Mayo Sailing Club praise
Clifden Boat Club
It’s easy to get
praise when a sailing event goes well, the weather smiles kindly and the boats
rock happily on their moorings, unchallenged by wind and wave. It’s quite
another thing, when howling gales caused two of four days to be cancelled and
boats bucked and pulled at their mooring ropes. That’s what happened to the
WIORA (West of Ireland Offshore Racing Association) Regatta which was hosted by
Clifden Boat Club early in July and yet praise for their running of the event
was fulsome.
Commodore of Mayo
Sailing Club, Gerry Daly, who participated in the event himself, was loud in
his praise for Clifden and everyone involved in running the regatta, “This is
the first time Clifden has hosted an event of this size and it was really
unfortunate that the weather was so unreliable. However we were very impressed
at the level of organisation within the Club, especially as there were about 45
boats and their crews to be dealt with daily.”
He went on to
commend the Club, the Commodore and the organising committee for rostering a watch on all the moored boats to make sure that
none would come to harm. “This shows a real understanding of skipper’s concerns
in bad weather, especially on unfamiliar moorings,” he said, “Clifden were so
well prepared that we were able to relax, secure in the knowledge that our
boats were safe”.
The water taxi
arrangements and the onshore catering were all well thought out and executed.
That, coupled with the proximity of the attractive town of
The decision that WIORA will again
be held at Clifden next year was met with enthusiasm from all the Mayo sailors
who are already looking forward to the event and hoping that even more boats
will make the trip next year.