As the Formula One season unfolds, BOAT pays tribute to the late Eddie Jordan – a man who shaped motorsport history, lit up the yachting world and leaves behind a legacy as unforgettable as the stories he told.
Remembering a friend
By Stewart Campbell, Global Editor in Chief at BOAT International
I remember screenshotting my first text exchange with Eddie Jordan back in 2014 and excitedly sending it to my parents. It was pretty prosaic stuff from my side, asking for a quick call to discuss a potential column idea in BOAT. His immediate response was very Eddie, repeated here verbatim: “Hi Stewart , sailing off Port Cros SoF , I screwed up with our planned call , I ’ll call tomz or Mon Ej”. He led a life of barely controlled chaos – but always made time for BOAT.
As well as his column, he played with his band, the Robbers, at countless BOAT International parties, appeared in our video quizzes during the low Covid-19 years and never failed to make an introduction on our behalf. He knew everyone. If I needed to reach someone in F1, or music, or aboard some boat anchored off Monaco, he always made the link. “Tell them Eddie sent you,” he’d say.
Over a decade we became friends; I met his family and he met mine – and he would always enquire after them. Even when he got sick, and through the fog of chemo, he’d pick up the phone and recount some amazing and often unrepeatable story about a scrape he’d gotten himself into and invariably out of.
He loved his “Lippy from the Liffey” column and constantly asked me to tell him if it was getting stale. That never happened because there was always another story. It made him seem eternal, which is why the news of his death hit me – and plenty of others – like a brick. It just doesn’t seem possible that Eddie is not out there, fizzing and sparking and causing mischief.
We spoke every month but the last time I saw Eddie was during the Monaco Yacht Show. He was in Princess Grace hospital for another round of treatment and as I sat by his hospital bed, with everything he was going through, all he wanted to know was how the show was going and whether everything was OK at BOAT. He had a huge heart. To his amazing wife, Marie, and four children, Zoe, Miki, Zak and Kyle, we offer our deepest condolences. Fair winds, EJ.
A tribute from the Editor
By Caroline White, Editor at BOAT International
Eddie Jordan discovered Ayrton Senna, gave Michael Schumacher his debut and built a Formula 1 career with as many breakneck turns, dramatic fails and unlikely wins as a Grand Prix. Particularly at the beginning, many of his most impressive achievements were made with little more than tenacity, a good eye and an abundance of personal charm. And unsurprisingly for anyone who knew him, his “retirement” was as fruitful as his working life had been.
With more time on his hands, Eddie’s yachting passion had space to grow – and as a happy side-effect, he became a much-loved columnist for BOAT International for more than a decade. A long way from the Lasers he raced as a youth in the aptly named Frostbite Series in Dublin Bay, Jordan latterly owned the 27-metre Oyster Lush (he served on the board of directors for Oyster Yachts from 2018 to 2021, later becoming a brand ambassador).
Although he also kept the Sunseeker 155 Blush, it was sailing that had his heart. As he put it, “I like being hands-on, and being hands-on where a big motor yacht is concerned is not always easy, since you’re surrounded by professional people looking after you. Occasionally I want to do a bit of work, you know? Get the spinnaker down, or take a watch.”
To this end, he sold both boats and in 2018 bought a new Blush (ex-Helios), a 45-metre Perini Navi, which he ran with typical bonhomie. “We like to let the crew swim and enjoy the boat and feel part of the party,” he said.
And where Eddie was, the party followed. His columns for this magazine were peppered with glamorous (and often scandalous) digressions old and new. The F1 bosses used to race their jets back from the Med circuits to their Oxfordshire homes. “[Flavio] Briatore used to change his jets every week!” – although less congenial was the time he hitched a lift on Bernie Ecclestone’s plane from Japan to London via Siberia, consuming only nuts: “There was no food on board because Bernie refused to pay for it to be cleaned.”
Between crudités and rosé at Le Club 55 and checking out Octopus’s onboard recording studio with Bono, he was racing in the Perini Navi Cup, presenting Top Gear or having his hearing checked with Roger Taylor from Queen.
“None of the older F1 guys can hear well – they all refused to use earplugs in the early days. Musicians are the same.” His own band, Eddie and the Robbers (he was on drums), played a panoply of high-profile events around the world – including the annual BOAT International party at the Monaco Yacht Show.
