Along the Atlantic seaboard and up in the hills, they call them high stool days. Such days are with us when the weather is so thrawn that a particularly harsh period is best spent in agreeable indoor surroundings, with good company if you so wish. Yet although the early part of the current season has at times had more than its fair share of less-than-perfect sailing conditions, every so often there have been days - usually one but sometimes two – when everything has been in alignment, providing blissful sailing and the vivid memories that will dominate the recollections of this developing summer.

For the word from some Met sources is that we may be about to experience the reverse of last year’s conditions. In 2023, late May and the first three weeks of June were good weatherwise, but as June drew to a close, the shutters came down and there were only the briefest spells of decent weather until something more normal returned in September.

GOOD WEATHER CAN BE MIXED BLESSING

Now, however, we hear that some meteorological models are indicating that it will continue unsettled for another couple of weeks, but then it will start to get better. Which may seem fine and dandy, but it can mean that evening racing in particular often peters out in a warm calm. And with the time-honoured evening racing programmes a backbone of our club sailing world, good weather can become a mixed blessing.

BUSY NEWS FROM CROSSHAVEN

Nevertheless at the moment the news is good and there’s an upbeat attitude, with the Royal Cork YC notably reporting a surge in their Thursday evening cruiser-racer fleets at Crosshaven, while they’ve a high quality and varied entry in place for Volvo Cork Week in five weeks’ time.

Making the best of one of 2024’s good weekend evenings – Sally O’Keeffe being a West Cork towel sail yawl in North Harbour, Cape Clear. Photo: James Devane

Meanwhile as Spring unevenly becomes early Summer, while difficult weather meant we had the shortening of Kinsale YC’s Inistearaght Race to take the turn at the dentally-challenged Bull Rock instead, and an ISORA Race was blown out altogether, nevertheless the points are a-building for those local classes enthusiastic enough to get their sailing going when late Spring had seemed determined to stay in mid-winter.

Among such challenging gaps, there were some wonderfully clear periods, and there was one of them for the delivery cruise of the little 25ft Shannon Hooker Sally O’Keeffe from Kilrush to Baltimore on May 18th, well in time for the Wooden Boat Festival there in the last weekend of May.

Sally O’Keeffe voyages from the Shannon to Baltimore

BALTIMORE WOODEN BOAT FESTIVAL

One of the highlights of that gathering was the talk by Cormac Levis of Ballydehob about The Richard. Cormac Levis is a one-man knowledge repository and ideas machine for the benefit of traditional and classic boats in West Cork, and he gave an excellent outline of why The Richard was so important.

The Richard in her prime, on Regatta Day at Sherkin

When she was built in 1948 by Paddy Hegarty at Oldcourt on the Ilen River, her construction brought a new direction and location for a craft industry which continues today with Paddy’s grandson Liam. The recent output includes the Conor O'Brien phase ignited by Gary MacMahon with the restoration of the 56ft trading ketch Ilen of 1926 vintage, and the building for Fred Kinmonth of the new Saoirse, replicating the 42ft ketch which was in process of circling the world south of the great Capes exactly a century ago.

DERMOT KENNEDY’S ASGARD II VISION

The Richard was a working ketch whose best-known period was under the ownership of Dermot Kennedy of Baltimore, whose visions for Irish sailing were such that the ideas he enunciated for the new Irish sail training ship Asgard II way back in 1972 were seen to have been almost exactly implemented when she was finally sailing in 1981.

This powerful vision was clarified in various discussions during a cruise-in-company around Carbery’s islands for a lengthy visit to Cape Clear and then a wedding on Sherkin, with Dermot and the usual eclectic selection of friends and shipmates on The Richard showing what could be done with a squaresail in confined harbour manoeuvring, while we were on a spot of family cruising with the Galion 22 Ringhaddy, one of the cleverest and most gallant little boats of her day, and still a good ’un.

