Johnny Hooper

A Dublin solicitor, yachtsman Johnny Hooper was educated at Blackrock College before going to University College, Dublin and then the Law Society from where he qualified as a solicitor in 1959. Hooper’s father was a keen yachtsman and in 1947 young Johnny won the Irish Juvenile Championships in his father’s 12-foot dinghy Gillian. In 1953 Hooper beat the best dinghy sailors in Ireland to win the Helmsman’s Championship of Ireland.

Having just missed out on an Olympic place in 1956, Hooper and his friend Peter Gray finished third in the 1959 World 505 Championship and got selected for the Flying Dutchman class at the1960 Roma (Rome) Olympics. On the waters of the Bay of Naples, Hooper and Gray made history as the first Irish race winners in an Olympic sailing regatta when they took first place in race four. Their victory came at the expense of the Italians, who were disqualified for missing one of the turning marks. Hooper went to his second Olympics in 1964 in the one-person dinghy Finn Class.

Hooper and Gray travelled to the 1960 Roma Olympics overland in Hooper’s father’s Volkswagen Beetle, with their dinghy Three Leaves strapped to a roof rack. En route to Italy, they stopped off in England, Netherlands, and Germany to take part in regattas as part of their Olympic preparations.

Hooper had his legal practice, Hooper & Company in Dun Laoghaire for many years and was the president of the Dublin Solicitors Bar Association in the 1970s. After his competitive sailing career, Hooper helped coach and encourage young sailors and played a key role in the setting up of the National Yacht Club Junior Section. He was also responsible for introducing the small single Optimist dinghy class to Ireland. It was the craft of choice by youngsters the world over who were learning to sail.