Irish boatbuilder Killian Bushe is one of the best in the world - the boats he builds must brave the winds of the deep Southern Ocean and people's lives depend on them. He talks to Mike Wilson about his love of boats and the illbruck, which recently won the round-the-world Volvo Ocean Race
Irish race sailing is at the top of its form at the moment, with Peter Bayly and William Atkinson winning the world mirror dinghy championships in home waters off Howth last year, the announcement that the Admirals Cup is to be staged in Ireland next year, and a host of Irish sailing talent - including Laura Dillon, Maria Coleman, David Burrows and Mark Mansfield - all riding high in the world rankings in their respective classes.
More specifically, with Tom Fitzpatrick and Fraser Brown winning the 49er class at the prestigious Kiel Week in Germany and the announcement of almost €250,000 of new funding from the Irish Sports Council for the Irish elite squad, the forecast is set fair for a period of unprecedented success for Irish sailing.
And then there was the Volvo Ocean Race, the first major round-the-world challenge of the 21st century, 32,700 nautical miles, nine months, four continents, nine legs and six seasons, the toughest race on earth, the blue-riband race for the top professional sailors in the world.
Five Irishmen competed - Dubliner Noel Drennan and Ulsterman Ian Moore emerged victorious on the clear favourite and eventual winner, Illbruck Challenge, with compatriots Gordon Maguire and Justin Slattery on News Corp and Kerryman Damian Foxall on Team Tyco.
But there was a sixth Irishman, boatbuilder Killian Bushe who, arguably, played the vital role in the Illbruck German triumph.
He built the boat, his second round-the-world project, his first was NCB Ireland, on which he also sailed in the 1989/90 Whitbread round-the-world-race.
The 47-year-old, Cork-born boatbuilder learned his craft under the tutelage of his father George, who built boats in a shed on the beach at Ringaskiddy in the 1950s and 1960s, before moving to more salubrious surroundings as head builder at the South Coast Boat Yard, at Rochestown, Co Cork.
The young Killian, along with brother Mark - another boatbuilder with his own yard, specialising mainly in traditional wooden craft in Carrigaline, Co Cork - watched in awe as their father produced some of the most famous yachts in Irish sailing, including Golden Apple, Golden Shamrock, Irish Mist, Midnight Sun and Silver Shamrocks, in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Indeed, Bushe senior (80) as recently as last year completed his latest project, his own design, a 17ft gaff-rigged boat built in his garage at home.
While his brother went traditional, it was to the high-tech world of high-performance racing yachts that Killian Bushe was attracted.
"I had always had boats and boatbuilding in my veins, and I just loved sailing and the entire process of design, construction, commissioning and racing, he says. "It was little wonder that is the career path I took. I knew little else, and wanted even less."
His first major project was in the mid-1980s, when he was commissioned to build and to sail on NCB Ireland, for the 1989/90 Whitbread Round The World Race, the forerunner to what is now the Volvo Ocean Race. "I have only sailed round the world the once, on NCB Ireland. So I know first-hand the sort of punishment these boats are subjected to, and therefore know, as a founding principle, that there are no chances which can be taken with any structural decisions on my boats. Lives can, and indeed do, depend on the safety and stability of my boats, and having been there, deep in the southern ocean, I know what will do and what won't."
Killian Bushe's round-the-world sailing career was short-lived, just the one race, but the knowledge and experience he gained in the 1989/1990 campaign was to prove invaluable in building what was becoming a burgeoning reputation as one of the most innovative yet safety-conscious builders in the hugely-competitive big-bucks world of race sailing.
"The round-the-world experience, but also a quarter of a century of sailing yachts, helps me get that little bit extra out of my construction, for sure, and I think it is the accumulation of all the little bits that make for a winning yacht," he observes.
Bushe was approached by the millionaire German race-sailing fanatic Michael Illbruck in the mid-1990s with an idea about entering a team in the newly-formed Volvo Ocean Race. His expediency was to prove vital, as illbruck Challenge was to be the first yacht of the eight built, first to undergo sea trials and commissioning, with crew training and technical adjustments as early as the summer of 2000, a full year before the off in
Southampton on September 23rd, 2001.
Illbruck Challenge was built in a former car plant in Leverkusen in Germany where the Illbruck Racing operation is based. Killian says the hallmarks of a Bushe-built yacht are: "Innovative construction using the latest techniques and materials, producing light, fast and reliable boats, with a quality finish to a high degree of accuracy."
He explains the process: epoxy pre-pregs are fibre fabrics which are already impregnated with resin before delivery to the yard and are stored in a freezer at -20 C. "The fibres are then laid over a male mould and cooked in an oven. The mould is vital - if that isn't right then the finished boat won't be either - and we use computer-cut building frames to ensure accuracy."
