The death of Ken Ryan of Dun Laoghaire at the age of 88 really does mark the end of an era, as he successfully bridged the divide between amateur and professional administrations through his own self-effacing yet untiring voluntary qualities, which served to disguise a formidable organiser whose first interest was in finding and encouraging unseen talent in others.

He had already been sailing for many years when, in 1968, he was invited to join the team measuring the Olympic Finn Class when they arrived at the National YC for their Europeans. By this time his efforts with his brother Bryan in building their business machine enterprise were bearing fruit, and Ken had room for other interests. As he said himself: “Holding a tape for the first time around a world-class Finn was the spark for an added new direction in life”.

Ken was a lifelong sailor whose first competitive experience was in the Dublin Bay Mermaid Class, where he raced Endeavour for many years. In a solid National YC tradition, he moved on to some years of crewing the Dublin Bay 21 Geraldine (currently being re-built at Kilrush Boatyard), and then under his own command, he raced the Flying Fifteen Tina in a group in which his brother Bryan was one of the moving forces.

The Mermaids were the first class in which Ken Ryan experienced competitive sailing

However, Ken himself was at the centre of the introduction of the Ruffian 23 to Dublin Bay, where he enjoyed sailing Rila with the growing class. But by that time his international sailing administration involvement was also playing a major role in his life, for it was during a visit to Canada in 1971 that he had seen his first Laser, and he was instantly smitten. Almost immediately he was promoting the idea that the Laser had the potential to be an Olympic class with the capacity for truly universal popularity, and though it took until 1996 before the Laser acquired its Olympic mantle, ever since Ken Ryan’s perceptive early assessment it has been seen as central to sailing development.

Back in 1971 in conjunction with the IDA and working with fellow Dun Laoghaire sailor Johnny Ross Murphy, Ken negotiated the deal for a new European manufacturing plant for Lasers in Waterford. Quality approval was at a very high level before boats could leave Ireland for international sale, and inevitably in the early production stages some boats failed to make the cut, even though the very minor blemishes which were the cause of this were often invisible to casual observers.

As these cosmetically-flawed boats qualified as Lasers in measurement terms, they were offered as “seconds” to Irish sailors, and thus the availability of significantly-discounted new Lasers from Waterford resulted in the extremely rapid growth of the class throughout Ireland, moving it into a position of popular strength that is now greater than ever after fifty years.

Laser action. From the time he saw his first Laser in Canada in 1971, Ken Ryan was convinced they had the makings of a universally-popular Olympic class.

But even while this welcome development was taking place at home, Ken Ryan’s wings were being spread abroad, and he was part of the management of the Irish Olympic Team from 1972 onwards, playing an active role in nine Olympiads, and in due course becoming Secretary-General of the Olympic Council of Ireland.

Of these nine games – the last being at Athens in 2004 where he was Chairman of the Sailing Jury -- the most challenging was 1980 in Russia. The Russians were under international opprobrium for invading Afghanistan, while the sailing venue was Tallinn, which many thought was a high-handed gesture as - properly speaking - it was in Estonia, which was to remain under Russian rule until 1989.

Like the IOC Chairman, fellow Irishman Lord Killanin, Ken was convinced that the Games should go ahead as he felt that a sudden withdrawal would make a bad political situation even worse. But in order to see it through, he himself had to go to what was then the Soviet Union as Chef d’Equipe for the entire Irish Olympic Team 1980, fulfilling so many roles that he found himself having to be the flag-bearer for Ireland in the Olympic Parade at the Opening Ceremony in Moscow.

This was so at variance with his preferred role of focused committee work, and behind-the-scenes team support activity, that we can only guess at the stress in which this briefly high-profile position placed him. Yet he took it calmly – indeed, on hearing a forecast that the Opening Ceremony would be battered by continuous rain, he took the precaution of wearing a waterproof dry-cleaning suit under his Olympic uniform to keep himself as dry as possible in a ceremonial which dragged on for four deluge-afflicted hours.

But as the Games proceeded, both he and Michael Killanin had the satisfaction of a flying visit to Tallinn to see David Wilkins and Jamie Wilkinson get the Silver Medal for Ireland in the Flying Dutchman class, and in due course Ken’s untiring work on behalf of the Olympic ideal was to receive several highly-regarded awards.

