Sailing close to the wind a breeze for McWilliam

ANY reasonable person should realise that taking on the role of race director at Ford Cork Week could lead to an early grave, but for John McWilliam the position is one he revels in, and it has thankfully not yet resulted in any premature calls to the undertakers.

With some 550 yachts racing and an average of 10 crew on each, the logistics of this yachting extravaganza are obviously horrifying.

But this week it has not been the numbers which have caused McWilliam and his team the major headaches. Rather, it has been the weather and, more particularly, the winds which have caused minor pandemonium on the water among the racers as they have had to jockey for position in tightly clumped flotillas or, in some cases, raft like squadrons of trapped yachts.

"Yes, it is always much less of a headache when the wind is reliable," an almost palpably relieved McWilliam said yesterday evening after overseeing an excellent day's racing in light but steady conditions.

"The first half of the week the wind was variable and that makes life so difficult. You really are in the lap of the Gods when that happens. Today was a doddle by comparison.

"In conditions where there is little wind and what little of it as is there is shifting, the majority of the sailors tend to make more mistakes when the yachts get all clumped together.

"It becomes bloody impossible and some of them get very frustrated, but that's the way it goes. On the other hand, the guys that win in those conditions are very focused and don't mess up often," he says.

A pick up in the wind does have its downside, however, as McWilliam recounts. "Yes, we had to get a medical team to one of the boats today when one of the crew was concussed, but we got the rescue boats and medical treatment to him very sharply. And we even had access to a top surgeon who was out racing and could have put him together again had the injury been more serious, but thankfully that wasn't so."

But controlling, monitoring, and correctly adjudging such a massive fleet, is enough work for an army in itself and it is that army which John McWilliam has to mobilise every day during the regatta.

"It is quite unbelievable really," he says. "I've just got off a yacht with about 10 of us on board and we've been out on the water all day doing our job. It is only when you think that there are 20 other boats with a similar crew on board working the radios and monitoring results and working rescue craft and so forth, that you realise how much preparation and hard work goes into running something of this size.

"Then you think about the number in the race office back in Crosshaven and the level of organisation becomes almost incomprehensible."

The organisational element became all the more confusing to the outsider, and many an insider too you could safely warrant, when the host club, the RCYC, had to protest itself to the International Jury in order to offset a possible mutiny among aggrieved yachties.

The complicated handicap system meant that "an exceptional minority" were unable to be classified in the results because the wind conditions on Tuesday did not allow them to finish the designated course in the allowed time and skin not to mention a good deal of hair duly flew.

"It was an anomalous situation and came down to a quirk of circumstance in the end. We had no real option but to seek redress from the International Jury so that we were able to keep people happy in the end.

"But the bottom line was not so much that people were beating down the door of the organisers' office to complain but they were writing nice notes telling us how brilliant Ford Week is and as a by the way could we sort out the handicap situation. So, there was no real animosity or anything and the majority of people are doing what they do best in Crosshaven sailing and having a ball.

"With so many people involved on and off shore you're going to have a lot of different types and obviously not everyone will be happy all the time, but the majority of them seem to be and that is what matters."

According to the race director, the commitment of the volunteers involved is the secret of the success of the whole thing, while the commitment of the sailors to the sailing and a good deal of partying on down is key to making this one of the greatest regattas anywhere in the world.

"It's a complete mix of people having a ball," he says. And it is difficult to argue the point.