It’s a very long time since Adrienne Cahalane was regularly near Lough Derg. But though she and her section of the family emigrated to Australia when she was very young, those left behind such as cousin Aisling Keller have been involved with sailing Derg, and they’ve been quietly celebrating her outstanding victory as navigator of the overall winner of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race 2023. On Cahalane’s correct advice, the Tasmanian-based RP66 Alive kept to the east of the direct line in the middle stages of the race, and for a boat of this size, it was the successful tactic.
Those astern such as the TP52s found it paid better to be down the middle of the continually changing conditions, but for Alive it was precisely the right call, and a remarkable achievement by a sailor/navigator/tactician doing her 31st Hobart race.
And for those who say we’re stretching it by saying Adrienne Cahalan is an Irish sailor, we’d point out that her two professional degrees are as a lawyer and as a specialist in applied meteorology, and if that’s not the most quintessentially Irish combination of qualifications, then we don’t know what is.