Silver Medals from IOC Chairman Lord Killanin for David Wilkins and Jamie Wilkinson

His quiet capacity for very effectively carrying significant responsibilities steadily achieved increasing international recognition, and he officiated at two of the greatest stagings of the America’s Cup, at Newport Rhode Island in 1983 when John Bertrand of Australia finally succeeded (after some ferocious start-making coaching from Ireland’s Harold Cudmore) in wresting The Auld Mug from the Americans after 132 years. They’d been skippered by Dennis Conner, and when in 1967 Ken Ryan was back on official duties in Perth for the return match, Conner took it back again in the demolition derby series raced in 12 Metres in the big onshore winds experienced at Perth in the hot West Australian summers.

In addition to all this high profile activity, Ken Ryan found himself as Secretary of the global International Olympic Finn Association, which as one observer remarked, involved the continuous smoothing of the feathers of more prima donnas than you’d get at the biggest opera festival, but Ken was the man for the job.

Indeed, so widely spread were his talents and influence on the worldwide sailing and sporting scene that some observers reckoned there must be at least half a dozen Ken Ryans on the go, as he somehow found the time to be Vice President of the International Sailing Federation (formerly the International Yacht Racing Union founded 1907, and now World Sailing) from 1998 to 2004, after serving on various specialist committees in addition to the General Council.

In the midst of all his international activities, Ken Ryan played a key role in introducing the Ruffian 23 to Dublin Bay. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien

As another of Ireland’s international sailing administrators admiringly commented this week, Ken was the “ultimate politico”. He fondly remembers: “I was at some of the ISAF election meetings where Ken knew precisely how everyone in the room was going to vote, probably because he had given them their riding orders prior to the election….He kept track on a well-worn piece of paper that he took from his pocket from time to time in a very telling sort of way”.

Yet throughout it all, whether at home or abroad, he continued to be the same Ken Ryan who worked in his brother’s pioneering business equipment business, and sailed his boat at his home port with quiet pleasure when he could. He treated everyone the same, and kept so closely in touch with the Irish sailing scene that at the height of his international activities he was also a welcome and entertaining member – he’d a wicked sense of humour - of the Adjudicating Panel for the Afloat.ie “Irish Sailor of the Year” award.

It was at such times that you realised the extent of his international influence and contacts. Thus when he turned up in Ireland with some figure of international sailing renown, the response on the Dun Laoghaire waterfront would be: “Have you seen who Ken has brought here now?” Yet if you were abroad at some gathering of genuinely powerful international sailing administrators and Ken entered the room accompanied by someone else, half the time the question from the foreign participants would be: “Who’s that with Ken Ryan?”

“The ultimate politico” – Ken Ryan’s ‘everyman’ appearance disguised the presence of a formidable operator

The breadth of his contacts was revealed in 2003 when Anglo-Irish relations were becoming more friendly, and in the broader national and international political context it was wondered if the UK’s Princess Royal – a noted sailor – might test the waters by coming to Dublin to present the “Sailor of the Month” and “Sailor of the Year” awards. Somewhere in some discreet backroom negotiation, it was Ken Ryan who played the key role through personal acquaintance in ensuring that it happened, and very effectively too.

Yet throughout it all, his greatest personal pleasure in every aspect of sailing was probably his ability to spot talent, and encourage it in every way. His interest in people and activities outside himself was like a force of nature, and not least of his many successes was his encouragement of Con Murphy and Cathy MacAleavey and their family from their earliest days afloat.

As for his own family life, his long, happy and supportive marriage to Margaret was the very bedrock of his extraordinarily productive, well-lived and generous existence, with their four children David, Judy, Philip and Gillian sharing the interest in water-related sports. At this sad time, our thoughts are with them as we recall a truly great man.

“The Home Place” – in distant places through long hours of international sailing negotiations, Ken Ryan said he’d be sustained by pleasant thoughts of Ruffian 23s moored off Dun Laoghaire’s National Yacht Club.

Afloat.ie regrets to record the death on Saturday night in Dublin of Ken Ryan, one of Ireland's leading contributors to global sailing administration. In addition to years of service to club and national
sailing bodies in this country, he was Vice President of the world sailing authority from 1998 to 2004, and also served as international secretary of the Olympic Finn Class in its years as the peak of global solo dinghy sailing.

A full appreciation of Ken Ryan's unique input to sailing administration will appear in Afloat in due course, in the meantime, our heartfelt condolences are with his family and his many friends at home and throughout the world.