Schooldays plain sailing in picturesque west Cork

SCHOOL REPORT SCHULL COMMUNITY COLLEGE:Situated 100 yards from the coastline, the sea and sailing figure hugely at Schull CC. Richard Fitzpatrickreports

SCHULL, TRADITIONALLY a fishing village, is located on Mizen Head, one of the rugged, far-flung corners of West Cork. Its harbour incorporates 100 islands – indeed the Fastnet Rock rests eight miles offshore – and a sweep of open and sheltered waterways, which are ideal for year-round sailing.

The coastline lies about 100 yards from Schull Community College. In between is a marine outdoor centre. The school’s pupils have full access to its facilities, including a fleet of 80 boats, a gym and a workshop for boat repairs.

Given these ingredients, it’s no wonder Schull Community College, one of the more enlightened schools in the country, blazes a trail with its sailing curriculum.

In 1988, the school took out a small loan from the local credit union for the purchase of eight Topper sailboats, a bold move which, supplemented by support from the local community and the VEC, led ultimately to the opening of a marine centre in 1998.

Each first-year student in the school gets two full days of sailing in September. Later on, while in transition year, they have the option to take sailing. There are tougher stations in life: the school gap year consists of a few classes in the morning; then at 11.15pm, they toddle down to the shoreline to spend the rest of the day sailing, emerging at the end of the year, following successful assessment, with instructorship credentials, which are valid provided they’re 17 or older.

At the moment, some 70 of its students sail, half of them competitively. The national championships, which are held at the end of April, incorporate five qualifying schools each from Munster and Leinster and two each from Connacht and Ulster. Crosshaven, Kinsale, Gorey, Gonzaga and Blackrock are Schull’s main rivals, although all these schools’ sailing teams tend to be peopled by kids from sailing backgrounds in contrast to many from Schull’s team.

“The original philosophy was to provide the option for young people to sail who may not otherwise have that opportunity. I mean there’s no tradition at all of sailing in the Newman household or in the Moynihan household,” says Tim O’Connor, the school’s principal, gesturing towards a pair of his students, “and theyre two of our finest sailors in the college at the moment.”

An outlay of €100 will furnish the students with all they need for the year: the use of boats, coaching and sailing gear. Training is on Saturdays, which stretches out for the day.

“I suppose fatigue is the only thing that would bring you in, really; and darkness, or your mom booting the car-horn,” says O’Connor.

There are no serious injuries or broken bones to report, save the odd bruise or cut.

“A bang on the head from the boom makes you more aware,” assures Shane Newman, the school sailing team’s commodore.

Three things make a good sailor, they all agree: practice, practice and practice.

“The actual way you move in the boat, the way you do things, you’re continuously trying to make that better,” adds David Harte, the marine centre’s full-time coach. “It’s like a person dribbling a soccer ball between lots of cones. They do it, but they can do it better the next time. It’s the same manoeuvre, but you just try to make it more fluent so that you don’t stop in the middle of changing direction. Then as you do more and more of that, you start to build this other sense that you can feel things happening: the wind is changing direction; I know it is changing direction . . .

“It’s those instinctive people who get to the top end . It’s not like doing the 100 metres where you have to be athletic before you even start.

“Here you could go out without being fit at all and have great fun doing this sport, but if you go to the Olympics, it requires more fitness than any other sport because you’re using so many different muscles, and it requires explosive energy, but you’re also doing the marathon.

“You’re out there for five hours, possibly on a windy day, plus doing the explosive thing – changing direction. Then, the mental side is huge; not only are you doing all these manoeuvres, but mentally you have to be on top of it. It’s like playing chess on water.”

“There’s just you and the wind, that’s it,” says Katie Moynihan, aged 14, about the draw of sailing. “There’s no one telling you what to do.”

“Except Shane,” quips O’Connor.

On the day of this particular interview, the sea certainly doesn’t look very inviting. It’s a wild, blustery and cold day, which earlier graced Schull with the only snowfall O’Connor has seen stay on his car in 14 years living in the village.

“It is hard to describe the attraction. We go out and we get soaked, and the wetter it is,” says Newman, drawing out his words for emphasis, “the better it is.”

INSIDE TRACK

Name: Shane Newman

Age: 18

Sailing hero: David Harte, his coach, who sailed in the 1989 Whitbread Round the World race

Sailing titles: Irish Schools’ winner: 2005, 2008

Best sporting memory: Winning Irish Schools’ title at Crosshaven in 2008

Other sailing hero: Ellen MacArthur, who broke the world record for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the world in 2005. “The video footage of her during the race. At one stage she was up the mast doing repairs, something had broken. The height, the movement in the waves, trying to hold on would be hard enough. She was up there for something like four hours. Anything she does, she excels in. She still holds the track record in the TV show, Top Gear.”

Schull CC

Founded: 1983

Number of pupils: 420

Sports played: Badminton, basketball, Gaelic football, women’s football, ping pong, rugby and soccer

Sailing titles: Irish Schools’ winners every year since its inauguration in 2003; British Schools Dinghy Racing Association Team Racing winners, 2001; fourth in World U21s in Spain in 2007

Notable sailing past pupils: Revelin Minihane, full-time crew on Russell Coutts’s BMW Oracle boat for the next America’s Cup; Darragh O’Connor, the school principal’s son and captain of the Ireland team at this month’s World Team Racing Championships in Perth, Australia