Capt Eric Healy (76), who died suddenly in Dublin this week, was first master of the State's sail-training ships, including Asgard and Asgard II , and introduced thousands of young people from various socio-economic backgrounds to life at sea.
The Minister for the Marine, Mr Ahern, spoke for many when he paid tribute to his immense influence and said that Healy had made "an enormous contribution towards the development of Irish sail-training". His funeral took place yesterday on the day he was due to have left on a trip to the Antarctic.
In fact, close friends say he had planned to place a stone on the grave of the late Irish explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton, in South Georgia during that voyage to the Southern Ocean, which was by invitation only. It was a measure of his international reputation that he had been asked to participate in the Antarctic trip by the Cruising Club of America.
Born George Frederick Healy in Dublin on February 7th, 1927, Eric Healy's career path was influenced by his mother's occasional involvement in sailing and family memories of his great uncle, also G.F. Healy, who had been a captain on the Orient Line and subsequently a missionary.
The young Eric enrolled on a two-year merchant marine training course in 1943 at Thames Nautical Training College and served during that period on the famous tea clipper, the Cutty Sark. His first job as cadet was on the TSS Lanarkshire, which was bound from Scotland to Australia on one of the last ship convoys in the second World War.
As a ship's officer, he travelled the world and spent his leave back home as navigator on offshore racing events - most memorably on the Huff of Arklow , a 44ft sloop owned by Douglas Heard, who was to marry Healy's sister, Ruth. His first command was as master of the Southern Ocean, a mission ship built for the Bishop of Melanesia to transport him around his scattered diocese on the Solomon and New Hebrides islands in the western Pacific.
Many of the charts for the inshore waters were unreliable, and so Healy found himself making up his own during the five years that he served on the vessel. It was a task that required much ingenuity, skill and flexibility, for the ship often served as a floating ambulance and as a transport ferry for children attending boarding school.
When Coiste an Asgard was set up in 1968 to provide sail-training in Ireland, he was appointed skipper of the 51ft ketch Asgard, formerly owned by the late Erskine Childers, author of The Riddle of the Sands. The Asgard was used as the national sail-training vessel from 1969 to 1974, and Healy was closely involved in its conversion by naval architect Myles Stapleton, at Malahide Boatyard in north Dublin.
In 1972 the vessel completed one of its most memorable voyages, when it returned to the Baltic for a series of races and parades of sail, cruising the waters first plied by the vessel with Erskine and Molly Childers back in 1906.
Healy was also skipper of its successor, the Creidne, from 1975 to 1980 and took the vessel across the Atlantic to the US in 1976; the Naval Service seconded Lieut (now Cdr) Rory Costello, to assist in the transatlantic passages.
In 1981 Healy became first master of the State's purpose-built training brigantine, Asgard II , which was designed and built by the late Jack Tyrrell of Arklow, Co Wicklow. Once again, he was closely involved in this ship's fitting out
Thousands of Irish people from various social backgrounds undertook passages on the Asgard II, many of them under Healy's command until his retirement in 1987. He continued to be very actively involved with the sea as an examiner in the yachtmaster certificate for the Irish Sailing Association. He also undertook much voluntary work for the Missions to Seamen. Three years ago he published a book which he wrote with W.M. Nixon, sailing historian, on the history of Irish sail-training, entitled Asgard.
Healy was uniquely qualified to be the first skipper of sail-training in "pre-affluent Ireland", W.M. Nixon has said. "Sail-training would not have developed to such a stage on this island without his enthusiasm, decency and skill," he noted. He maintained contact with sailing through honorary membership of several yacht clubs, including the Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club, and was a close colleague of maritime journalists Arthur Reynolds and Tim Magennis. He was also involved in the recent campaign to have the Asgard restored.
Healy, a bachelor, is survived by his sisters, Jean Kelly and Ruth Heard, who has been a member of the Heritage Council and is actively involved in inland waterways.
Eric Healy: born February 7th, 1927; died, November 4th, 2003