THE RICHARD DISAPPEARS TO THE AZORES

In Dermot’s ownership, The Richard was cruised extensively, and then he sold her in the late 1980s to a man who got as far as the Azores, but then seems to have run out of energy and resources. Thus when Liam Hegarty went to the islands in 1994 on family duty in search of this pioneering vessel which had started the contemporary Oldcourt story, it emerged that the island authorities had lost patience with an abandoned ship encumbered with unpaid bills, and all traces of The Richard had disappeared.

The Galion 22 Ringhaddy and the ketch Richard “slightly dried out” at North Harbour, Cape Clear, July 1972. Photo: W M Nixon

Doing it in style – Dermot Kennedy brings The Richard into North Harbour under the square topsail. Photo: W M Nixon

Knowing just when to strike the topsail is crucial when running under sail only into a confined space like North Harbour. Photo: W M Nixon

Work time. Dermot Kennedy using the island phone on Cape Clear to keep tabs on his West Cork business empire while cruising the islands in The Richard. Photo: W M Nixon

Off to the island wedding – Dermot Kennedy (second right) setting the pace on Sherkin, with the Richard anchored in the cove. Photo: W M Nixon

An island wedding on Sherkin can attract a global attendance. Photo: W M Nixon

The happy bride on Sherkin

Back in July 1972, the island wedding on Sherkin was recorded on film by the late Eamonn de Buitlear from atop a farm cart, with an assistant to hold the camera tripod in place. Photo: W M Nixon

Close quarter sailing with The Richard through the sounds of Carberry’s Hundred Isles, Dermot Kennedy in profile just forward of the mizzen mast. Photo: W M Nixon

Aboard The Richard in a breeze, with Georgina Campbell on the helm. The lacing on the mizzen luff was always Work in Progress. Photo: W M Nixon

The Richard coming through the northwest entrance to Baltimore Harbour in July 1972. Once upon a time. we’d have said this was a sight we’ll never see again. But after the re-creation of Conor O'Brien’s Saoirse, surely all things are possible?

FASTNET ROCK AND NORTH HARBOUR CAPE CLEAR

But the effects of her building lives on in other boats, and while Sally O’Keeffe’s design is developed from Shannon traditions, she shows the same robust transom-stern hull concept. Then when she used last weekend’s superb weather (particularly on Saturday) to circle the Fastnet (getting our magic header pic) and have an overnight at North Harbour on Cape Clear, the Seol Sionna crew set up a tent arrangement over her open cockpit to emulate the local tradition of mackerel-fishing towel-sail yawls, where “towel” is an adaptation of the Irish word for shelter, and not an eccentric use of bathroom fabrics.

Intense summer for GP14 Leinsters at Howth, with serial championship winner Sean Craig (Royal St George YC) adding another notch to his belt. Photo: HYC

NEW MELGES 15 FLEET AT HOWTH

Meanwhile on the other side of Ireland, last weekend’s marvellous weather provided ideal condition for an historic time at Howth. There, having only just recovered from staging the three-day Wave Regatta, they hosted the GP 14 Leinsters with serial boat championship winner Sean Craig of Dun Laoghaire taking the honours (it’s easier now to list the classes in which he hasn’t won), while at the same time as Howth Yacht Club’s new fleet of fifteen Melges 15s arrived ready to be unwrapped in a successful initiative steered by Cormac Farrelly.

OFFSHORE ACTION

With ISORA, this weekend sees a classic – the Holyhead-Rockabill-Dun Laoghaire. However, last season’s champion, Paul O’Higgins JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI (RIYC), had been sitting it out in much of the offshore stuff this year (though she’s now entry Number 53 in the Round Ireland in two weeks time) but powerfully demonstrated his commitment to the inshore scene with a win in DBSC on Thursday, and doubtless after the Round Ireland she’ll catch breath and then spread her wings with Volvo Cork Week in July and Calves Week at Schull in August.

