Ireland's Dolan sails into history books with top Mini Transat result
by Will Carson 25 Nov 2017 10:18 GMT
Tom Dolan finishes 6th in the Mini-Transat La Boulangère © Christophe Breschi /
www.breschi-photo-video.com
Solo sailor Tom Dolan has recorded Ireland's best ever result in the iconic Mini Transat race, finishing 6th in the 4,000-mile epic across the Atlantic.
Dolan, 30, from Kells in County Meath, finished 12th in the first 1,300 nautical mile leg from La Rochelle, France, to Las Palmas in Gran Canaria, then followed it up with fifth in the second stage, a 2,700-mile sprint from Las Palmas to Le Marin in Martinique.
His cumulative time for the race was 25 days, 12 hours, 46 minutes and 30 seconds, earning him sixth place out of a fleet of 56 sailors. He missed out on fifth place overall by just five minutes.
The result is the best ever by an Irish sailor in the Mini Transat, which is regarded as one of sailing's toughest challenges and a training ground for the world's best solo sailors.
Dolan had been aiming for an overall podium spot, but a course mistake on the opening day of the first leg that saw him sail back towards La Rochelle for two hours and restart the leg in last place ultimately proved too costly.
"I'm really happy," Dolan said on his arrival to Le Marin. "This result is the product of two years of really hard work. I made a stupid mistake in the first leg but I made up for it in the second leg. The five sailors that finished in front of me had ten times the budget I had, so in that respect I was the first of the amateurs."
Dolan revealed that his race was almost ended 800 miles from the finish when his 21ft boat pitchpoled – where the bow plunges into the water causing the boat to tumble over – in a violent Atlantic squall.
"I was under a reefed main and the medium spinnaker at the time," he said. "I saw the squall coming, and was expecting 30 knots, but it picked up to 40 very quickly. The boat was screaming along and then all of a sudden the nose buried into the water and the boat went over. Thankfully I closed the hatch quick enough to stop the water coming into the cabin.
"I sat and waited for about 10 minutes while the boat was pinned flat by the squall. I couldn't believe I didn't lose the mast. I looked at the time and it was 0400 UTC, and it was on a Saturday, so while people back home were stumbling out of clubs I was upside down in my boat in the middle of the Atlantic."
Thankfully Dolan was able to continue racing, and ended up crossing the Leg 2 finish line just 35 minutes behind third-placed Benoit Sineau and 20 minutes after Tanguy Bouroullec in fourth.
It is the second time that Dolan, who is considered one of Ireland's brightest offshore sailing talents, has raced in the Mini Transat, having finished 22nd in the 2015 edition.
He is now considering future options, and an announcement will be made in due course.