FRENCH Lieutenant Proteau could not have foreseen a reception quite like this. Almost two centuries after the abortive French invasion, his capture by the local militia and interrogation, his seamanship was being celebrated this past weekend by eight nationalities in Bantry Bay.
As was his boat. They might not have had to carry cannons or horses, like the original but crews in eight replicas of Proteau's 38 foot "yole" did have to throw "monkeys' fists", and row, sail and "slalom" in inner Bantry Bay. Ireland, alias the Bantry team won last time round, and this year were runners up, with Denmark yesterday winning the Atlantic Challenge.
Even the United Nations was infiltrated - something that might have made Proteau's Irish leader, Theobald Wolfe Tone, particularly proud. Entered as "Dublin International" and flying the UN flag Mexicans, Poles and Russians took their orders from the "Republic of Ringsend". Yesterday, the crew became truly multiracial when a Jamaican, Anthony Francis took his place in the stern.
"Ambassadors in seaboots" is how the Atlantic Challenge Foundation describes the participants in the biennial international event which coincided this year with Bantry 96 celebrations. Inspired by the 20th century European educationalist, Kurt Hahn - who set up the Outward Bound schools and encouraged German and former Allied youth to serve at sea together after the second World War the foundation aims to promote traditional maritime skills.
Lance Lee, who had been greatly influenced by Hahn's philosophy, engaged the French maritime journalists, Bernard and Michelle Cadoret, to find a suitable craft. They opted for Proteau's 18th century Admiral's barge, washed up with Proteau on Bere Island from the French frigate, Resolue. The 38 foot longboat had been kept in Bantry House as a "trophy" until 1943, when it was presented to the State and eventually rescued by maritime historian Hal Sisk for the National Maritime Museum.
Now better known as "Bantries", the craft are 10 oared and rigged with a three masted dipping lug sail, and adapted by the French military from British and French fishing boats. Sailing requires both skill and co ordination: tacking is very complex and the halyard, the rope holding up the main sail, is never permanently secured with a cleat but held by a dory hitch knot. The "billets" or crew positions rotate, so that even the youngest can experience "the loneliness of command".
The minimum crew is 13, 10 of whom row Egalitarian rules ensure that at least four of the crew are female, and at least six must be under 20 years old. That's the theory. Over the weekend, supporters of the "UN" boat, Surete, built by the Ringsend Community Training Workshop, expressed a bit of disappointment that they had followed the regulations to the letter. How come some of the under 20s in the other craft sported beards? Throughout the week, Ireland, in the O'Driscoll built Unite, trained by Bantry GP Dr Matt Murphy, and Denmark, in Solidarite, were "bow to bow", as the town square scoreboard recorded the results of each event. Tensions and tears were the hallmarks of the seamanship round, when skill in whipping and splicing, and knots like anchor hitches, sheepshanks and bowlines were put to the test.
A triangular course from Garnish to Whiddy island, under the Seskin and Caha mountains, made Friday a memorable sailing day. Led by Ireland in the final stages, the race was won by the Danes who "came from behind" to take the advantage. On Saturday, the "object transfer" was a cause of much angst and frustration, when the main task was to throw a rope weighted with a "monkey's fist", and transfer a sack to ship from shore. Judged by time, points and penalties, the US crew, in Communaute, were nothing if not persistent. Unable, or unwilling, to attempt an underarm swing, their "lasso" took over 20 minutes to land.
AFTER a spectacular, choreographed firework display, to ragtime and Rossini's William Tell the night before, mixed weather turned Mediterranean yesterday.
Hundreds turned out to watch the final slalom (without rudder), man overboard and captain's gig events.
"You know, this town is ideal for this competition," Jorgen D. Borch (74), veteran of the Danish Atlantic Challenge, said. The bay was a natural amphitheatre, and the town - with its dedicated "96" shops windows and commemorative wine - could not be more hospitable. His Viking port of Roskilde had held the event before: but next time round, in 1998, how would it ever match?
If the irony of Tone's legacy in the north of this island was not lost on the European, and Irish, visitors ("you know, it's Bantry and not Bodenstown that we should remember," said one), one sad event also cast gloom on a successful week. Willie Qammaniq, a 16 year old native Inuit from a small village in Canada's far north was still on a life support system in Cork University Hospital yesterday, after a road accident in Schull.
Canadian and Irish leaders arranged to fly his parents over the furthest the couple had travelled before was to Greenland. An Atlantic Challenge Willie account was set up in the local banks.
Undeterred by West Cork accents and mast problems, Cheryl Payne (17) and Karen Murphy (16) from East Wall were determined to return, while the Irish Mexican Guadalupe Aguirre (30) from Tabasco pledged that a Mayan entry would compete in two years' time. A French tourist, Michel Jacquier, had decided to forget about travelling east for the "trendy" Ford Cork yacht racing week. Why, Le Monde had already recorded it: "Bantry Bay n'a pas oublie les Francais!".
