As the Asgard II prepares for next month's Tall Ships Race, her master tells Lorna Siggins why there's no room for democracy on board.

"We went out on the yard. It was dark and Taanila, a tiny 16-year-old Finn who, like me, understood no Swedish, was where he should not have been, at the weather yardarm. Soon he began to be sick over Mikelsonn and myself . . . "I saw Mikelsonn edging toward the mast and soon I heard him screaming for more men. What we really needed was an interpreter. The Mate's reply came crackling up from below and exploded about us, so terrifying I felt it would be better to do it absolutely alone than ask for any more assistance. Eventually we succeeded in passing the gaskets round a monstrous unseaman-like package . . ."

- Eric Newby, The Last Grain Race (1956)

Struggling to take in a sail several hundred feet above a rolling deck, Eric Newby's account of life on one of the last trading square-riggers should be enough to put anyone off.

"There's no room for democracy, you do what you're told because your life depends on it," Capt Colm Newport says reassuringly, as this reporter and accompanying photographer attempt the "up and over" routine on Ireland's sail-training brigantine, Asgard II.

If it's exhilarating and scarifying enough when the vessel is still in port - with every word from bo'sun Tom Harding being eagerly listened to - it can only be multiples of this on passage in thick fog, at night, in deteriorating weather. Eric Newby didn't get handed personal safety equipment when he joined the Erikson grain trading barque, Moshulu in Belfast in 1938. However, harnesses are compulsory uniform on the deck of the Asgard II.

"Rules have to be obeyed here for everyone's safety, but we never force anyone who doesn't want to go aloft. Yet if you don't do it on your first day when the ship is in port, it builds up in your head," Capt Newport explains.

"It's never so difficult the second time. Yes, we've had to guide people down who've frozen, but it's amazing what qualities emerge when you're out on the yard and over the sea. Of 12,000 ascents, no falls to date," he says, while discreetly touching a panel of wood.

By the time Asgard II competes in this year's Tall Ships race, which starts from Waterford early next month (see panel), Newport and his crew will have coaxed another 100 or so trainees up the rigging, and inducted them in the basics of helming a brigantine. As master of one of the best-loved vessels in the international tall ships fleet, he holds one of the most envied, but stressful, posts on this island.

Taoisigh and captains of industry may have to make tough decisions daily, but nothing like those facing the master who is responsible for the safety of 16 volunteer novices in a sudden squall.

"I have a wonderful team of five professional crew working with me, supported by voluntary watch leaders, but everyone on board discovers very quickly that they have a part to play when a headsail needs to be changed. The best trainees are the ones who know no one, and have no previous experience," Newport admits. "The worst is the guy with the yachtmaster's certificate who thinks he has it all. The sea is a great leveller, and this ship is one of two places in the world where you can be a blank sheet of paper - the other being the French Foreign Legion!"

Originally from Sutton on Dublin's northside, Newport had just qualified as a mariner when Asgard II was built by Arklow naval architect, Jack Tyrrell, and commissioned by the former taoiseach, Charles J Haughey, in 1981. Reared in a Mirror dinghy built by his dad, he served 12 years from 1978 with Arklow Shipping, was master on 16,000 horse-power ocean-going tugs, and Emerald Reefer-owned bulk carriers.

"We'd sail to North Africa for the fruit season, and then follow the Indian Ocean tuna fleet." His foreign-going master mariner qualification is essential for Asgard II, but he is also a highly respected offshore sailor, sought after by the likes of Harold Cudmore for the Admiral's Cup. He set up his own surveying and loss-reduction company, Newport Marine, and planned to "swallow the anchor"; at that stage, he was married with a young family, all now competent dinghy sailors.

However, five years ago he did two relief trips on Asgard II - and felt he had come home. Working with him are chief officer, Rowan McSweeney, bosun Fin Goggin, engineer Frank Hogan, cook Kevin O'Leary, and a relief team which includes bosun Tom Harding and cook Annie Goulding.

The late Jack Tyrrell had been inspired by his time as a junior crewman on board his uncle's trading ship, Lady of Avenel, when designing the three-masted brigantine, which carries a figurehead of the 16th-century pirate queen, Granuaile, on its prow. Initially skippered by the late Capt Eric Healy, who had served on the State's first sail trainer, the former Childers-owned gun-running ketch Asgard, and its successor, the Creidne, the Asgard II has served as an ambassador for Ireland all over the world.

Plaques on board record its participation with distinction in many international events, its transatlantic crossings and its voyage to Australia in 1988. The mission statement has been met many times over, not just among young people who may never otherwise get the opportunity to go to sea. Funded by the Department of Defence and run by Coiste an Asgard, it has one of the longest seasons of any ship of its type in Europe, with a programme that extends from February to December. This allows it to take 500 trainees a year, ranging in ages from 16 years to "a guy who's been 72 for the past three years", Newport quips.

Thus, the Tall Ships race series may be a highlight, but represents a very small proportion of its annual schedule.

"We try to get in as much sailing as we can, we don't take risks, but inevitably there are times when the weather isn't quite as it has been forecast," Newport says. He has witnessed winds of up to 70 knots on board, when trainees fought to take in seven-tonne sails and ropes without the help of winches.

During a Tall Ships race leg from Riga in Latvia to Travemunde, Germany, a trainee with diabetes became seriously ill and had to be evacuated by Polish naval helicopter.

Helicopter winchman Dariusz Symanski broke his arm against the mast while attempting to board the vessel, and he and his crew were given marine gallantry awards by this State.

"When you train crew to a certain level, you can handle that, and it is very satisfying to see them working the ship," he says. Trainees can return to become watchleader or navigator, and many of the ship's graduates admit to being transformed during eight days at sea.

"People take away an understanding of life, of having to work with each other, which transcends everything," Newport says. "This ship has been going about its business very quietly, but very well.

"When you are up the yards on one watch, and cleaning the toilets during another, you learn about compromise. For some of the kids who join us, it's also the first time they've ever had to function properly without sleep. Then there's nothing quite like being at the helm under a starlit night off the Irish coastline, and its something that doesn't leave you - you never forget."

• Berths are available for anyone aged 16 years or over. Contact Asgard II through the Coiste an Asgard office, Coláiste Caoimhín, St Mobhi Road, Glasnevin, Dublin 9, 01-6792169, fax 01-6772328, e-mail: info@irishsailtraining.com and website www.irishsailtraining.com