Irish Times

HEADLINE: Introduced thousands to the joys of sailing

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



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