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Fastnet Race

7 November, 2019
Posted in: Cork, Ireland, Reading etc.

When I was 10 the Fastnet Yacht race was a disaster and a lot of people died. I don’t really remember much in the news from when I was young but I remember this and the Whiddy island disaster because they seemed local catastrophes and my parents spoke about them. Along with the Tuskar Rock air crash which happened the year before I was born, they were background disaster news which was local to us. Even then, like all Cork people, I was a Cork partisan.

So, on that basis when RTE put out a radio documentary about the 1979 Fastnet race, I was curious to have a listen. The first thing that struck me was that many of the voices on the radio were old men who sounded just like my father – all restraint and composure and very Cork . These are people you don’t hear so much on the radio here – it’s mostly Dublin voices of all ages. And I heard some names I knew because this is Ireland, and my father used to sail a lot, and one of the people speaking was a colleague of a friend.

And I was surprised how very terrifying it was and somehow the calm, low level way these (mostly older, mostly men) spoke about it made is seem somehow more terrifying. I was fascinated. Highly recommended if you think you might be at all interested.

In a highly competitive field, I think that recommending a radio one documentary may be my most middle aged move yet.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Conor Galvin says

    7 November, 2019 at 22:36

    But then it is an excellent recommendation…

  2. belgianwaffle says

    7 November, 2019 at 22:38

    Well, yes, but very middle aged. It’ll be plays on the radio next I suppose.

  3. Charles says

    8 November, 2019 at 00:13

    I was 20, second year at university. Funnily my father was also a sailor for fun, he used to sail in the Royal Artillery boat, but was too old for that race and I remember it well. My father knew people who were in the race but they were clever enough to run for home when it got dangerous.

    That generation were a lot calmer and having lived through a lot were able to keep things in perspective.

  4. belgianwaffle says

    11 November, 2019 at 20:56

    Well, they certainly seemed very calm and collected in this account. My father’s friend had a big boat in the race and finished quite early and had no difficulty. He said to my father afterwards, “Dan, I don’t know what race they were in, but it was a different one from the one I was in.” Listening to the documentary, I think the big issue was for the smaller, slower boats and particularly the boats that were not taking part but just sailing out to watch – a number of those spectators got into trouble and drowned.

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