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Displaying items by tag: 1720 nationals

#1720 – You're in good time for the 1720 National Championships or any of this year's 1720 fixtures (see comment below from the class association) if you opt for this fun one design sports boat that the seller, MGM Boats, says is all set for the 2014 season. 

Moored in Cork, this 1997–built boat is a 'really clean' example. The boat comes well equipped with a full sail wardrobe, fully kitted road trailer with masting kit and lockers.

At €12,500, she's yours to sail away!

More on this boat in the one design section of the Afloat Boats for Sale site.

Published in Boat Sales

#1720 – Anthony O'Leary celebrated his 1720 National title win on his home waters of Cork Harbour at the weekend, beating his two sons Nicholas and Peter for the overall prize in the 12–boat fleet. The racing took place from Cork Harbour Marina at Monkstown Bay.  

In what turned out to be an O'Leary fmaily battle for the sportsboat title, the points going into last day were: Anthony O'Leary (AOL) 10, Nicholas O'Leary (NOL) 11 and Peter O'Leary (POL) 11 with Mark Mansfield (MM)  two further adfrift on 13 points.

Mansfield took a race win on the first race on Saturday morning in quite shifty eight to ten kont winds off the land, giving points as follows MM 1, AOL 2, NOL 3 and POL 4 in the penultimate race. So the final race had so many possibilities that it was there to be won by any one of the top four albeit, Anthony had a slight advantage.

With a stiffer breeze of 10 -12 knots, Anthony led all the way to get his only race win of the event - to add to six second places - and take the 1720 Irish title.

More photos from Bob Bateman here.

1720 National Championships:

1. ANTIX Anthony O'Leary 13
2. T Bone Nicholas O Leary/Tom Durcan and Clive O'Shea 17
3. Spiced Beef Peter O'Leary 17
4. Denis Murphy/Mark Mansfield 18
5. John Crotty and Peter O'Flynn. 35
6. Crash Test Dummies Paul Gibbons and Finbarr Jeffers 45
7. Dark Side Brian hassett 45
8. Ynot Chris Hahnel 60
9. Cosmic Dave Townend 61
10. Salve Marine Racing Weitse buwalda 64
11 Scholar CIT / R Harrington 66
12 Sovereign Sailing James Lyons 72.

Published in 1720

The 1720 National Championships are to be held once again in Baltimore, West Cork next weekend from 9th to 12th September. Last year's event attracted 15 boats including three boats from the O'Leary Family and were held in great sailing conditions, as the video below shows.

This year's event is set to attract in excess of 20 boats say Baltimore Sailing Club and the competition is getting tighter than ever with a good fleet racing through the Winter and Spring out of Crosshaven in Cork. 

Published in 1720

Ireland's Trading Ketch Ilen

The Ilen is the last of Ireland’s traditional wooden sailing ships.

Designed by Limerick man Conor O’Brien and built in Baltimore in 1926, she was delivered by Munster men to the Falkland Islands where she served valiantly for seventy years, enduring and enjoying the Roaring Forties, the Furious Fifties, and Screaming Sixties.

Returned now to Ireland and given a new breath of life, Ilen may be described as the last of Ireland’s timber-built ocean-going sailing ships, yet at a mere 56ft, it is capable of visiting most of the small harbours of Ireland.

Wooden Sailing Ship Ilen FAQs

The Ilen is the last of Ireland’s traditional wooden sailing ships.

The Ilen was designed by Conor O’Brien, the first Irish man to circumnavigate the world.

Ilen is named for the West Cork River which flows to the sea at Baltimore, her home port.

The Ilen was built by Baltimore Sea Fisheries School, West Cork in 1926. Tom Moynihan was foreman.

Ilen's wood construction is of oak ribs and planks of larch.

As-built initially, she is 56 feet in length overall with a beam of 14 feet and a displacement of 45 tonnes.

Conor O’Brien set sail in August 1926 with two Cadogan cousins from Cape Clear in West Cork, arriving at Port Stanley in January 1927 and handed it over to the new owners.

The Ilen was delivered to the Falkland Islands Company, in exchange for £1,500.

Ilen served for over 70 years as a cargo ship and a ferry in the Falkland Islands, enduring and enjoying the Roaring Forties, the Furious Fifties, and Screaming Sixties. She stayed in service until the early 1990s.

Limerick sailor Gary McMahon and his team located Ilen. MacMahon started looking for her in 1996 and went out to the Falklands and struck a deal with the owner to bring her back to Ireland.

After a lifetime of hard work in the Falklands, Ilen required a ground-up rebuild.

A Russian cargo ship transported her back on a 12,000-mile trip from the Southern Oceans to Dublin. The Ilen was discharged at the Port of Dublin 1997, after an absence from Ireland of 70 years.

It was a collaboration between the Ilen Project in Limerick and Hegarty’s Boatyard in Old Court, near Skibbereen. Much of the heavy lifting, of frames, planking, deadwood & backbone, knees, floors, shelves and stringers, deck beams, and carlins, was done in Hegarty’s. The generally lighter work of preparing sole, bulkheads, deck‐houses fixed furniture, fixtures & fittings, deck fittings, machinery, systems, tanks, spar making and rigging is being done at the Ilen boat building school in Limerick.

Ten years. The boat was much the worse for wear when it returned to West Cork in May 1998, and it remained dormant for ten years before the start of a decade-long restoration.

Ilen now serves as a community floating classroom and cargo vessel – visiting 23 ports in 2019 and making a transatlantic crossing to Greenland as part of a relationship-building project to link youth in Limerick City with youth in Nuuk, west Greenland.

At a mere 56ft, Ilen is capable of visiting most of the small harbours of Ireland.

©Afloat 2020