"The inside skin laminates are then vacuumed down under pressure for 24 hours before being cooked in an oven at 70 degrees C for 12 to 15 hours. On top, goes the foam core, then the outside skin laminate, and this type of sandwich construction produces the optimum shell for a race boat in terms of strength and stiffness."
The perennial conundrum for boat designers (the illbuck was designed by legendary yacht designer Bruce Farr) is the paradoxical equation of saving weight to gain speed, while retaining stability. Also, the tolerances allowed by the International Sailing Federation for the V.O. 60 class used in the race are critical.
True to his reputation for accuracy and remaining true to the integrity of the design package, Bushe brought the illbruck yacht in at under a kilogramme of the allowable weight of 13,500kg, right on length (19.5 metres /64 ft) and beam (5.25 metres /17.2ft). With a mast height of 26 metres (85ft) and the weight in the keel bulb of 6 tonnes (29,700lbs). These are massive, leading-edge racing machines, the Formula 1 yachts of the sailing world.
The Illbruck Challenge yacht (called the Green Dream Machine because of its livery colour and relentless performance and reliability) won the Volvo Ocean Race quite comfortably in the end, winning the first two legs, five out of nine overall, and avoiding the serious damage of broken rudders and shattered masts that afflicted a quarter of the fleet at some stage in the 32,7000 nautical mile circumnavigation.
Skipper of the victorious illbruck Challenge, American John Kostecki is in no doubt as to the contribution made by Killian Bushe to the German's winning effort.
"The boat was perfectly balanced, fast but strong, and, above all else, reliable, and to have total confidence in your design and build package is just a fantastic advantage to have," he said in Kiel, following victory, adding, "That leaves the skipper and crew with nothing to think of but race strategy, tactics and sailing the boat as close to its limits as we know we can confidently go."
Similarly, veteran Irish trimmer on illbruck, Dubliner Noel Drennan, says of Killian Bushe's boats: "Deep in the Southern Ocean, reaching flat out in huge seas, gales and even ice, race sailing on the edge, to know that your boat, such a tiny speck in a vast and inhospitable environment, is strong and safe exudes huge confidence in the crew. It is an unspoken thing, taken a little for granted on such a fine boat, but Killian's contribution was massive."
Strong and stable through two visits to the notorious Southern Ocean, winning the second leg from Cape Town to Sydney, despite almost sinking early on, surviving a twister between Sydney and Hobart and the worst ice-flows in round-the-world history from Auckland to Rio de Janeiro, this particular Bushe craft was very fast.
KOSTECKI'S crew broke the world speed record for a 24-hour run by a monohull on the transatlantic seventh leg, 484 nautical miles at an average speed of 20.16 knots between April 30th and May 1st this year. Syndicate owner Michael Illbruck was in no doubt that the construction of the boat played a big part in breaking the world record.
He said, "Killian managed to squeeze every little advantage out of a single class design and gave the race crew a very, very fast package to work on."
Bushe, who is married with two children and lives now in Ljungskile, Sweden, is typically self-effacing about his contribution, saying only, "I am very proud of all the boats I have built over the years, and illbruck was one of the best, and to have built the winning boat in such a prestigious event as the Volvo Ocean Race is definitely the highlight of my boatbuilding career to date, but I was only one of a fantastic team on the project."
Australia-based Irish helmsman, Gordon Maguire, on illbruck's great pre-race rival, News Corp, could only look on in admiration as the Bushe-built yacht swept all before her. "Fair dues. Killian built a fantastic boat, strong and fast, and, in the end, over the piece, the best boat won the best race in the world."
Bushe would love to build an Irish boat for the 2005/2006 Volvo Ocean Race, saying, "I always feel a sense of pride when Irish sailors are doing well at international level, and I would love to be involved in an Irish project next time, but only on the construction side. I have no desire to race around the world again."
Paddy Boyd, executive director of the Irish Sailing Association agrees: "With Killian Bushe, and Johnny Smullen, a protégé of his at the top of modern race yacht building, Ireland would be very well placed to construct a Volvo Ocean Race, and Killian Bushe is a wonderful ambassador for Ireland and Irish sailing. Irish sailors are rightly proud of the success of illbruck due to his role in the building process."
And for Bushe, what, apart from an Irish project is his ultimate boatbuilding project? "I would really like to build one of those large racing multi-hulls. The construction challenges are huge when you consider the massive loads involved."
And so, for this expatriate Irishman from Cork, working in Germany and living in Sweden, Killian Bushe is a genuine international export of Ireland at the very pinnacle of his craft.
He is the best there is.