SAILING Round-up: Such an announcement, the unofficial flagship of the big racing yacht sector of the sport in Ireland and coming from a west coast club, might easily have been listed as a one-off aberration of the traditional Cork-Dublin axis of sailing strength.
First it was Eamonn Conneelly's Transpac 52-footer Patches that grabbed the headlines. Barely three months ago, the Galway Bay Sailing Club skipper announced he would be fielding the largest Irish racing yacht in 10 years on the rapidly growing circuit on both sides of the Atlantic.
Not so after this week's news that truly gives meaning to "the west is awake".
It now seems that the Western Yacht Club will have its burgee flying atop a brand-new, Farr-designed 50-footer complete with canting keel, the new-fangled device more commonly associated with the likes of Z86-foot maxis that sailed in Cork or one of the solo Open 60-foot round the world racers.
Ger O'Rourke has just returned from New Zealand where he test sailed an existing model and placed and paid for Cookson Yachts to commence construction with a delivery date scheduled for July. Six months of racing at various Antipodean regattas will follow before the yacht is shipped to Ireland to begin its Northern Hemisphere campaign.
According to O'Rourke, some existing crew-members from his Beneteau 40.7 Chieftain will transfer to the new yacht, and the hunt for the full-time boat captain is almost complete.
The next stage is to acquire the services of a high-profile professional skipper with experience of canting keeled racing boats, although the owner plans to steer his boat for most races.
The arrival of another large boat in Ireland could yet see a trial between O'Rourke and Conneelly for next year's Commodore's Cup team, while other custom-builds may yet enter the fray for the mid-sized class of boat.
Meanwhile, Key Yachting of Hamble will be displaying the Irish-built 1720 Spostboat in its new club version at the Allianz Direct Dublin Boat Show next week. The class is reported to have a dozen boats or more in action on Dublin Bay as the class prepares for its European Championship at Lake Garda in Italy.
The show is expected to be the biggest ever and the show guide published this week by Afloat is the biggest issue in the 32-year history of the magazine.
Across the Atlantic, the Star class world championship, reaches its climax this weekend with two Irish boats in action and battling for the psychological advantage of edging ahead of the other.
The experienced duo of Max Treacy and Anthony Shanks are at their first major event since the latter narrowly averted a serious back injury in the autumn after a fall on a yacht.
However, the pair face a stiff challenge from Royal St George YC clubmates Maurice "Prof" O'Connell and Ed Peel, who were beating them by one place in 14th overall in the 40-boat fleet.
