SAILING:TWO SENIOR Irish sail training organisations that looked all but washed up got a shot in the arm with two separate initiatives launched this week.
Firstly, members of Ireland’s biggest sail training organisation, Glenans Irish Sailing Club, have voted unanimously to “reintegrate” with the French-based sailing association Les Glenans.
The club, which has operated independently since 1984, has introduced more than 42,000 Irish people to sailing.
The decision will allow the Glenans sailing school activity to continue in Ireland at both bases in Collanmore in Mayo and Baltimore in west Cork and it secures the financial future of the Irish organisation, which has said it was “experiencing an increasingly difficult trading environment”.
Under the agreement Les Glenans will take over the assets and liabilities of Glenans Irish Sailing Club. The club’s two Irish sail training bases in Cork and Mayo will continue to operate with new investment in equipment and facilities planned.
The Irish bases will become part of the Les Glenans network of sailing bases across France and Italy. Ireland will form one of Les Glenans’ five administrative sectors, with Irish members having full voting rights in the enlarged association.
On Tuesday, a new organisation aimed at Irish participation in next year’s Tall Ships Races in Waterford was announced.
Since the sinking of the Asgard II and the decision to wind up Coiste An Asgard, the Irish Sailing Association (ISA) has been facilitating a steering group with the aim of establishing Sail Training Ireland (STI).
Now it has formed a steering group chaired by Sheila Tyrrell to put together a feasibility study and business plan for the organisation to be presented to the Government in the new year.
Irish sail training has seen its fleet reduced from two well-known vessels, the Asgard II and OYTI’s Lord Rank, to zero, with both boats being struck down by separate accidents.
STI has a number of key people involved in sail training in Ireland, including the chief executive of the Irish Sailing Association, Harry Hermon, and Séamus McLoughlin, the head of operations of Dublin Port Company.
The group also includes Kalanne O’Leary, a former member of Coiste an Asgard, the 40-year-old State board that ran Asgard II until it was wound up in last year’s budget cuts.
The group also includes ISA director and ex-harbour master of Waterford Philip Cowman and Seán Flood, Sail Training International ambassador to Ireland.
Sail Training International has awarded a bursary to STI which will provide funding to support the participation of young people in The Tall Ships Races in Waterford next year and Dublin in 2012.
Until this week’s announcement no progress had been made in finding a replacement, in spite of the Government maintaining it was finalising plans to source a steel vessel to continue sail training.
It was a situation that forced many to conclude the national sail training programme sank with Asgard II.
Enthusiasts say there is still a chance a replacement could be chartered in time for Ireland to claim its place among the world’s tall ships when that famous fleet sails up the Suir to Waterford next June, in one of the biggest public events of 2011.
It’s an idea borne out of the spirit of Asgard II and it paints a lovely picture, certainly a lot happier scene than Asgard II rotting on the French sea bed. The hope must be that the newly-formed STI can pull it off.
