SAILING:ONLY A week into the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR) and Ireland's new-found love affair with world offshore sailing is to continue as Belfast prepares to bid for stop-over port status in the 2011 edition of the race.
The news comes in the first week of the current sprint in which two Irish-inspired entries battle it out on the first, 6,500-mile leg to Cape Town. The event calls to Galway next May, the first Irish stop-over in the history of the competition.
Belfast is only the latest in a series of bids for international events here following headline Irish performances offshore.
Success in the 2005/6 Volvo Ocean Race, the Fastnet, Sydney-Hobart, Med Cup, Round Britain and Ireland, the Azores and back and an overall win in February's Barcelona Worlds have given great confidence to Irish ports.
The Belfast Harbour Commissioners' delegation travelled to the race start in Alicante last weekend and met organisers to discuss a bid to tie in with the 100th anniversary of the building of the Titanic in May 2012.
Playing hosts to the event, to include an entry in the race, is costing the Galway campaign as much as €10 million, but the expected return to the local economy can be expected to be over €43 million.
The Belfast city fathers are rejuvenating an area of the city known as the Titanic Quarter. It is a €6.5 billion development, and the VOR stop-over would be a centrepiece to celebrations in an Olympic year and, of course, a further boost to Irish sailing.
Of course, the VOR is the main Irish attraction right now, but there are actually three worldgirdling races under way, all with some Irish interest.
Michel Kleinjans leads the solo class in the Portimao Global race. In 2005, the Belgian yachtsman, sailing Roaring Forties, crossed the National Yacht Club finish line off Dun Laoghaire to set a single-handed record time round Ireland of four days, one hour and 52 minutes that still stands.
And Damian Foxall, one of three Irish crew on the Green Dragon, continues to harbour an ambition to compete in what many refer to as the "real Everest" in sailing: the Vendee Globe single-handed, non-stop round the world starts in 23 days. Clearly, Foxall will be unavailable, but he may make the Vendee his ninth circumnavigation four years from now.
Staying with offshore news, Cathal Drohan and Paul Egan are competing in tomorrow's 40th Malta middle sea race in their X-41, Legally Brunette.
Drohan has been looking forward to the chance to compete in the Mediterranean for some years. "It's always a race I've wanted to do," he says. "It's been on the list for years, so I said I'd better do it now. Paul and I decided last year that we'd put it in the programme for this year."
Just getting to Malta has been an expedition, with the delivery trip starting in the middle of August and involving two gales in the Bay of Biscay before ending with a blissful sail east through the Mediterranean.
GREEN DRAGON MAKES GOOD PROGRESS
EIGHTEEN MILES off the Sahara coast last night, Galway's Green Dragonentry with British skipper Ian Walker is fourth, 69 miles behind the leader.
Limerick's Ger O'Rourke continues to defy his lack of preparation, on Dutch entry Delta Lloydand lies fifth.
Things have settled down after the nip and tuck through the Canaries on Wednesday. Walker, in particular, is relieved to be sailing in good breeze in T-shirts and shorts as he picks up the trade winds. He aims to pass the Cape Verde islands early this morning.
He made a tactical mistake off the Canaries, which was why he was the first in the fleet to hide his position for 12 hours using the race's Stealth facility.
Walker is pleased with progress after a week, but remains worried the Green Dragonis not particularly fast in the light stuff.
