Dennis O'Sullivan joined our boat for both legs 5 (Hawaii to Santa Cruz) and 7, this last one from Jamaica to Liverpool. Born in the harbor town of Cork, Ireland, he's always been fascinated by the sea and all the classical literature of the sea travel. As his 60th birthday approached, he wondered if he had it in him to endure some of the challenges he'd been reading about all his life.
Though Dennis now lives in England, he still considers Cork his home and spends a few months of each year there. This stopover in Cork, Ireland had not been even rumored until a few months before the race start and not an assured part of this race's schedule until the race had already been a full month underway. When Dennis signed up for the Clipper Ventures race two years ago, then, he could not have fathomed the perfect birthday he was setting up for himself.
Dennis' birthday is June 28. At the slow pace we started off out of Nova Scotia (more about that in a later blog), it seemed unlikely we'd be in Cork by July 3rd, to say nothing of any day in June. We caught the a tail end of a low pressure system 750 miles from the finish, however, and blew in under the heavyweight spinnaker, logging 250 miles a day.
We flew that heavyweight spinnaker right down to the finish line as we found the Clipper boat Jamaica on our tails when the sun rose on the 28th, only a few miles back and seemingly closing in. We were confident we could hold them off for the last 80 miles into Cork, but it wasn't certain.
With 20 miles to go and still every opportunity available to blow our slim lead over Jamaica, Skipper Mark shouted over the wind noise, "Dennis!" Up by the grinder, working the winch controlling the spinnaker sheet, Dennis turned around.
"Take the helm," Mark said.
A spontaneous cheer arose among those on deck for we all knew what was unfolding: Dennis, at the helm, on his 60th birthday, racing into the port of his birth, with his wife, family and friends waiting. I had nothing to do with anything about it all but even I was beside myself with excitement. I could only imagine what Dennis must have felt.
"Couldn't get any better," he muttered under his breath to me as the miles to the finish line wound down one by one. "Couldn't get any better."
The second we passed the lighthouse on one side of the narrow entrance to the harbour, a cannon fired from the other shore where the race committee sat at a pub (no doubt drinking pints of Murphy's stout).
One second later Mark shouted "SPIKE!"...
...and someone already hoisted up to the end of the spinnaker pole on a halyard jammed a thin spike into the releasing mechanism of the shackle holding the upwind corner of the spinnaker...
...allowing it to fly free like a flag behind the mainsail.
Four crew (two on the winches in the snake pit, two on the lines themselves in front of the mast) worked hurriedly to ease both of the two spinnaker halyards out as fast as possible and yet still under control. Four more crew gathered around the companionway to haul the spinnaker down below decks and out of the wind.
Being able to manuever the boat to use the mainsail to block any wind trying to re-inflate the spinnaker is a key aspect to dropping a spinnaker, a luxury we sacrificed inside this narrow harbor to ensure we held onto our narrow lead over Jamaica until the very last moment.
We got the spinnaker down safely and Mark took the helm so that Dennis was free to stand just ahead of the mast as we motored to our dock, waving to friends and family either in boats motoring beside us or gathered on the shore.
Couldn't get any better," he'd say from time to time.