Paul O’Higgins’ JPK 10.80 ROckabill VI is Entry 53 in the SSE Renewables Round Ireland race 2024 in a fortnight’s time. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien

GETTING THE FLEET TO CORK

To get the fleets south and west, ISORA are committed to full support of the Kingstown to Queenstown Race on July 12th, which is anachronistically named in this style as that’s the way it was first sailed way back in 1860.Thus it’s one of the oldest passage races in the world, and was sailed from Dublin Bay to Cork Harbour three times in the 1860s.

THE BIG ONE ON JUNE 22nd

Before the K2Q, there is the big one, the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race (now with 58 entries) from Wicklow on June 22nd. Our focus will be almost totally zooming in on that through the next two weeks, but its start just happens to be plumb in the middle of the weekend when some weather gurus say the real summer is going to arrive. This will be viewed with mixed feelings by the old hands, as they know only too well that good weather and light winds along the Atlantic coasts make for excruciatingly slow progress.

THE WORD ON THE WATERFRONT

The word on the waterfront among the old salts who have raced the ocean coasts in winds strong and light is that even in strong winds with the boat zipping along, the coastal scenery (if you can see it) is on such a majestic scale that you scarcely seem to be moving. So in light airs you have to be instrument-glued to believe you’re moving at all.

BERMUDA RACE GETS WARMER ALL THE TIME

This is one of the challenges of racing around a land-mass, whereas a true ocean race puts the focus on the boat without such distractions. Ironically the day, before the Round Ireland, across the pond the 636 mile CCA/RBYC Newport-Bermuda Race gets going on Friday June 21st, and it very quickly puts the fleet out of sight of land as they set off across the Gulf Stream in search of the elusive Onion Patch.

A gas man - Kenny read getting in the sprit of things at the Volvo World Race stopover in Galway in 2012. On Friday June 21st he’ll be leading the commentary team for the new spectator-friendly start of the biennial Newport-Bermuda Race. Photo: VWR

Those who have thought the biennial Bermuda Race was always 635 miles are quite right, but this year – partly inspired by the in-harbour start of the Sydney-Hobart - they’ve added an extra mile to start in Newport Harbor at Fort Adams for spectator interest, and with Kenny Read on the commentary team, there’ll be meaningful general spectator interest for the first time.

For decades, the start of the Newport-Bermuda Race was immediately seaward of Newport, Rhode Island’s natural harbour, and every mile sailed took the fleet south towards warmer waters Photo: CCA/Daniel Forster

The Royal Bermuda YC marina with the Newport-Bermuda fleet in port, basking in sub-tropical conditions. Photo: CCA

But the USP of the Bermuda Race continues to be the fact that it gets into warmer climes every mile of the way. The Fastnet Race and the Round Ireland both involve significant distances sailing in higher latitudes than their starting line. And the Sydney-Hobart is pure murder, as you’re bashing along towards Antarctica every inch of the way. But the Bermuda Race starts in the agreeable summer weather of New England at Rhode Island, and concludes in the sub-tropical climate of Bermuda.

Thus one of the challenges – every bit as demanding as your racing sails selection – is hitting on the right cut and length for your essential-for-cooling Bermuda shorts. An experience - now some years ago admittedly – of staying in the New York Yacht Club discovered that they expect you to wear a necktie for breakfast, (plus of course jacket, shirt, trousers and shoes, though one member assured us socks were optional).

It takes confidence to wear Breton red Bermuda shorts with style, but after winning the top trophies in the Newport-Bermuda Race 2022 with the Pac 52 Warrior Won, owner Chris Sheehan (centre) is on target. Photo: CCA

The Irish response, when eligible, is to wear the Royal Cork YC tie, as the Royal Cork’s ancestral Water Club was founded 124 years before the NYYC came into being in 1844. But any links to the Royal Cork are of little use in hitting the right note with your Bermuda shorts in the Royal Bermuda YC, so naturally we got to thinking: What would Captain Thomas Fleming Day have done?

