`Foghorn, fire blanket, steering compass, hammer, shroud cutter . . ." It is inventory time on the Tonic, a Glenans cruising boat. Although moored in Baltimore harbour, it is rolling and twisting in a force seven storm, and the rain is deluging out of the heavens. I am sitting in the small cabin with three French Glenans veterans - Daniel, Bruno and Martine - searching for all the items that are meant to be present and correct on the boat before it can be brought out on a proper trip. Their English is a bit rusty, so I can help them with the meaning of words like spanner and flare. But when it comes to shroud-cutter, all I can do is shrug (later I discover with some relief that in sailing parlance, shrouds are things which connect the mast and the deck). Every movement is awkward in my thick, yellow oilskins and firmly strapped bulky orange lifejacket. Eventually, overcome with biliousness, I have to sit outside on deck, where I begin to freeze. The rain and the waves immediately soak through my trainers.
The French are wearing wellingtons, of course, and joke happily among themselves as they bale out seven huge buckets of water. The two men wash the dishes and make tea as Martine (who comes from Grenoble) tells me about her three children who are being looked after by an au pair so that she can spend her week sailing.
"When they are 14 I will send them on a Glenans course. They will learn practical skills like navigating, but also life skills like helping other people and being responsible," she says. "It was for the same reason that my father sent me and my sister on a Glenans course when we were teenagers."
Glenans started in France 50 years ago as a rehabilitation centre for teenagers who had lived through the Nazi occupation of Paris. It was the brainchild of Phillippe Viannay (the founder of the French newspaper, Liberation), his wife Helene and other former Resistance workers.
"Viannay wanted a place where people could meet and belong again after the war," says Yvon Sellier, one of the 14 French Glenans veterans in Baltimore this week. "He and his wife discovered an exceptionally beautiful place, an archipelago called Les Glenans off the south west coast of Britanny, and they decided to start a holiday camp. They didn't think of it as a sailing club at first. They had no money. It was 1947. There were no boats, no petrol. Food was rationed. The army lent them some tents and a shipping company gave them some blankets."
This spirit of no-frills camping persists, as I notice to my chagrin when I arrive at the old railway station in which the Baltimore Glenans centre is located. Olivier, the smiling chef-de-base, tells me to find a bunk and put my sleeping bag on it as fast as I can, to secure a bed for the night. When I have found a bed in a room where three others are sleeping, he tells me the bathroom is in a different building. Meanwhile, a rotating group of three people is "on service" (they do a day's worth of kitchen work each). Instructors give their time voluntarily in return for a chance to sail.
"When Glenans started in France, sailing was an elitist thing to do for yachtsmen in their clubs," says Yvon. "Glenans has made sailing popular, affordable and democratic. We have even designed our own low-cost boats." There are 1,000 Glenans members in Ireland alone, and Yvon estimates that at least 200,000 people have done a Glenans course. There are Glenans courses throughout the world, but clubs only in Ireland and France. There have already been celebrations in France for the 50th anniversary, including the writing of a special song which the French perform for us, complete with guitar and song sheets. The anniversary is being celebrated in Ireland this week at the Baltimore base (there is another in Clew Bay) with a special Veterans' Week of sailing, which has attracted a mixture of French and Irish Glenans members, many of who first met after Glenans came to Ireland in 1969.
"I first came to Glenans in Ireland in 1976. I realised then what great place Ireland is for sailing," recalls Yvon. He believes there is a special Celtic connection between Britanny and Ireland.
"Glenans is a place where you meet people from different backgrounds," adds Louise McKenna, who is on the Veterans' course, and is married to the manager of Glenans in Ireland, Bob Hobby. It is a hatching ground for romance: "Some people call it a middle-class marriage market," laughs Caroline Liddy, another Irish veteran. "A lot of people meet their partners through Glenans," says Louise. "I did, so did Dermot Burke (one of the instructors on the Veterans' Week) and about a third of the other Irish members I know. It makes sense. You both like doing the same kind of thing." She also likes the egalitarian spirit of Glenans, where both men and women do the cooking and all the chores on the boats, including such heavy tasks as pulling up the anchor.
Later another instructor, Joe Rooney - looking every inch a sea dog with his grey beard and broad grin - asks the veterans what they want out of the course. "Fun!" "Good Sailing!" "A go on the hooker!" are some of the replies, and there is much mirth as the two meanings of hooker are explained to the French.
During the early days of Glenans in Ireland, Louise recalls, the instructors were French, and the routine was rather too strict for the Irish members: "Eventually the French copped on that the Irish like sailing but they also like going to the pub and having parties. The Irish sail hard, socialise hard and go home wrecked." Sure enough, on the first night of the course, all the veterans (and the members of a beginners' course which has also just started) congregate in Bushe's pub. The French, after having a pint or two, make their way home early, but the Irish are the last to leave. "Do you remember in the 1970s we were all wearing Aran jumpers," recalls Louise. "Nowadays it's all fleeces."
Next day the veterans are undeterred by the wind and pouring rain (which Olivier describes as "a soft day"). They have great laughs practising their knots (figure eight, bowline, close hitch and half hitch), tying ropes around each other and having tugs-of-war. Olivier gives them a pep talk on safety (remember the crotch strap on your life-jacket, and if someone falls into the sea, shout "Man overboard!").
The French are smoking like troopers. Most people confess that they don't know how to scull, a form of rowing. Joe Rooney warns them about the rocks in Baltimore harbour, some of which are known appropriately as the Lousy Rocks. Then it's into the oilskins (which are apparently very hard to come by in Paris), on with the lifejackets and out into the wind and weather.
Glenans runs one-week sailing courses for all levels of experience throughout the summer in Baltimore. Courses on windsurfing, dingy and catamaran sailing operate from Collanmore, Clew Bay. Information from 01 661 1481
