Irish Examiner view: All hands on deck for America's Cup bid

The Swiss Alinghi yacht leads the fleet during racing for the America's Cup when it was held in Valencia, Spain — one of the locations in contention with Ireland to host the 2024 event. Picture: Chris Ison/PA

The biggest landlubbers among us know that there is a dangerous moment in yacht racing where an opponent can seize an advantage by taking your wind, thus reducing your motive power and causing turbulence. 

There’s even an old phrase for it — “taking the wind out of your sails” — which has found its way into common parlance for those who prefer to keep their feet on terra firma.

This manoeuvre is precisely what rival cities Valencia and Jeddah are hoping to achieve in their attempts to host the prestigious America’s Cup in 2024. 

The race authorities in New Zealand are preparing to announce their favoured bidder and indications so far are that the Irish application is well placed.

Cork business and tourism leaders are urging government investment of €150m on a speculate-to-accumulate basis, and while there are political sensitivities upon lavishing eye-watering sums on what is essentially a sport favoured by rich people, the forecasted benefits carry their own weight.

An initial scoping exercise predicated that hosting the competition for the ‘Auld Mug’ could be worth €500m to the economy; generate 2,000 jobs; attract up to 2.5m visitors; deliver between 9m and 11m bed nights, and be watched by an estimated 900m TV viewers globally.

There is a piquancy in that the preferred bidder decision comes in the same week as the race’s greatest champion in Ireland, Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney, faces a no-confidence vote in what many politicians regard as a storm in a teacup over who-said-what-when about the potential appointment of Katherine Zappone as a UN special envoy.

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This debate is unlikely to blow Cork’s ambitions off course and we should hope that the application is eventually successful because it will be another major assistance in putting the city and the region back on the map after nearly 18 months of travel restrictions and lockdown.

Putting Cork back on the map is something which will be needed after the unfortunate conjunction of the easing of flight bans with the requirement to close the airport for 10 weeks for runway repairs. 

Those who are disgruntled with the decision acknowledge that while there is never a good time to shut the south’s major airport, the closure could not have come at a worse time with companies trying to rebuild their businesses.

Whatever the reasons, and some of them relate to tendering and procurement regulations, it is important that the €40m upgrade is delivered on schedule and that the airport opens again on November 22. 

Airlines and customers will not be forgiving of another moveable feast in reopening travel for what is likely to be a challenging and competitive two years.

Michael O’Leary of Ryanair has been warning for most of 2021 about increased costs of flights and holidays and he warmed to his theme by identifying competition for seats and hotels, and the impact of any new environmental taxes.

Prices will be “dramatically higher” he says. 

That is a message consumers can expect to hear from all quarters as we move forward. 

We may tire of it quite quickly.