Thomas Fleming Day’s 38ft Tamerlane, winner of the first Bermuda Race in 1906, when the general opinion in the sailing establishment was that you need a boat at least 80ft long to race confidently to Bermuda from the New England coast.

But any formal photos of the Editor of The Rudder magazine, who was the key figure in staging the first Bermuda Race from the US in 1906 (with the gallant support of the Royal Bermuda YC), tend to show a serious person for whom such trivia as the details of menswear would have been of little interest.

But Thomas Fleming Day merits more study. The name seems pure American WASP (though “Day” might have Irish origins way back), yet he was born in the rather non-nautical shire of Somerset in England in 1861, but his formative years were spent on the shores of Long Island Sound as his parents emigrated to America whole he was a young boy.

So he became ultra-American - and boat-bonkers with it - throughout his 66 years which ended when he died in Harlem in New York in 1927. He was opinionated and drew the attention of supporters and opponents with equal zeal, but the usual formal photos of the era make it difficult to imagine an easy-going interest in male attire.

ONE COOL DUDE

But then we stumbled on this unusually informal pic of Tom Fleming Day in relaxed mode on a beach. It’s astonishing for the time. This is one cool dude. He could wear anything with style. But his Breton-red Bermuda shorts would inevitably be well weathered to a very pale pink shade. And they would be strangers to a Corby hosenbugler.

One cool dude. Thomas Fleming Day defied the expectations of his time afloat and ashore

A 143-year-old, unique wooden boat, the only one of its kind in the world, is heading for the Crosshaven Traditional Sail festival.

Maintaining traditional boats is demanding, and when it’s the only one of its kind in the world, the last of what was once a fleet of a thousand vessels, it is even amazing that it can be actively sailing. But so it is, and it’s on a ‘living heritage’ voyage linking the ancient Celtic lands – Cornwall, Scotland, Wales and Ireland – which will bring it to Crosshaven Traditional Sail from June 14 to 16.

It is the double-ended dipping lugger - ‘Barnabas’- from the Cornish Maritime Trust, a voluntary charity which preserves Cornwall’s maritime heritage. Needing new masts, she sailed from Cornwall to get them from a tree in Scotland, which gave the impetus for the ‘Celtic lands’ voyage.

The Historic Cornish lugger, the 143-year-old mackerel boat, Barnabas, is heading for the 2024 Crosshaven Traditional Sail Festival

Tristan Hugh-Jones, a member of the Trust whose family is developing native oysters at Rossmore in the north channel of Cork Harbour, told me the story.

Listen to the Podcast below:

You can hear more about this on my monthly Maritime Podcast on all major platforms. Tristan, living now in Cornwall, told me about ‘Barnabas’:

Noel Campbell, Assistant Keeper at the National Museum of Country Life in Turlough Park, Castlebar, is leading the development of a boat gallery to preserve the history and culture of Irish traditional vessels.

Turlough Park is about eight miles from Castlebar in County Mayo, where the National Museum, through its Irish Folklife Division, operates the Country Life Museum. This collects and preserves material culture from Ireland’s traditional way of life, of which the maritime sphere is, of course, a major part. It is a fascinating place.

The boat gallery at Castlebar in County Mayo, where the National Museum, through its Irish Folklife Division, operates the Country Life Museum

Noel has been telling me how the project is going and how he has been making contact with the owners and users of traditional boats around the Irish coastline.

He has come across great stories about the building and usage of these boats and is also chronicling them in a blog he writes on the NMI’s website: ouririshheritage.org

In July, a new classic boat/yacht parade is planned for Dun Laoghaire Harbour.

This event is being arranged in association with Dun Laoghaire's Coastival Festival, a week-long series of events and activities that culminates in the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta.

"Classic" in this context is any vessel that was designed 50 or more years ago.

Sailing classes invited to participate include the iconic Dublin designs - Water Wags, Dublin Bay 21s, IDRA 14s, Mermaids, and Glens.

Other classic keelboats include Ruffians, Shipmans, Squibs, and Dragons, while there will be a number of classic dinghies, including Fireballs, Lasers and Wayfarers.

