Lough Erne Yacht Club

News > Four Lady Commodores

Created: 6/24/2009 5:15:19 AM, Updated: 6/27/2009 4:49:07 AM

Our Commodore (acting) Mary Anne Sutton and a past LEYC Commodore, Declan Dooley ably represented the Club as Volvo guests at the Galway Volvo Ocean Race stopover.


Mary Anne is pictured here looking over the moored Volvo 70 fleet, during an exciting and interesting visit that included an opportunity to go afloat and view the racing.

Declan commented that mark roundings on Galway Bay were much as you would see often on Lough Erne, save that the boats were huge, highly technical and very fast. Indeed a Volvo 70 has twice the crew, is three times longer, four times faster on a plane, and a thousand times more expensive than a typical Erne J/24.

Galway excitement was emphasised by the Irish-Chinese entry Green Dragon finishing third in the race from Boston, her first podium place in the whole event. At the time of writing, the Volvo event is in its final stages on Baltic waters, with Puma set but not certain to emerge second overall. Her skipper, Ken Read, six-time J/24 world champion, including Ireland 1990, has LEYC connections.

Update - Ken Read's Puma team did finish second overall.
Details at http://www.volvooceanrace.org

Mary Anne’s predecessor as woman Commodore, ten years ago, Trudy Mannion, took her J/24 crew to a world championship in Annapolis USA, met Ken Read and bought a suit of sails off him. Sold on, they are still in use, hoisted on Tuesdays by the women on Jeriatrix. Others, including Patricia Pedersen, attended Ken Read’s race clinic in Howth. He also was in Ireland for match racing events.

For the record, Mary Anne is our fourth woman Commodore since the 1970s when the first commoners held that role – for a century and a half before all had titles or lived in castles. The second was Karen Fitsimmons, about 10 years before Trudy, and who crewed with Trudy in her J/24 Jamais.

The first, a lady of small stature but big presence, was the late Angel MacManus, a keen Fairy owner and helmswoman in the late 1970s. Her Commodore's Tankard and the MacManus Cup for team racing between Erne and Belfast Lough Fairies are among LEYC’s rich store of trophies.

Finally, a key historical point, women have been full members of LEYC since September 1895, in early suffragette times. They raced then in Colleen keelboats, very similar to today’s Yeoman keelboats.

In Honeybee with Declan, our Mary Anne continues that 114 year-old tradition.

Michael Clarke, LEYC Historian. Email history @ leyc.net