centres in the south of England are now in process of receiving their mandatory inspections before they come to Ireland. This means that with final entries confirmed at 64 boats, in Wicklow and Dun Laoghaire we’ll only have to deal with 48 boats in that crucial count-down and inspection period, which is within the parameters we’d originally envisaged back in January”.

“But it’s at a personal level that the RORC support is something which is even more helpful. Nothing is too much trouble for them, and CEO Eddie Warden-Owen, International Racing Manager Nick Elliott, his deputy James Bremridge, and the RORC’s hugely experienced Race Management Consultant Janet Grosvenor are always readily available, while Nick Elliott himself will be in Wicklow for the race.”

“The amount of documentation and certification which is now required would smother us here in Wicklow, but the RORC have taken on the basic work in administering all of that, while being meticulous in ensuring that any decision required is referred back to us here in Ireland”.

The system is in place and working well, so now we can stand back and consider the biggest-ever race round Ireland as a major sporting event to be analysed in increasing detail in the days ahead. Of the 65 probable entries of a fortnight ago, only one has been withdrawn - the Open 60 Artemis being campaigned by northern sailor Mikey Ferguson.

But the north will still be strongly represented. Mr Seven Minutes is going again. It was navigator Richie Fearon of Lough Swilly Yacht Club who – in 2014’s race – persuaded his Scottish skipper Richard Harris on the Sydney 36 Tanit to hold offshore for the final 20 miles to the finish, thereby beating the Shanahan family with their J/109 Ruth by just seven minutes for the overall win.

One for a flutter…..with that Richie Fearon tactical expertise available, Katsu could be one of the favourites on June 18th at Wicklow

This time round, Richie Fearon is navigating Katsu from Scotland, the Reichel-Pugh 45 entered by Alan Hannon who sails in many waters, so he lists the RORC as his club. As for 2014’s handsome winner Tan It, she is now owned by Robert Floate of the Isle of Man, and races round the bigger island of Ireland again on June 18th.

They’ll be hoping for a little more breeze than she and the rest of the fleet experienced in last Friday’s ISORA Dun Laoghaire to Douglas Race. Even the winner, round Ireland entrant Aurelia, the J/122 owned by Chris and Patanne Power Smith of RStGYC, could manage an average speed of no better than 4.905 knots. Yet that put her ahead of Andrew Hall’s J/125 Jackknife from Pwllheli in second and Derek Martin’s First 44.7 Lively Lady (RIYC) in third. But with the winner only achieving a speed like that, we’d best draw a veil over the average knottage achieved by the many other round Ireland contenders taking part in the race to the Isle of Man, and look forward with hope for better breezes on June 18th.

There’s nothing quite like a Round Ireland start at Wicklow, and this one for the 2014 race has all the ingredients, with Line Honours Winner Monster Project in the centre, and overall winner Tanit right foreground