‘One time a dolphin followed us around training for two hours, that was amazing’

Interview by Cliona Foley

Ireland has 14 sailors in 10 boats competing in the 2018 World Sailing Championships, the first opportunity for Tokyo 2020 Olympic qualifying. They don’t include Rio silver medallist Annalise Murphy who has now switched from single-handed racing into a 49erFX with Katie Tingle. That leaves Aoife Hopkins (Dublin) and Aisling Kelleher (Nenagh) to carry hopes in Laser Radial.

Mark Hassett (22), from Baltimore, is competing with Oisín O’Driscoll in the 49er class at the World Sailing Championships in Arhus, Denmark (July 30-August 10). He is studying maths in UCC and his all-Cork skiff crew narrowly missed a silver fleet finish at the recent European Championships.

Baltimore is such a sailing stronghold that it will be presumed you come from a long line of sailors and harbour rats?

Not at all. I’m the only one in my family who sails. Both of my brothers are good Gaelic players with Ilen Rovers and Alex has played three years minor for Cork. They tried to get me into football but I was really bad.

So how did you end up in sailing?

In Schull Community School sailng is actually part of the school curriculum. David Harte is employed as the sailing coach. He runs the Fastnet Marine Outdoor Education Centre which is right next to the school. It’s probably pretty unique.

When did you partner up with Oisín?

About three and a half years ago. I sailed Lasers from the age of 13 to the end of Transition Year and then decided I’d never be big enough to make a standard rig and went into 420s for a year before moving to 49ers.

Oisín was two years above me in school and we started out competing against each other. He graduated from CIT last year and is full-time now.

Have you different roles in the boat?

Oisin is about six foot tall and I’m 5’7”. There’s a few different ideas about the relative merits of size and weights but we work well together. My role is probably more skilful and tactical but he helps me with tactics too, he’s an allrounder. We both throw ourselves around a lot but his role is more physicallly demanding.

Two men in a small boat must be claustrophobic at times. Do you ever have bust-ups?

(Laughs) Yeah, we fight. Everyone does! But we’ve never had a really big blow-out, we’re very good friends. When you’re really competitive and pushing each other the whole time you’re bound to push each other a bit far sometimes. I’m probably the more stressed one, Oisín is more relaxed and deals really well with pressure.

What’s the biggest misconception people have about sailing?

People don’t understand how physical it is. They think you’re just sitting there but look at Annalise Murphy. She was approached to join the Irish cycling team because her numbers on the bike were so good. We have a really heavy training load apart from the actual sailing training.

Philanthropic donations and the clever use of three shipping containers has just helped Irish Sailing set up a new High Performance HQ in Dublin, but how does that work for you when you’re still a student in Cork?

During Winter the Irish weather is so stormy that we go to Spain for three months training, from December to March. We tend to do 14-day training camps, fly home for a week and repeat. I bring my books with me sometimes.

Competitions don’t start until April and once my exams are done in early May it’s full-time training.

But it must be tough surely to combine the training, on and off land, with college?

I have a Quercus scholarship in UCC which has been a massive help in terms of extra support and advice. I was actually the first UCC student to be allowed to split my final year into two separate 30-credits so I did the first half of my finals this year.

I’ve heard you come from a family of high achievers?

(Laughs). I don’t know about that, we’ve all studied hard. My older brother has graduated from medicine and my younger brother is going into final year physiotherapy in UCD. When people hear I’m doing maths in college they’re like ‘oh God’. I’m not even sure myself yet what I can do it with a maths degree.

The 49er is reputedly a very fast and tricky boat to sail. Do you ever capsize?

Oh yeah! 49ers are probably the the hardest Olympic boat to sail because of the balance, They have 60msq of sail area compared to a Laser’s 7msq so there’s a huge amount of power there. If you don’t get the balance right the sail is going to overpower you and you’re going to go in the water.

Reading the weather is so vital in sail racing. Do you have any special aids to help?

We have ‘tell-tales’ in nine or 10 places on the sails – little strips of very thin fabric that show the flow of the air. During the race we’re always looking at the tides and the water to see what’s happening but a lot of the work is done beforehand. We study the pressure charts and weather systems the night before and again on the morning of the race.

You only moved into senior sailing last year so will these World Championships be very tough for you?

Worlds are a huge jump for us for sure. If you make any slip-ups you get punished really fast at this level, it’s completely different from junior and U23s. This is our second World Championships and we learnt a huge amount last year against teams that have been racing against each other for 10 years.

What is the hardest thing about being a competitive sailor. Physical, mental or the Irish weather?

Actually the financial side takes a lot of work. My mum is a retired teacher and my father buys and sells fish in West Cork.

For them to buy me my first boat when I was 13 was a really big commitment. But I’m really lucky too to grow up three minutes from the beach in Baltimore with the sailing club only a five minute walk.

Beats a mucky pitch or grubby gym alright. What’s the nicest thing you’ve ever seen out on the water?

You see a lot of hump-back whales in Baltimore but one time I was training in Schull with the lads on the school team and a dolphin came into the harbour and followed us around the racecourse for two hours. You could literally have reached down and touched it! That was amazing.