Barcelona beckons

Sailing Column: It was, by all accounts, Damian Foxall's most daunting voyage so far.

But photographed wearing shorts and shades and tucking into chocolate, the modest Kerryman would be uneasy with the suggestion that his achievements in the past three months merit serious mention beside those of Tom Crean.

Cool and calm, and with 280,000 miles of offshore contests under his belt, Foxall has seen it all. Even by his standards, however, this weekend's closing stages of the Barcelona Round the World race will be stressful.

Wait long enough for the wind to change and just about anything can happen. It may well be that today's 89th day of racing will be the longest for both Foxall (38) and his French partner Jean Pierre Dick (42) on Paprec-Virbac 2.

Winds have freshened with under 600 miles of the 33,000-mile course to go, and now they must be concerned that the 500­mile lead over their second-placed rivals, Hugo Boss, will come under serious pressure even as the finish line beckons.

This weekend Irish sailing gets the chance to salute Foxall's seventh circumnavigation of the planet and - if it has any sense - capitalise on a story of endurance that, at the very least, casts the Caherdaniel man as Ireland's greatest sailing explorer.

Win or lose, Foxall has earned an international reputation as a steady hand offshore. He has become a hero for Irish sailing and one the sport badly needs.

Foxall's results have been no flash in the pan, but his achievements over the past decade passed without much notice at home. Five years ago Ireland had a place on global sailing's podium when Foxall was third with Karine Fauconnier in Sergio Tacchini in the 5,500-mile Jacques Vabre classic from Le Havre in France to Bahia, Brazil.

He was part of Ellen McArthur's crew that surfed across the Jules Verne start line in March that same year, breaking Bruno Peyron's world record.

He was a member of Steve Fossett's record-breaking team on the massive Catamaran Playstation in 2004. He was adopted by the French singlehanders' community after becoming the first non-French skipper to win a leg of the gruelling Solitaire du Figaro.

In a weekend that will be dominated by rugby, far away from the Stade de France, there is likely to be a victory on water for a France-Ireland partnership.

It will also be Foxall's first major title.

The international sailing community is standing by to applaud it, and so must we.