Sailing Instructions for the parade of classic sail will be issued in due course.

Further information is in the attached poster and available from Hal Sisk by email: [email protected]

Minister of State for Heritage Malcolm Noonan has visited the former lifeboat named Dunleary, which is the focus of a refit project in its home harbour.

The Watson-class lifeboat was stationed at what was formerly Kingstown, Co Dublin, from December 1919 to July 1939, during which it recorded 23 launches and saved 55 lives.

The RNLI then moved it from Dun Laoghaire to Lytham in Britain, where it was stationed from 1939 to April 1951 and launched 58 times to save 30 lives.

The vessel was then sold out of service at Sunderland and converted to a motor sailor by Lambies Boat Builders.

As Mr Noonan was told by Senator Victor Boyhan (Ind), who hosted the visit, the Dunleary Lifeboat Project is a not-for-profit organisation which is “committed to promotion of the maritime heritage”.

It says its immediate aim is to “establish a suitable premises in a maritime environment to incorporate ongoing restoration and maintenance of this vessel, and other vessels of historical and heritage value for the future generations”.

“Dunleary was the first motor lifeboat provided by the civil service fund and has an excellent wartime rescue history. She was built in 1919 and was named by the Countess of Fingall in honour of her launching place,” it says.

The project is seeking donations from members of the community and local businesses for the restoration project.

Senator Boyhan thanked Minister for Heritage Malcolm Noonan and the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown chief executive Frank Curran for their support for the marine heritage restoration project.

The De Wadden, the historic schooner which sailed out of Arklow, the County Wicklow town once described by maritime historian Dr John deCourcy Ireland as the “most maritime town in Ireland”, is to be demolished at the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool.

The renowned three-masted auxiliary schooner is the last of its kind to operate on the Irish Sea. The Museum bought the ship in 1984, and it has been dry-docked in its Canning Graving Docks ever since, with regular conservation work being carried out. However, exposed to the weather and other conditions, it has deteriorated beyond sustainable cost.

“We do understand there may be people who find this decision around De Wadden upsetting, but disposal is an essential part of healthy collections management, and these decisions are not always easy. We know not everyone will agree,” a Museum statement said. “We are reviewing what elements might be suitable to retain as part of the Museum’s collection or for other potential users.”

The De Wadden in her sailing days Photo: Merseyside Maritime Museum

De Wadden was built for the Netherlands Steamship Company in 1917 and, after World War One, was sold to Richard Hall from Arklow, Co Wicklow. It was used as part of his merchant sail vessel fleet until 1961. Over that time period, De Wadden carried bulk cargo from Liverpool to various Irish ports. It was captained for 20 years by Richard Hall's son Victor before being sold for use as a leisure charter fishing vessel in Scotland.

The Director of National Historic Ships UK, Hannah Cunliffe, described the Museum’s decision as “disappointing” and said deconstruction must record and preserve her story.

The Museum said it had carried out a year-long consultation and feasibility study and had received several expressions of interest from individuals and organisations, but none was
“compliant” with what it would require. “Transfer was not a realistic option and dismantling is the only option,” it says.

The primary historical significance of the De Wadden is as an example of an Irish Sea trading vessel. Measuring 116 feet in length with a steel hull and a single deck, she was built along with two sister ships to take advantage of trading conditions created by Dutch neutrality in the First World War. She operated in the European short-sea trades till the early 1920s.

After being sold to Arklow, the De Wadden carried bulk cargoes such as grain, china clay, mineral ores, and especially coal from Liverpool and the River Mersey area to various Irish ports.

During the Second World War, she provided a vital lifeline carrying supplies to Ireland.

While the vessel had a small motor, she almost always operated under a combination of sail and motor. As a motor schooner, she had a flat bottom and shallow draft that maximized cargo capacity and gave her the ability to enter small harbours. The design required the push of the motor because the hull shape did not sail very well, but with the motor, which gave her an original speed of five knots, she was a versatile and economical cargo ship.

