Irish yacht takes on the world in Chesapeake Bay

AN IRISH yacht is set to compete for one of sailing's most prestigious prizes later this month in America.

Diarmuid Foley, from the Royal Cork Yacht Club, the 2001 British Mumm 30 title holder, is to challenge, the second year running, for the Champagne Mumm 30 World Championship at Annapolis Yacht Club, Maryland, USA, on September 25-28.

He already competed successfully in last year’s World Championship in Sardinia, as well as several other events in the Mumm 30 series and he says he is not travelling to America just to make up the numbers: “No, we have a good crew and good experience on board, so without doubt we will be trying to win this championship.”

This Grand Prix event is being held in the heartland of American sailing in Chesapeake Bay, outside Washington DC. In last year’s event held in Cagliari, Foley placed 8th in a fleet of 45 boats, with local Italian boats crewed by professional sailors taking all but two of the top eight positions. On that occasion Foley’s crew included Cork Olympic sailor Mark Mansfield as tactician and Crosshaven based Mel Collins as helmsman. This time around Foley has opted to go with a crew that includes Royal Cork sailors Roy Darrar, Hugh Cassidy, and Ross Levis, as well as US sailors Joe Penrod as Bowman and Sean Nunes as tactician. Nunes is a successful Olympic sailor and is acting as coach to Irish Olympic hopeful Tom Fitzpatrick.

“Sean has sailed Chesapeake on several occasions, so it will be good to have someone with good local knowledge. From what I know, Chesapeake is quite like Cork Harbour, but not as tidal. But Sean has sailed there on a good few occasions and knows it well,” Foley says. Designed by Bruce Farr, the Mumm 30 is a strict one design keelboat raced with a crew of six or seven subject to an overall crew weight limit. Over 200 have been produced worldwide since 1996 with strong fleets in the East Coast of the United States, the Hamble in the UK, as well as in France and Italy.

The World Championship has been dominated for the past few years by the Italians, where the boat attracts the cream of local talent. The 2000 World Champion, shipping magnate Vincenzo Onaratio of Naples, is currently mounting one of the two Italian challenges for the America Cup under the name of ‘Mascalzone Latino’, the other challenge being the Prada team financed by the co-owner of the fashion chain of the same name, Maurizio Bertarelli. Onaratio’s tactician for the America’s Cup, Flavio Flavini, was tactician on board the 2001 Mumm 30 World Champion, ‘Alina’.

This year's line up will includes all of the top Italian boats including last year’s winner as well as entries the USA, Australia, Holland and Canada.

The Irish team’s advance crew arrives in Annapolis today, while the rest of the crew fly out on September 19. The boat, which is the only one of its kind sailing in Ireland, has already been shipped to America.

There will be a total of 11 races over the four days of the World Championships and they will be sailed over America’s Cup type windward/leeward courses. As all the boats are intrinsically the same, there is no handicap system and the winner will be the first past the post in each race.

“I’m not going to make any predictions about how we will do other than to say that we hope to do the best we can,” Foley said. “It is difficult, however, competing against teams with huge budgets when you only have very limited resources. We have had a number of sponsors in recent years who have supplied with various bits of kit, but it would be fantastic if we had a main sponsor to help us out.”