SAILING:Ireland will be the seventh entry into the 2008/9 Volvo Ocean race when it's Green Team officially declares a new Reichel Pugh-design for the 39,000-mile race from Alicante in little over a year.
Within 13 months of the start of the race, a trio of Galway businessmen - aka the Green Team: Enda O'Coineen, John Killeen and Eamon Conneelly - have advanced plans for a campaign aimed not only at bringing the Volvo fleet to these shores but the overall trophy home as well.
Managing high expectations has taught the team to be wary of making a promise that is hard to keep. Five months ago the country's new force in sailing delivered on its word by securing for Galway the prized stop-over port status in the Volvo Ocean Race, but since then has kept the lid on the second part of that promise: an Irish entry into the race.
The revelation that a €5 million Irish "Volvo 70" yacht is on the drawing board of Californian designers Reichel Pugh is a prelude to the Green Team's entry to the world's toughest offshore challenge. It is also a further endorsement - if it were needed - that the team means business.
Since the Government announced its backing for the project in May, the focus of Green Team resources has been finalising details of the contract and putting in place management, legal and financial structures.
In spite of all this activity, Green Team CEO Jamie Boag remains tight-lipped on plans, except to say that until funding is in place to compete in the race, there will be no entry. So far this process is "advanced, but still ongoing".
Behind the scenes, however, he has put together the necessary hardware for an Irish entry, he maintains, that will be "truly competitive".
No details of the design or build were available on the team website (greenteam.ie) last night. The Irish entry will be the seventh and, most likely, the final entry into the race. An official announcement from Green Team is likely before Christmas.
Insiders say construction of the 70footer will need to be a priority project in order to be ready in time. A boatyard is on stand-by in Sydney.
Although many of Ireland's top ocean sailors, including 2005/6 winner Justin Slattery of Wexford, the bowman on ABN Amro, have raced in different outings of the race, the only previous Irish entry, NCB Ireland, was launched 18 years ago by then-taoiseach Charles Haughey and skippered by Cork's Joe English in the 1989 race.
Then known as the Whitbread Round the World race, it will be remembered for the runaway performance of New Zealand's Peter Blake.
The Irish sloop (unkindly nicknamed Nice Cruising Boat) fared badly, finishing second-last, and lack of speed was at the heart of the issue. But at home the world-wide publicity it generated gave a glimpse of what could be achieved.
Since then an entry to the race has always been considered beyond the financial reach of any Irish sailing team, even though Ireland continues to punch above its weight offshore, this year winning the Fastnet race.
After the success of Ireland's staging of the Ryder Cup, there is excitement in sailing circles that the next major international sporting event to come to the country will be based around sailing. Irish hopes, at least of a strong performance in the transatlantic dash from Boston to Galway on leg nine, in May 2009, are now real possibilities.
Of the six other entries, four are about to be built. Typically, each build represents 28,000 to 30,000 manhours, and build times can be anywhere between five and nine months.
The race route is nearing finalisation, with the offshore start set for Alicante, Spain, on October 11th, 2008, following an in-port race a week earlier. The race is scheduled to last nearly 10 months, covering more than 39,000 nautical miles and visiting up to 12 ports before finishing in St Petersburg, Russia.
Durability will be a key factor to consider in any new boat. In the 2005/6 race, two boats were out of the first leg on the first night, while another limped on with damage.
This will be the first Volvo Ocean 70 that Reichel Pugh have designed, but the renowned firm of naval architects have some of the biggest and fastest yachts in the world to their name. These include Alfa Romeo, Wild Oats and Pyewacket. The firm is a pioneer of canting keel technology, a key feature of the Volvo design.
Last time in the Southern Ocean keels gave big problems, with one boat hitching a ride on a ship and another going back for structural repairs only to be dismasted later. But for the rest of the fleet, speeds were phenomenal and a second 24-hour world monohull record was lodged.
Building the fastest monohull boat in the world to a tight timetable will be no mean feat.
In the pressure cooker atmosphere of the months ahead, the small group of enthusiasts who have steered the project this far will need to roll it out as a national campaign to gain the full support of the sailing community.
Playing host to one of the world's biggest sailing parties will be one thing; becoming a contender in the planet's most extreme sporting event is another.