De Wadden had a practical design, including wide hatches which facilitated the loading and discharge of cargo.

The museum had previously been undertaking efforts to reverse later alterations and restore her to look as she did sailing on the Irish Sea between 1922 and 1961.

A wooden mast which broke suddenly on a Dutch historic sailing ship and killed three people on its deck had been rotting for at least four years beforehand, the Dutch Safety Board has found.

In the two years prior to the accident, the wood had rotted to such an extent that the mast “lost almost all its integrity”, a report by the Dutch Safety Board says.

The investigation report recounts how on August 21st, 2016, the captain of the historic sailing ship the Amicitia was just about to turn his ship into the port of Harlingen, after a week’s sailing on the Wadden Sea, when “catastrophe struck”.

A German family of twelve were on board, and three of them were helping to tie up the foresail when the 20-metre- high mast snapped, and the 6.5-metre-long top fell, with a number of parts, onto the foredeck.

The three people on the foredeck did not survive the accident, which the safety board has traced to wood rot. This was caused by water penetrating the mast, which could not drain out again and was trapped.

The investigation report says that “ on paper, many parties were involved in keeping the wooden mast safe, but none of these parties realised the severity of the situation”.

“ As a result, there was an uncontrolled safety risk on board the ship in question for a prolonged period”, it says, and. the captain and maintenance personnel “lacked expertise”.

The Dutch investigation reports note that it is common knowledge that a wooden mast can rot.

“ Provided this is identified in good time and adequately treated, it will not necessarily influence the structural integrity of the mast in question. It is therefore important that a mast is periodically inspected for potentially vulnerable spots,” it says.

“Specific know-how is required to be able to correctly assess the state of a mast and decide what type of maintenance personnel must be engaged,” it says.

In this case, it says there was “no maintenance plan for the mast in question, and it was not inspected periodically”.

“ This meant that changes and vulnerable spots were not identified. Because the captain himself did not have the relevant expertise, he relied on that of maintenance personnel he engaged. However, they did not have the necessary specific expertise concerning wooden masts either,” the report says.

The report identifies shortcomings in certification, and says the captain, who is also the owner of the ship in question, did not rely solely on the expertise of the maintenance personnel he engaged.

The mast certificate issued in 2012, which was valid until 2018, meant that “the captain was convinced that this safety-critical part of his ship met all the requirements”.

“ The private approval body had indeed inspected the mast and subsequently issued the certificate in question, more than four years prior to its breaking. Although, according to the law, this certificate was only valid for a maximum of 2.5 years, the approval body wrongly stated a validity of six years on it,” it says.

“This suggested that the mast still had a valid certificate at the time of the accident, whereas, in fact, the certificate in question had expired a good while earlier,” the report says.

“ The Dutch Safety Board has ascertained that, in the current situation, significant safety risks can go unnoticed when it comes to the inspection and certification of the sailing equipment on historic inland waterway vessels,” it says.

“ What is more, the certificates create a sense of false security by implying that the safety of a mast is guaranteed for a period which is much longer than the period needed for the rotting process to cause irreversible damage to the mast,” the report notes.

The Amicitia is one of 300 passenger sailing ships in what is known as the “bruine vloot”, or brown fleet, comprising historic ships chartered for passengers, which are part of Dutch cultural heritage.

“These ships, which are mostly commercially operated, are very popular with tourists, for school trips and for company outings,” the report says.

“The fact that three tourists have died as a result of the apparently sudden breakage of a mast raises questions about the safety of passengers on similar ships and the supervision of the sector,” the report notes.

“There was a lot of work, hull planking, fitting the stem post, caulking, filling, fairing, sanding, priming and painting. We lost over two years on the project due to Covid and this old girl was in a worse condition than we initially realised. It was a big undertaking for us but we have got there.”

