Tom Dolan
Glenua Sailing Centre
Winter Lecture 2015/16 Series
Solo from Brittany to Guadeloupe
The Story of the Mini-Transat 2015
by
Tom Dolan
Thursday 21 January 2016
20:00
Poolbeg Yacht & Boat Club Ringsend
Entry €5 (in aid of RNLI)
Lecture21Jan2016
What a year 2015 was for Tom Dolan! Just twelve months ago on a wet and windy Thursday night in Poolbeg Yacht and Boat Club, he gave a short presentation to Glenua members and friends on his bid to race alone in a 6.5m boat for 4,000 miles in the Mini Transat 2015 from Brittany to the Caribbean, starting 19 Sept 2015. He promised he would report back in Poolbeg January 2016!
Tom’s rapid progression in the Glenans Irish Sailing School from volunteer to sailing instructor, to sailing centre manager in Ireland and France and his passion for the sea, earned him an enviable reputation in the sail training world. However, below the radar, so to speak, was an increasing engagement with the challenges of ocean racing. Apart from the expense of equipping his borrowed boat, he was on a steep race-training curve and very much “a rookie”!. However, after 3,000 miles training and racing, he qualified for the Transat and secured 10th in the rankings.
From then on, it was downwind all the way to Guadeloupe via Lanzarote in the fastest ever Transat. After two and a half weeks alone at sea, the final result for Tom was 22nd out of 46 starting yachts, less than 20 minutes off the top twenty. The story behind that fine achievement is what Tom will tell in his illustrated presentation and Q & A session.
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