Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern visits Green Dragon during the Volvo Ocean Race Galway stopover
During the Galway stopover of Volvo Ocean Race many Irish took an opportunity to see the Green Dragon in home port and welcome the team. Among most prominent visitors was former Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern who paid a morning visit to the Green Dragon last Sat, 30th of May.
The Green Dragon is currently in 5th overall position, after In-Port Racing last weekend and with 3 more legs to complete in the race. The boat will be up for sale once the Volvo Ocean Race 2008/2009 is completed and asking price is said to be in the region of 2.5 mil Euros. The other Volvo Open 70 that had changed owners for this race, Delta Lloyd, is said the have achieved the sale price of 1 mil Euros.
According to Louise McBride from Irish Independent, “it cost €4.5m to build the Green Dragon, and almost half of this was raised by the business syndicate called Shamrock Challenger.
Among those in the syndicate is Gerard O’Hare, the property developer who lured former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern onto the board of his Parker Green International.
Other syndicate members include the extraordinarily wealthy NTR chairman Tom Roche, CPL boss Anne Heraty and her husband Paul Carroll.
Bank of Ireland governor and well-known sailing enthusiast Richard Burrows has also thrown €100,000 into the pot, as has Gerard Barrett, the managing director of Edward Holdings, which owns the glitzy G Hotel in Galway and D Hotel in Drogheda.
Developers Jed Pierse of Pierse Construction, Michael Cotter of Park Developments, John O’Sullivan, the owner of the Galway Bay and Hodson Bay hotels, and Dublin Port Company boss Enda Connellan also helped to finance the boat.
Three Galway sailors are also financial backers - John Killeen, head of Oranmore’s Cold Chon, which manufactures road surfacing materials; the multi-millionaire builder Eamon Conneely, who owns Oyster Homes; and Enda O’Coineen, executive chairman of Kilcullen Kapital Partners, a private equity company operating in the Czech Republic.”
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