The Boating Report: Actor Irons Dons Another Hat As a Sailor On The Ocean
by Herb McCormick, The New York Times
March 4, 2001
Famous for playing conflicted characters ranging from the disgraced socialite Claus von Bulow -- he won an Oscar for his portrayal in the 1990 film "Reversal of Fortune" -- to Humbert Humbert, the obsessed protaganist of the 1997 screen version of Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita," the British actor Jeremy Irons recently addressed another challenging role: ocean racer.
But this time, he wasn't acting.
Reared on the Isle of Wight, off which the first America's Cup race was contested, Irons has long listed small-boat sailing as a favorite pastime and he keeps his 29-foot ketch off Ireland's southwest coast. So when the chance arose to join the current BT Global Challenge, the British-based round-the-world race for amateurs who pay to participate, Irons decided to give offshore racing a try.
On Feb. 18, Irons joined the 16-person crew of LG Flatiron, the race's leader, for the roughly 1,100-mile fourth leg of the event from Wellington, New Zealand, across the Tasman Sea to Sydney, Australia. From all reports, Irons's dockside presence elicited a frenzy unseen in New Zealand since the British rock star Simon Le Bon of the band Duran Duran sailed there during a Whitbread race in the 1980's.
In a terrific ending to the race in Sydney Harbor, on Feb. 25 LG Flatiron was overtaken a half mile to the finish line and scored a second place for the leg, a mere 25 seconds behind the winning boat, BP.
Irons, who returned to England soon after the finish, was unavailable for an interview. But he did post a message on the event's Web site shortly after setting sail: "We hurtle on into darkness with me wishing I had the talent to paint this scene -- Yeats could have done it -- since somehow it seems to be the very essence of what we are doing."
"Sailing into an unknown future, relying on our boat and each other," he added. "Straining to get the most out of her and ourselves. A touch of madness and the touch of a miracle."