Mayo Sailing duo aim for Worlds after third European title

Well, the only pub in the village was busy and they had to get some extra barmen to serve the crowd. The small place of Wemeldinge in the Netherlands hosted the sailing European Championships a week ago. And after the final day, the crews from all around Europe descended upon the locality to celebrate the end of a busy racing week.

Among them, the victorious Ireland team, that made it three out of three European Championship in the last three editions. Two Mayo men, Marcus Ryan and Louis Mulloy, both from Westport, have been part of that success story right from the start. “We are delighted,” says Ryan, speaking to The Mayo News after their triumph, quickly explaining why this third win is a special one.

“So the first Euros we did was in Hungary on a lake, in Lake Balaton in Hungary, and that was a very light wind event. It was kind of fluky. So it felt like it was a bit of a lottery as to what team might have come out on top there. So we're delighted to have won the event, but we still felt we had a bit more to prove,” Ryan admits.

And then last year the Ireland team defended their title at the Euros in Sardinia. In a windy event, and the Irish knew, they were quite strong in the wind. Conditions were strongly in their favour. So that still left some questions about how the team would perform in a more stable wind event.

“In Holland now, we finished all twelve races, and we performed well. We scored quite far ahead of the other 20-odd boats that were there. So we were pretty happy,” Marcus states. This year, the Ireland team left nothing to chance. They collaborated with a professional video analyst to recap their races in the evening to learn and tweak their performance for the next day.

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Like a rally co-driver

A sailing boat team is a well oiled and trained machine. The other members of the crew are Ryan Glynne, from Ballyholme Yacht Club, Cillian Dickson from Lough Ree, and Sam O'Byrne from Howth.

Practice and confidence in each other is the key to success. Both, Louis and Marcus have their own specific jobs and functions on the boat. A bit like on a sports team where different positions require different tasks.

Marcus's position is mast, eventhough, he doesn't go anywhere near it. He is watching the movements of the wind.

“I kind of run a dialogue,” Marcus explains: “It sounds kind of mad, but it's somewhat similar to a rally co-driver, who talks about the next bend that's coming. I do the same thing, but basically what it was termed as is 'calling the breeze'. But I talk about the breeze that we're getting on the water over the next 10 seconds.”

A crucial task, as it keeps the helmsman and the sail trimmer dialled into what the breeze is going to do.

“If you can anticipate the wind that's going to hit your sails a second or two before, and you kind of trim your sails for that, it's more efficient than letting the gusts kind of hit the sail, the boat heels over, spill a bit of power, and then you accelerate.”

Anticipating the gusts coming into the sail gives a boat an edge over other ones. And while Marcus is constantly assessing the wind, his colleague from Westport, Louis Mulloy keeps an eye on the waves, if there's a rough wave approaching. But that isn't his sole job.

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“I'm mainly responsible for changing the sails,” Louis says: “I'm the bowman on board, which is like kind of orchestrating the sail changes when you get to the corners on the course.”

The course is run on a windward-levered course. The boats go directly upwind, or the course is directly upwind, but the boats can't sail directly upwind. They have to zig-zag to get there. And then when they get to the so called windward mark, it's up to the bowman, Louis, to take down the upwind sail and put up the downwind sail.

Next up: Worlds

“Ultimately our goal is to try and win a world championship. And we're really trying to line our next glance at that in Plymouth at the start of September,” says Louis Mulloy.

“So we're really trying to build as much towards that as we can. Our eyes are firmly set on Plymouth.”

Last year at the World Championship in the USA it didn't go to plan, as the Irish team only had a chartered boat available. Now, they will be able to use their own boat in Plymouth. The stars might just be aligning for Marcus Ryan and Louis Mulloy, the Westport boys making waves on the international sailing stage.

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