SAILING/Round Ireland Race: Ireland's Calyx Voice and Data, the second smallest boat in the BMW Round Ireland fleet and crewed by dinghy sailors, grabbed overall victory in Ireland's toughest offshore race yesterday at their first attempt.
The eight-man crew got a heroes' welcome when they sailed back to their Dun Laoghaire club house last night, escorted by a National Yacht Club launch, to receive a cannon gun salute by the commodore, Chris Moore, flag officers and well wishers.
The 32-footer, also known as Voodoo Chile, in its first foray into offshore sailing, was not officially confirmed by Wicklow Sailing Club until 4 p.m. yesterday.
But skipper Eamon Crosbie knew that once Eric Lisson's Cavatina, the defending champion, had not made it back to the finish line by lunch-time that overall victory was secure.
The win has been applauded by offshore pundits across the country and by some who doubted the ability of the small boat - and the crew's lack of experience - to stand up to the big seas and gale force winds that swept through the 13th Round Ireland and reduced the overall winner to bare poles off Rathlin Island on Wednesday night.
There was also acknowledgement that the National YC crew had beaten the strongest fleet in recent times, including two professionally based 60-footers who had set out but failed to beat the Round Ireland race record.
Crosbie (52), a helmsman, whose age is twice that of anyone else on board, sailed with sons David, second helmsman, and Alan, mainsheet trimmer, and five others in a 704-mile trip he says they treated like any other dinghy race.
Drafted in for his navigational expertise, Ian Moore of Carrickfergus will stay on board for this month's Commodore's Cup in the next regatta for the one-year-old boat, built in Bray, Co Wicklow, that is also Irish class zero champion.
Former Optimist and 420 sailors Fergus Kelly, Stefan Hyde, Johnny Coate and Ross Nolan complete one of the most successful cruiser-racer crews of recent years.
Late on Wednesday night, as they edged to the finish line in darkness to cross at 11.38 p.m., they were only partially of the significance of the timing of their arrival.
"We knew we were always in with a shout so we gave it all we had from Rockabill," Crosbie said.
They were an hour ahead of a deadline set by Chris Bull's Jazz some 12 hours earlier, to give them the winning corrected time of four days 10 hours and 19 minutes.
Royal Malta entry Jazz looked to have an unassailable lead, but that changed when Calyx called in to Rockabill at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.
In what has turned out to be a David and Goliath battle, the 32-footer produced the same elapsed time of just under 17 hours as the 50-footer Jazz in a race-winning, 110-mile run down the east coast from Mew Island.
"You can slip five per cent performance without even noticing it, so we would sail by numbers and if the speed dropped we would change helmsmen. We kept this going the whole way round, taking snoozes on the rail," Crosbie said.
"We just treated the whole thing like any inshore regatta," he added. "From Mew Island alone we made 17 sail changes before the finish."
The victory marks a successful start to a €40,000 sponsorship by Calyx Voice and Data, who are also on board for this month's Cork Week and the Commodore's Cup.
Final overall results for the 38-boat fleet will not be issued by Wicklow Sailing club until later today, with a shake-up for second and third places between Lisson in Cavatina, Ger O'Rourke in Chieftain and Jazz.
