Olympic send-off for Mahaney

Let’s see. The last time a Bangor resident qualified to compete in the Summer Olympics was…. ummmm…. Nobody knows! Probably never!

So with Bangor’s own Kevin Mahaney headed to Barcelona, Spain, in a few weeks to lead the U.S. yachting team’s Soling charge, the city is responding in the only fashion it can think of. A group of Bangor citizens is throwing Mahaney a bon voyage party.

The send-off celebration for Mahaney, 30, will take place Monday from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at West Market Square. The Bangor Band will play. Hot dogs, popcorn, and refreshments will be available. And, generally, a big fuss is planned. All of which leaves Mahaney feeling:

“Honored and flattered and extremely embarrassed,” Mahaney said Thursday. “Actually, it’s pretty exciting.”

The party won’t last too late because Mahaney leaves at 6 a.m. Tuesday for Germany, where he and his crew in the three-man, 27-foot Olympic Soling craft – Jim Brady of Annapolis, Md., and Douglas Kern of Austin, Texas – will compete in two training regattas. Then, just to relax, Mahaney has accepted an invitation from renowned America’s Cup skipper Dennis Conner to sail on a 35-foot boat in the BMW Cup as Conner’s tactician.

“It’s just more match-racing experience,” explained Mahaney, who recently returned from a training regatta in Holland in which his “Team Exxon” finished third out of 60 craft. “To skipper a boat is like being a quarterback in the fray. If you watch from the sidelines, you see a lot more.”

Mahaney admitted, however, Conner is probably using the BMW regatta to scout talent for a future America’s Cup competition. And Mahaney’s talent has been established.

“I don’t have aspirations to be (in the America’s Cup),” said Mahaney. “But if the opportunity came along I would look at it.”

Mahaney said he and his Team Exxon crew are as ready for the Olympics as they can be, having sailed together for the past four years, never finishing out of the top six in several dozen competitions around the world. They won the U.S. Olympic Trials and the world championship match race in Cadiz, Spain, this year.

“After training for the last four years, you try not to change anything. It’s easy at the end sometimes to try and change a sail or the shape of the keel, but we don’t want to do that,” Mahaney said.