SAILING:A UNIQUE gathering, bringing together many of the sailors and boats that helped create the sense of history unpinning the small but powerful fleet that is this year's Volvo Ocean Race has been quietly taking place in Alicante. Dubbed the Legends Regatta, those involved were indeed fabled and have featured in the story of how global ocean racing has evolved in barely 40 years.
The 16-boat fleet is a cross-section of the entries featuring cruising ketches to swifter International Offshore Rule (IOR) designs and right up to the 70-foot sleds of the present era.
Ireland features prominently in the line-up through a scattering of Irish sailors in the early days to Green Dragon in the last race and especially with NCB Ireland, the first flagged entry in 1989-90 when 23 boats raced in four classes.
Many of the estimated 650 former sailors who travelled to Alicante from around the world this week regarded this period as the heyday of the race.
Close to 500 men and women heard the news via SSB radio deep in the Southern Ocean that the Berlin Wall was being torn down.
Within a few years, such sporting adventurers would be eclipsed by a new breed of sailors, fully professionalised into the massively resourced projects of today’s teams. In 1973/74, the entire budget for staging the race was estimated to be just GBP £18,000.
Today’s race budget is unknown but certain to be measured in the tens of millions.
However, such matters were far from the thoughts of the sailors who sailed a pursuit race regatta for the last two days. First to start was Swan 55 Tauranga and over the following 90 minutes, era by era began racing until eventually Green Dragon and Spain’s Telefonica Black were the last to start chasing the fleet.
On board over the last two days, genuine legends, stories of whom continue to inspire future generations and ‘The Dragon’ was no exception. Harold Cudmore was the starting helmsman on Wednesday while Dutch skipper Bouwe Bekking was the guest skipper yesterday. Another guest was American Jerry Kirby who continues to race on top maxis boats as bowman even in his 50s and was one of the crew of Rambler that was shipwrecked in Baltimore last Summer.
Cork boat-builder Killian Bushe, who constructed the last three race-winners also sailed on board as well as Bob McCarthy and Enda Ó Coineen whose idea led to the Sail Ireland project almost 25 years ago.
And although NCB Ireland wasn’t amongst the line-up, her former skipper Joe English was racing on Green Dragon while other former crew-members gathered ashore. Despite battling Alzheimers, he vividly retains his memories from the Whitbread and shared numerous tales from the circumnavigation.
He was keen to point out that the race was taken just as seriously as the modern pros.
“You were there to do a job and it had to be done right,” said English. “It was wasn’t all playing, that was okay once you got ashore but we were there because we wanted to be there and it was serious.”
NCB Ireland watch-leader Terry Gould from New Zealand was also in Alicante. The differences in the race 20 years ago and today aren’t so stark and involved precautions such as shipping the fleet to avoid Somali pirates and reducing time spent in the Southern Ocean. But there are still semi-submerged shipping containers, whales and gales that the present-day sailors have to deal with.
“The highlights were surfing at 25 knots, the camaraderie of the crew and great support we got from everyone at home,” recalled Gould.
“The Irish left a trail of laughter and goodwill around the world, all led by Joe.”
