Past race winner Justin Slattery of Cork will make his fifth Volvo Ocean Race bid when the race starts from Alicante this October.
Slattery’s Valentine’s Day announcement means he will join Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (ADOR) for the 2014-15 Volvo Ocean Race as bowman.
The ADOR team, skippered by Britain’s double Olympic silver medallist Ian Walker, is aiming to be the first Arabian entry to win the prestigious race.
It is Slattery’s second time in Arab colours and his third round the world with Walker.
The first was on Ireland’s Green Dragon in the 2008-9 race.
Sailing as bowman on ABN AMRO One in the 2005-06 Race, Slattery was instrumental in the Dutch team's overall win.
Circumnavigation
In 2004, Slattery, who only started sailing at the age 16 in a Mirror dinghy, was bowman on American businessman Steve Fossett's record-breaking world circumnavigation.
He followed this up the following summer by breaking the record for the Fastnet Race onboard the super maxi ICAP Leopard.
At home, thanks in part to the performances of European Laser champion Annalise Murphy and youth champion Finn Lynch, among others, sailing took home €600,000 in Sports council funding on Wednesday as part of a campaign to go for Olympic gold in Rio in two year’s time.
Over €7 million was allocated to 18 high performance sports, with sailing receiving the third-highest level of funding after boxing and athletics.
Last year Irish sailors won 13 medals, eight of them gold, at international events.
The funding boost has been marred somewhat by the news that despite a last-ditch effort by the host nation to have it reinstated, the Star class will not now be in the line-up for Rio, thereby ruling out a return for Cork hot prospect Peter O’Leary, at least in the keelboat.
It also looks like some of the hard-won money will have to be spent on medical costs to combat infection at the Olympic venue. This week team management complained again about the state of the 2016 Brazilian regatta venue.
Raw sewage and other pollution (including the carcass of a horse) were evident when Murphy was training there last summer and the poor water quality has remained, according to the squad.
International match racing makes a return to Irish waters when Royal Cork Yacht Club (RCYC) stages the ISAF’s Women’s Match Racing World championships.
Staged from June 3rd-8th, the event will be raced in the J80 keelboat fleet and builds on Cork harbour's reputation for staging match racing events, most notably the successful 2006 hosting of the ISAF Nations Cup Grand Final.
Greystones harbour marina
On the east coast well known sailor Alan Corr, from Dún Laoghaire, has taken over as marina manager at the newly opened Greystones harbour marina.
Corr’s ambitions are to attract some racing fleets to the new harbour, such as the Irish Sea Offshore (ISORA) fleet, or some inshore classes who can make use of Wicklow’s two new slipways.
In dinghy news, preparation for this year’s European Optimist Championships at the Royal St George Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire moves up a gear next week at a popular team training camp in Baltimore, west Cork.
Abroad, Ireland’s Trevor Fisher and Emily Watt were winners of the American Mid-Winter Wayfarer championships in Florida.