So say the members of Allihies Men’s Shed on the western tip of the Beara Peninsula in West Cork, who will launch the ‘Dursey Clipper’ this weekend.

It is a seine boat, sixty to seventy years old, which had lain unused for about eleven years on nearby Dursey Island. It was given to them by the oldest resident of the island, Jimmy Harrington, who will be 81 years old next month.

Dursey is the island which made headlines earlier this year when Ireland’s only cable car service there had to be halted for maintenance works. This led to controversy as the island had two permanent residents and farms owned by mainland residents. After discussion, the cable car was replaced by a State-funded ferry.

Allihies Men’s Shed is a strong part of the Beara community. From its maritime tradition, former fishermen are among its members.

Putting the final touches to the Dursey Clipper Seine Boat in the Allihies mens shed on the Beara Peninsula in West Cork

“We were looking for a project and the boat was given to us. We have members who are former fishermen and were delighted to get it,” David Dudley of the Shed told me on my maritime programme/podcast, Maritime Ireland. “Seine boats were used extensively around West Cork for netting, potting and other traditional fishing activities.

The boats would have been up to 27 feet long. This one is shorter at 18 feet. Inshore fishing was strong when they were in use. Herring and mackerel were caught.”

Historical records describe “huge shoals of pilchards that came to the comparatively warm, sheltered waters of West Cork islands during the summer months. There were curing stations in villages to prepare the fish for sale. There was a lot of employment in a vibrant fishing industry and there could be two boats using a seine net, such were the catches.”

Painted in blue with a topside broad, black line. the restored boat is impressive and will be launched this Sunday at 2 pm at a community gathering on Garnish Pier.

It took a bit of discussion to decide on the name!

“We pondered and mulled over the name for the past month and couldn't agree. Then we whittled it down to a shortlist and put it to a vote. ‘Dursey Clipper’ won out,” David Dudley told me. “All are welcome at the launch.”

Listen to him on the Podcast here.

Two classic designs with strong Dublin Bay links have been nominated for major prizes in the annual international Classic Boat Awards. Master boat-builder Steve Morris of Kilrush will of course be personally in line for the prize for his work in re-building the Dublin Bay 21 cruiser-racers, originally conceived as a class to Alfred Mylne’s design in 1902. But it is Dublin Bay’s own Fionan de Barra and Hal Sisk who have put together this complex project that currently sees the fourth DB 21 undergoing the process in Kilrush, which involves building a new boat on top of the original lead ballast keel. This fourth re-birth is Geraldine – “the white boat” - for long associated with the Johnston family of Dun Laoghaire.

“Work of international standard” – a recent photo of the Geraldine re-build under way in Kilrush. Photo Steve Morris

However, in the 2022 Classic Boat Awards the Dublin-Bay-to-Scotland links go beyond the DB21/Afred Mylne connection, as the 47ft McGruer of Clynder-designed-and-built yawl Rinamara of 1968 vintage, originally created in response to a detailed brief from Peter Odlum of the Royal Irish YC, is nominated for Best Restoration in a project by Stirling & Sons of Plymouth..

For many years Peter Odlum was a mainstay of the International 8 Metre Cruiser/Racer Class, with his Cruisers Eights Nahmara (1955) and Inishmara (1963). Both were designed and built by McGruer, and both were keenly campaigned in the Clyde, at Dublin Bay regattas, and occasionally in the West Cork regattas.

The restored Rinamara of 1968 vintage. When sailed by first owner Peter Odlum of Dublin Bay, her hull was dark green. Photo: Sandeman

The Cruiser Eights were around 42ft in overall length. But for his dream cruiser – created after a long racing career which had included the Dublin Bay 21s where he’d campaigned Maureen - the 47ft yawl Rinamara for 1968 gave so much more in comfort and speed, and for many years he cruised her extensively in Europe.

Subsequent owners if anything accelerated the pace, as Rinamara’s CV now includes a global circumnavigation. So if you’re posting a vote for Steve Morris and the DB 21s, you’re also entitled to post one in the separate category which includes Rinamara – let’s hear it for Dublin Bay….

