Clew Bay - a sailing paradise

It’s a sunny evening in Mayo and Clew Bay is filled with sailing boats, all twisting and turning for the best starting position. It's race day, as is every Thursday off Rosmoney pier. On the streets of nearby Westport there are many people in shorts and t-shirts, but out here on a sailing boat, faced with the unforgiving Atlantic, things are different. It's always a bit breezier and colder out on the water. Especially along the West coast, which has its advantages.

“There’s no better place in the world to learn sailing, than here” says Ed Aylward, from the Mayo Sailing Club. “You get people racing here all the way from, Ballina or Foxford, traveling down here weekly to take part in these races. We have one of the most active club on the west coast here.”

The Mayo Sailing Club will celebrate its fiftieth birthday next year and similar to the winds out on the ocean, the club's activities show no sign of abating. It currently boasts the largest fleet of Ruffian 23 boats in Ireland. Ruffians are an Irish-designed class of sailing boats.

Spend some time on the shaky committee's boat, from where the races are supervised, and you soon become aware of the breezy nature of Clew Bay's history. Ed Aylward points to a deserted house on a small island in front of us:

“That's Inishgort. There's no one living in that house at the moment. There used to be. He was the postman for the islands, so he travelled around delivering letters and parcels. At one point, there was a lot of people living on these islands and farming and going about their lives.”

The postman's name was Tommy Gibbons. And the new committee boat that we are on, is named after him. With him passing, the tradition of having a postman out on the ocean died as well. 

“And then you can see just behind me,” explains Ed: “There's a little white building, which is on the largest island in Clew Bay. It is the former schoolhouse for all of the children of the islands. And indeed, actually, people on the mainland rowed out to that school as well to get their education.”

One shouldn’t be fooled. The Thursday evening races here are run by a sophisticated computer software, as the Commodore Pat Aylward explains: “People are racing in various different types of boats. So there's a worldwide handicap system which, gives every boat a certain handicap. And as it's getting older, if a boat becomes 20 years old, it gets a better handicap. So any boat can compete against any other boat under the handicap system. It's a bit like golf.”

And to become a good sailor needs experience more than a licence. There are different sizes of boats, suitable to all ages. Pat himself only started sailing quite late in his life: “I used to play rugby. And when I got older, I took up sailing. You can sail until you're 70 or 80. There's no problem. It's a mixed sport. Half the membership are female. There's a good social aspect to it. And I love heading away on weekends.”

The basics of sailing: “There are two sails on every boat. There's the main sail, which is on the mast. And there's a sail on the front called the genoa or the jib. And then also when you're going downwind, we put out a big colourful sail called a spinnaker. But you can only do that when you're going downwind.”

What some might ask themselves: How do sailing boats go into the wind? The answer: Zigzagging: “We can sail into wind off 25 degrees off the compass. So we're able to zigzag into wind and get to a point directly away from us wind wise. Which is sort of hard to get the head around. But we can zigzag to get from point A to point B.”

Pat makes it sound easy but experience is the key and one needs to be able to read the tides, the waves, the wind and the weather. 

Apart from the racing, the competition and social value, the Mayo Sailing Club Commodore knows why the sport is a rewarding pastime: “We're probably in the most beautiful bay in Ireland. That's undisputable. Okay, there's bigger bays, Galway Bay for example. But Clew Bay is beautiful because of the islands. It's very picturesque. Just turn off the engine, no noise. Turn off the mobile phone. There’s nothing to match it.”

WATCH: Mayo Sailing Club out in Clew Bay