Plain sailing

ERIC Lisson is not in the least bit disingenuous when revealing he and his six-man crew expected to win this year’s BMW Round Ireland Race.

In fact he’s deadly serious.

Having won the race in 2002 and finished third two years ago, Lisson and the crew of Cavatina travelled to Wicklow in expectation.

As course and distance winners once, and a battling performance after a disastrous race in 2004, they had every reason to be hopeful in 2006.

That form, and a second place in the Fastnet Race last year, merely underlined that Lisson, along with his boat and his crew, were world class performers when it came to offshore racing.

But, by adding a second Round Ireland victory to their haul of silverware, they have established themselves among the elite of Irish yachting, equalling the record of the late legendary Denis Doyle and his yacht Moonduster.

Lisson remembers the 2004 race as a frustrating affair: “We didn’t catch the tide of the north coast; we fell into the tide off Larne and had to beat down the east coast to the finish. And after all that we were still only 90 minutes off winning. That being so, we did expect we’d have a good chance again this year.”

Preparations for the race were a little fragmented due to his day-to-day work at his ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ winning business in Macroom. Things are going so well, his participation in the race was in doubt until the morning of the start in Wicklow after a hectic flurry of business activity in the UK. Following the 2004 event Lisson and his team spent 18 months preparing for this year’s race addressing several problems with Cavatina — particularly its ability in light airs.

The crew, along with sail-maker Des McWilliam, worked closely to find solutions, and in the 2005 Cowes-Fastnet race there were signs of improvement. They finished just 23 minutes behind Jean Yves Chateau’s Nicholson 33 Iromiguy.

“We rounded the Fastnet before him, but he knows the English Channel better than us and he simply out-sailed us. He’s been RORC champion a few times, so he knows his stuff, but we lacked his experience in the channel and that cost us,” he recalls.

They arrived at the startline for the Wicklow SC promoted Round Ireland race with confidence high.

That confidence was shortlived, as Lisson relates: “The weather forecast was a huge problem because what we were promised was not what we got and that was pretty much the case for the whole race. We had a south-west beat to the Tuscar Rock and did very well to get there in about 16th place or so, with George Radley’s Imp one of the boats behind us. By then we were being promised north-easterlies but they never came. We were sailing about five or six miles off shore, but all we were getting was little puffs of wind here and there along the south coast. It was like being in a traffic jam where you feel you are always in the only lane that’s not moving.

“This was by far the most mentally stressful time for us all and the joke among the crew was that I was going to hold counselling sessions for them in the forward cabin.”

The Cavatina crew began taking notice of Cormac and Mandy Farrelly’s Beneteau 32 Pepperbox. Now, the two boats seemed to be locked in their own personal race, passing each other several times along the south coast.

The wind had picked up by Inistearacht, where they were astonished to find that they had risen to third overall and Lisson reckoned “the boats ahead had fallen into a hole in the weather.”

By Bull Island off the south Kerry coast, they would fall into the same hole.

“We had gotten our act together only for it to fall apart again and at Bull Island we were floundering. We only really finally got going when we decided to seek wind some 30 or 40 miles offshore. We were back to 20th place off Slea Head and Pepperbox was about two hours ahead of us by then, even if we were about to make some gains up the west coast,” Lisson recalls.

Aodhan Fitzgerald’s Ireland’s West was making the running at the head of the fleet and were 10 hours ahead of Cavatina on corrected time by Eagle Island off Mayo.

Lisson recalls: “We were hours behind the leaders and we really were tragic. Then at Aranmore off Donegal we were up to tenth, but we were behind Pepperbox again. Those guys were really wrecking our heads.

“Rounding the Donegal coast we were on a beat favouring one tack and we were able to use a pop spinnaker we’d developed and we had a dead run for six to eight hours, going on to a reach as time went on, and by Inistrahull we were back up to third, fighting it out with Ireland’s West, Eamonn Crosbie’s Teng Tools (the reigning champion) and Pepperbox.

“We struggled to meet the tide at Rathlin, but just did so, but then at Larne we fell into another hole. We were close to the coast there, but not moving an inch and a lot of the others saw what was happening and sailed out towards the Scottish coast to get what wind they could. We were only getting little zephyrs of wind and at one point put out the anchor to stop going backwards!

“But we got going again and in the run to Mew Island were able to use an asymmetric spinnaker and by the time we got there we were in the lead again. We’d caught them all up and to think that when we were off Larne I thought we were history. Eamonn Crosbie was our main challenger and by Rockabill (off the North Dublin coast) we’d lost an hour to him and we needed the wind Gods to do their thing if it was going to be possible to win.

“By then though, the tide was against us and our calculations predicted we’d fall short by four or five hours and we really needed to gamble to win it, while at the same time keeping a close eye on Pepperbox to make sure we won our class at least and the trouble there was that being from Howth these were their waters and they knew how to sail them.”

The Met. Office forecast was predicting winds of three knots at best, but then Lisson picked up a local forecast from Dublin Airport which was predicting a 17 knot westerly and the decision was taken to bring Cavatina into Dublin Bay to try and find the wind. “That was the only correct forecast we got for the whole race.”

Lisson says: “We caught the shift and, knowing the tide was about to turn we went over the Kish bank with the aim of keeping relatively close to the shore so that if the wind died, the current would take us over the finishing line. We sailed over the bank and the wind died.

“I have to say the crew were getting bolshie at this stage — at one point we were going north — but then we got the wind again and we scooted right to the finish. Even so, right up to half-an-hour before the line we didn’t know if we’d win.

“It was heart-wrenching stuff and one of the crew had to take to his bunk because he couldn’t take the stress. We were frazzled at the end because we’d had eight hours to do 40 miles and it was not possible without favourable winds. It was pure chance I heard the Dublin Airport report.

“The other thing, too, is that, generally in this type of race, if you’re 10 hours off the leaders going up the west coast, then you’ve no chance of winning unless everyone ahead of you sinks, but we had a ‘never say die’ thing going and we never gave it up.

“But the main reason we won was because we have a very experienced crew, and also because Pepperbox kept us going. They sailed an outstanding race. “For myself and the boys to have gone from normal club sailors to the status of someone like Denis Doyle is massive. When he won his second Round Ireland it was a huge thing and for us to have done it makes me extremely happy.”

The sailing world now waits for next year’s Cowes-Fastnet race — a race which Lisson reckons is “not as challenging as the Round Ireland” — and if he wins it, his record will be unmatched in this country.

“If I had a wish list — and I’m being very greedy here — I’d like to win the Fastnet, win a third Round Ireland and then head for the Sydney-Hobart because that would be the last big one left,” he says.