SAILING: When Kerry's Damian Foxall crossed the Jules Verne Challenge start line yesterday morning as part of Ellen MacArthur's 12-strong crew on Kingfisher2 he vowed to sail round the world and return at least one second before 15:25.13 seconds on April 4th to break Bruno Peyron's record set last year.
And last night Kingfisher2 had cleared the bay of Biscay under bare poles, achieving a speed of 20 knots in gale-force winds and high seas.
In a further challenge to MacArthur the record of 64 days 8 hours 37 minutes 24 seconds may not be the time to beat as a French team under Olivier de Kersauson on board the 34-metre trimaran Geronimo are two days ahead of the pace set by Peyron, having set off on January 11th.
After months of preparation, and a 24-hour unscheduled pit-stop in Plymouth, passing the start line came as a great relief.
"The feeling on board is one of relief and excitement - it's just so fantastic to take this on now," said MacArthur half an hour after the start. "As we left Plymouth yesterday evening, everyone was saying this is it now, this feels right - so I guess that's a good sign.
Elsewhere, Irish team officials warned against reading too much into reports this week of a quantum leap in boat speed for Dún Laoghaire's novice Star duo Max Treacy and Anthony Shanks who showed their light-air mettle on Tuesday by finishing fifth in a two-race warm-up in Florida's Zag regatta.
But as the results from the opening rounds of Miami Olympic classes regatta filtered home yesterday there was widespread acknowledgement of the greenhorns performance with a 21-9-3 scorecard that had put them in third overall in a line-up of 68 Stars in the most intriguing fleet of internationally recognised sailing names from the Olympics and America's Cup circles.
Significantly, in an Irish context, the scoreboard also revealed Treacy and Shanks had left Ireland's world number-three pairing from Crosshaven, struggling with a protest, in their wake.
Thoughts on Dún Laoghaire's waterfront have turned to the possibility the pair might have done what many wagered was impossible and dragged themselves to the top of a fleet studded with Olympic talent to produce an Olympic trials showdown later this summer.
For now, at least, the records show Royal Cork's Mark Mansfield, crewed by Killian Collins, has won against Treacy in each of the seven grade one regattas of 2002. However, as the 2003 season opens this week in Miami, the prospect of a battle royal for Olympic selection in the keelboat class that Mansfield has made his own since Barcelona '92 loom large. Racing continues on Biscayne Bay today.
In the UK, the host nation's Royal Southern Yacht Club have followed France this week with the announcement on Wednesday it has entered a team for the Admiral's Cup to be held in Cowes in July 2003.
The Team will consist of 2002 Round Ireland competitor, Team Tonic, a Farr 52 owned by Nick Hewson and skippered by Jeremy Robinson, and an as yet un-named Sinergia 40 being built for Nigel Biggs.
The UNCL team, a sister club to RORC in France, will be led be Gery Trentesaux, captain of last year's victorious French Rolex Commodores Cup team. Trentesaux is confident a second French club will be entering.
Janet Grosvenor, RORC racing manager said: "We now have four confirmed entries. In addition to the French UNCL team and RSYC we have entries from the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club in Sydney and a RORC team led by GBR Challenge's Peter Harrison. There are also firm intentions from a Spanish team.
The notice of race is available from http://www.rorc.org. The website also provides details of competitive IMS600 class boats available for charter, including Sinergias and optimised IMX40s which augurs well for prospect of mustering Irish interest for a two-boat team in an event that, for its 2003 outing, has left a bad smell this side of the Irish sea.
