Posts from — June 2009

Galway must feel like it has just given a child up for adoption. All that Volvo Ocean Race fuss, partying and being the centre of attention, and now *zip* it’s all gone. Just like that. Bye bye.

Still, though, what a fortnight, and what a response from those people for whom the show was put on. How about this for a ringing endorsement of Ireland’s welcome from Puma skipper Ken Read:

I think I want to move to Ireland.

It is always sunny (at least when we were there). The golf is amazing. The people couldn’t be nicer. You can get a pint of beer just about anywhere you turn. All we did was win races when we were there. And people wanted us to sign autographs and take photos with them all hours of the day. Hmmmm. What’s not to like about all of that?

The “Lets do it Galway” group set up a program that could become the model for Volvo stops in the future

Of course, as Ken is American, this is to be expected, but his comments were far from isolated, and were wholly justified. Galway, a town at the centre of a gaping hole in Ireland’s marine resources (there are no marina berths on the west coast north of Kilrush) put on an incredible show, sucking in people boats from all along the west coast, and with some people driving across the country towing others. One boat drove from Bantry up to Galway in the middle of the night to welcome the boats in, then drove back once all were docked safely. Another motored out to the Fastnet at midnight to say a final farewell to the Green Dragon as they sailed past en route to Sweden – in 25 knots of wind.

It was immense, and it blindsided most of us, who never expected it to be, so congratulations to the ‘Let’s Do It Galway‘ team, who really pulled a rabbit out of the hat. A month before the event, people expressed doubts that the village would even be ready, with oil tanks being removed and everything seeming slapdash. The same team was behind the Green Dragon, a boat missing a tonned in the keel, rendering it effectively a division one boat racing in the premiership. But they stored up some magic of their own, coming into Galway third, and sprinkling pixie dust everywhere. A week into the stopover, the teams reckoned it was the best ‘wet area’ that they had seen since Alicante. The boats were moored in the centre of town, with Ericsson 3 close enough to the stage that you could throw knickers at the band from the stern at high tide. Night after night, the harbour was thronged, with the crescendo coming at the weekend of the in-port racing. The Red Arrows, the in-port race, the 400,000 visitors (less than half that were expected), the sunshine and the partying. It was out of control, and Galway reaped the rewards. Politicians flocked and shook hands. It made the Galway Races seem like a little horsey get-together.

The question Ireland should be asking now, having put on the greatest show in sailing in 2009, is when can we do it again? Sitting at the tail end of the leg from Boston showed that Galway is perfectly placed to welcome a big transatlantic race. Think of the number of Irish-American owned big boats sitting on marinas along the East Coast of the US, many of them dying for an excuse to race across to the motherland.  All we need do is tempt them.

Despite my protests at her incessant junk mailing, and an email tete-á-tete about her heinous local traffic plans, local FGer Maria Bailey felt the need to thank me for my support in her campaign for re-election. You’re oh so welcome, Maria.

Bailey, sharing her father’s wan slogan of ‘The local man/woman – he/she WILL get the job done’ has proved that the exact opposite is the case, unless the unspecified JOB is leading a vague, parochial campaign where real interaction with the electorate is limited to nuisance-making, arms-length propaganda and postering with insipid slogans.

What’s interesting is that I have yet to meet a single local councillor on the street, or have one come to my door. Intelligent responses to emails from Gareth Crowe (FF) and and Cllr Carrie Smyth (Lab) would encourage a vote in that direction, but I can’t bring myself to vote for Fianna Fail in light of, well, their utter failure in most departments.

SF are out because their fuhrer, Gerry Adams, is still happy to lie coldly about his involvement with the IRA. Team Bailey and their showband frontman Enda Kenny mean FG are out. Purely for 80s nostalgia, you’d love to go back in time to vote for Hughie Lewis who, as a People Before Profit candidate is presumably counting on the power of love to rein in a few votes. In fact, his running mate Richard Boyd Barrett is a cogent and alert local politician who could capitalise (if you’ll excuse the pun) on the downfall of FF. The Socialist Workers Party have sensibly dropped their red-flag-waving commie brand image in favour of a new, fuzzy, touchy-feely presentation as People Before Profit. Hug a socialist. Pay it forward.

And then there’s the Greens. I had such high hopes for those guys. But I think they’re destined, in the not-too-distant future, to be released back into their natural habitat, the cosy hedgerows of the back benches, to forage for the odd dropped berry of influence among the decaying organic humus of opposition.

Pic: Dave Kneale/Volvo Ocean Race

Every now and then, as a journalist, you end up shaking hands with a giant. At the weekend I met the man in the picture, someone who has accomplished almost everything you could want to do as a sailor. Torben Grael won medals for Brazil in five separate Olympics. Between the years 1990 and 2000, he finished on the podium of World Championships every year bar 1996, 1997 and 2000.  In 1996 he was busy winning an Olympic gold, and did the Whitbread Round the World Race the year after. In 200o he was presumably too busy winning the America’s Cup with Team New Zealand and pocketing another bronze at the Olympics to find time to win a Worlds.

He won his first Brazilian National Championships in 1976, his most recent in 2004, and won another 33 in the middle somewhere. 35 national titles in 28 years.

Winning every single leg from here to the finish would yield Puma 28 points – meaning Grael and crew would have to finish fourth or worse in every leg from Galway to drop a place overall. With a 13-point lead in the Volvo Ocean Race, as skipper of Ericsson 4  it looks like he’ll be adding the world’s biggest ocean race to his trophy room pretty soon, at the third time of asking.

A podcast of the interview will be up on Afloat.ie early this week.