Vote here

To say that Rob Mason of Milford Haven has an eye for a boat is a bit like saying that the late Vincent O’Brien was quite a good judge of horseflesh. The retired Milford Haven tugboat skipper turned up from southwest Wales at the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta 2017 with his newly-restored 1897-vintage Alexander Richardson-designed cutter Myfanwy, and this classic’s sweeping lines of elegant double curves, allied to a formidable performance, was a reminder that though the Liverpool-based designer’s most famous boat was the all-conquering Irex of 1884 for John Jameson of Dublin, Myfanwy was the real masterpiece, the unexpected gem of his later years.

She won all hearts in Dublin Bay, and she won the overall champion trophy too, in what was the main celebration of Dun Laoghaire Harbour’s Bicentennial. Not surprisingly, she was soon snapped up by a discerning buyer for the Mediterranean Classics circuit, as Rob already had his eye on another boat which neatly filled the eternal requirement of “a motor-cruiser suitable for a dedicated sailing enthusiast”, and here too there is special Irish interest.

John Jameson’s 88ft Irex RStGYC of 1884 vintage, seen here after winning the Royal Harwich YC regatta in Essex in 1888.

Rob Mason’s restored 1897 Richardson design Myfanwy on her way to becoming overall champion at the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta 2017. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’BrienRob Mason’s restored 1897 Richardson design Myfanwy

He found the 42ft Blue Hills in a place called Hayle on the north coast of Cornwall. Although Hayle is just across the bay from picturesque St Ives, it’s not one of those cute places you’ll see on Rick Stein’s Cornwall-promoting television shows. On the contrary, it’s a nondescript estuary port where boats go to die, and that seemed the future for Blue Hills when Rob and his shipmates rescued her, and road-trailed her the hundreds of miles round to Milford Haven, for she wasn’t fit to attempt the direct crossing of the Bristol Channel.

But after they had her hauled on the foreshore at his house in the sheltered upper reaches of Milford Haven, he was able to confirm his reckoning that most of the boat was directly restorable, although some timber would need renewed. But it was the engine and auxiliary rig and other gear that really needed lengthy attention or replacement, and every job completed was another step towards a new life for a seriously interesting boat with history to match.

Blue Hills in Mulroy Bay in Donegal in 1938. Photo courtesy RCC

Blue Hills was originally created in 1938 by noted fishing boat builder William Weatherhead of Cockenzie on Scotland’s east coast for Frank Gilliland of Derry, who sought a motorised trawler yacht after many years of cruising the 17-ton Mylne-designed McGruer-built sailing ketch Melmore. But as a leading figure in the Royal Naval Reserve, Gilliland only had a year or so of cruising in Donegal and the Hebrides with his new boat before he persuaded the Admiralty that she would be ideal for conversion for use in conveying spies and resistance fighters to Norway and Denmark after World War II broke out in 1939. 

The big tidal range of Milford Haven enabled Blue Hills to be hauled into a drying restoration berth beside Rob Mason’s house where Myfanwy was also given new life. Photo: Andy Whitcher

Consequently, she spent much of the 1940s back on the east coast of Scotland with all sorts of secret compartments being installed, though whether or not she was ever used on the famous Shetland Bus clandestine route across the North Sea to Norway has never been completely clarified. However, by the time she was decommissioned from Admiralty use, Frank Gilliland was so advanced in years that she went to another owner, and she worked her way south to become a familiar sight on the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, eventually assuming semi-houseboat status in Hayle.

But now she is alive again, and while the summer of 2021 saw her afloat and under way for sufficient time to demonstrate her elegant sea-keeping qualities, this current winter has been devoted to completing the many interior jobs which will make her fit for longer passages. With any luck in the summer of 2022, we in Ireland will again be able to see that Rob Mason has a great eye for a boat.

 

A hull so graceful she scarcely disturbs a calm sea