But through it all, his generosity of spirit was evident. He was a long-time supporter of the charity Young Lives vs Cancer and encouraged other owners to act for good – for example, by moving his yacht’s planned winter work to Antigua to contribute to the local economy after the devastation of Hurricane Irma (at a time when many were giving the Caribbean a wide berth).
Eddie was the life and soul of the party, but he’d probably stay to help you clear up afterwards. He will be deeply missed by the yachting community.
A note on Eddie Jordan's BOAT International column
Eddie Jordan wrote his first column for this magazine in October 2014, and over the years filed some 127 dispatches about his endless adventures on land, sea and air. In that first column, he wrote, among anecdotes about sinking his tender in Jost Van Dyke and dancing on tables in Anjuna: “The three passions in my life are motor racing, music and sailing. I’ve had the chance to do all three of them in this life, so I’m very lucky.”
But you make your own luck, and Eddie did that in spades, through his entrepreneurship, lust for life and knack for knowing a good deal when he saw one. He lived life in fifth gear, an approach perhaps summed up best by this sentence in his final column, printed in the April 2025 issue: “Time flies and you don’t get a second chance. The meter only goes forwards. When they eventually lay me down to rest, I would like to think there’s not much that I haven’t done.”
I hope, after reading this column for over a decade, you can agree that Eddie did it all. – Stewart Campbell
“The meter only goes forwards” – Eddie Jordan’s final column for BOAT International
Fortune favours the brave, says Eddie Jordan, so break free from the scrum and start scoring tries… or, better still, just buy the whole damn club...
You might have seen in the press that I’ve bought the historic London Irish Rugby Club with my son, Killer (real name Kyle), and a business partner. I’ve got a long connection with the club and my daughter, Miki, used to work there. The club went into administration in 2023 and I’m excited about the potential to revive it.
I’m a deal junkie. I can’t stop myself. I love this kind of stuff. I act on impulse and see what happens. I even spoke to Keith Richards about it and a few other people, but ultimately it came down to two words: fuck it. I apologise for the language, but it neatly sums up a lot of my decision making. Should I get into Formula 1? Fuck it. Should I buy an Oyster and sail around the world? Fuck it. I’m a risk taker and always have been so who knows what’s going to happen with London Irish? We’ll have a crack and see how we get on.
I never really know what I’m going to do next. It’s a bit of a roller coaster. I wouldn’t want to be married to me! Thankfully I’ve always had a very supportive partner in Marie. I remember coming home to her and saying I wanted to buy a new Oyster 885 and she said, “What’s that?” Ultimately she understood, as she knew it was on my wish list. I was approaching 60, I was done with Formula 1, the kids had grown up, so when else was I going to do this? Time flies and you don’t get a second chance. The meter only goes forwards. When they eventually lay me down to rest, I would like to think there’s not much that I haven’t done.
This approach used to make my mother tear her hair out. I left a nice, comfortable job at the bank and chanced my arm, defying all the rules and regulations my mother had taught me to observe, but I pushed all those to one side and I’ve built a pretty good life for me and my family. Marie has been with me the whole way. When I came home and told her I was going to buy London Irish, she simply said: “Good luck”.
At least I’ve got a bit of form when it comes to owning sports teams. I used to own a pretty decent chunk of Celtic FC with Denis O’Brien and Dermot Desmond. That club is very close to my heart and I was very happy to see them go so far in the Champions League. I thought they put in a great performance against a huge team like Bayern Munich. I always like being the underdog and backing the underdog.
It was the same in F1. I knew that a lot of the time my drivers would be at the back of the grid but I told everyone they just had to perform to the best of their ability and sometimes you get lucky. We punched above our weight for years and developed some amazing talent that went on to dominate the sport.
I loved seeing Sir Chris Hoy coming out onto the pitch at the start of the Six Nations game between Ireland and Scotland recently. He’s a truly amazing guy and I have some understanding of what he is going through, given my ongoing battle with cancer. He looked pretty bloody good, I must say! I’m still having chemo and it knocks me for six but, like Chris, I’m very happy to share this with people.
Even if it inspires a few of the menfolk out there to go get a prostate screening, it will have been worth it. Just build it into your life, get it done every year or even every six months. There’s no harm in it, and it might avoid some nasty outcomes. So what’s your excuse? Book that test today!
– Published in the April 2025 edition of BOAT International.