This weekend sees ancient gaff-rigged and other craft of multiple vintages gathering at Poolbeg Yacht and Boat Club in Ringsend in the heart of Dublin Port, within sight of some of the most modern ships afloat. It’s the 60th Anniversary of the Old Gaffers Association, and the fact that Dublin is central to the OGA’s Diamond Jubilee Cruise-in-Company speaks volumes for the welcome the port provided for the Golden Jubilee Cruise in 2013, when it became clear that owners of vintage or classical Bermudan-rigged boats were also welcome. It seems that being part of the community is a matter of the right attitude rather than undue fussiness about exactitude of rig.
Yet it’s a curiosity of international sailing history that in 1963 the definitive gaff-rigged One Designs of Dun Laoghaire - the 1902-originating Dublin Bay 21s - were in the process of changing to Bermuda rig. For at the same time, separate meetings in the south and southeast of England were - unbeknownst to each other – laying the foundations for the beginnings of the Old Gaffers Association for the preservation of gaff-rigged sailing skills.
THE MAN FROM THE ELEPHANT BOATYARD
As one of the main movers in the initial south coast meeting in Winchester was Mike Richardson of the renowned and distinctly characterful Elephant Boatyard on the upper reaches of the Hamble River, it’s not surprising that over the years, it was recognised that a contemporary meeting at Maldon in Essex was where the Old Gaffers Association really came into being.
For they could focus on moving things forward in a single-minded way, whereas Mike of the Elephant and his friends – unaware of any developments on the East Coast – had so many boat interests on the go at the same time that the progressing of an idea for a new association had to take its place in the queue. For sure, they did eventually run a couple of races for old gaffers in the Solent. But once they realized that things had been happening in a more clear-cut form on the East Coast, the two groupings became one with the East Coast setting the pace.
INTERNATIONAL LINKS
Soon they were drawing in fellow enthusiasts, both countrywide and with international links. Success was such that by the time the Golden Jubilee came around in 2013, they had the strength and enthusiasm to organise a well-supported Round Britain Rally with many interesting ports visited, and with two stops on Ireland’s East Coast - at Poolbeg in Dublin, and in Belfast Port in Northern Ireland hosted by the NIOGA.
The Irish stopovers were extensively covered on Afloat.ie with special enthusiasm, as your columnist happened to be sailing throughout all the happenings on the Irish coast with Dickie Gomes of Strangford Lough aboard the Ringsend-built 9-ton J B Kearney yawl Ainmara. And our enjoyment was in no way lessened by winning the inaugural race for the Leinster Trophy in Dublin Bay, with the trophy being handed over about 200 yards from where Ainmara had been born 101 years earlier.
TWO IRISH BRANCHES HAVE BECOME ONE FOR ALL
Since then, the two Irish branches of the OGA have become one, with the DBOGA in effect covering the whole country, as the President is Adrian “Stu” Spence whose 47ft ketch El Paradiso is based in Ringhaddy Sound in Strangford Lough, while the Honorary Secretary Darryl Hughes now lives in Crosshaven, where he bases his 43ft gaff ketch Maybird, designed by Fred Shepherd and built by Jack Tyrrell of Arklow in 1937.
This national spread is further emphasized by former international OGA President Sean Walsh – in 2013, he was Dun Laoghaire-based with his Heard 28 gaff cutter Turn a nOg – now being a Kinsale sailor. He and Darryl Hughes have combined forces to sail Tir na nOg east and north to Ringsend to help co-ordinate the Poolbeg events, which are under the overall direction of Adrian Spence and former PY&BC Commodore Johnny Wedick.
The friendly atmosphere in Poolbeg Y & BC lends itself well to mutlti-generational events of this type, an excellent example being the recent launching of marine and civic historian Cormac Lowth’s fascinating book about the Ringsend sailing trawlers. The Ringsend fishery began to be of major significance when the Brixham fishermen from Devon started expanding their operations after the ending of the Napoleonic Wars around 1818. And they succeeded so well in their new Ringsend base that by the 1880s the renowned Murphy family in Ringsend built and very successfully fished the largest Brixham-type fishing boat ever, the legendary St Patrick.
RAYTOWN
Modern developments on the Ringsend waterfront mean that it is now difficult to imagine this area as a thriving fishery services foreshore, but such was very much the case. And the visit of a group such as the Old Gaffers is a timely occasion to reflect on the period when this was known to Dubliners as Raytown. The local fishing community kept the despised ray for their own consumption while selling the more profitable sought-after species. Consequently it was observed that you could find Ringsend in fog or total darkness relying only on the all-pervading smell of ray being wind-dried on lines for preservation for winter consumption.
THE DUN LAOGHAIRE WAY
Needless to say the arrival of the idea of local Old Gaffers Associations in Ireland was greeted with mixed feelings. It’s doubtful if those such as Cass Smullen, who were arguing to keep the DB21s gaff-rigged, would have been known that at the same time two separate groups in England were thinking in the same general way. Or if he did, then he would have been well aware that support from that quarter might not have helped his cause at all, as Dun Laoghaire has always liked its own way of doing things.
For despite the interest in Bermuda rig, the fact is we were up to our tonsils in gaff rigged boats, and still are. But they are mainly used very actively for racing, such that boats like the Dublin Bay Water Wags and the Howth 17s don’t see themselves as Old Gaffers at all - on the contrary, their self-image is of a hot racing class which just happens to be gaff rigged.
ENGLISH CULTURAL IMPERIALISM?
This relaxed acceptance of gaff rig as being very much alive and a natural part of the contemporary Irish sailing scene was brought home to me many years ago when an English gaff-rigged enthusiast called Alan Hidden arrived to work in Northern Ireland, and although a decent enough person, he carried the usual baggage of English cultural imperialism in some maritime matters.
For very soon, we had a letter from him to Afloat Magazine saying that he had discovered a marvellous old clinker-built gunter-rigged 14ft sailing dinghy called Mantis which once upon a time had belonged to a “long extinct” class called the Ballyholme Insects, and his plan was to restore her and use her as the foundation on which to build a Northern Ireland branch of the Old Gaffers Association.
THE PICKLE FORK CLUB
“Mixed feelings” barely begins to describe the reaction in the luxuriously-appointed editorial offices of Afloat Verbiage Industries plc.. For once upon a time, we owned, sailed, raced, cruised and did many others things of a rites-of-passage and highly educational nature with an Insect. Thus the thought that somebody should see them as quaint Old Gaffers was appalling.
Worse still was kitting an Insect with tan sails sporting an OGA number and the Old Gaffer symbol. It’s supposed to be based on a set of classic gaff boom jaws, but a totally Bermuda-rigged shipmate always refers to the OGA as “The Pickle Fork Club”, and on this evidence of English cultural imperialism as applied to a Ballyholme Insect, I was inclined to agree with him.
THE DBOGA ARE OKAY
Until, that is, I found that the Dublin Bay Branch of the Old Gaffers Association included such solidly maritime souls as Tim Magennis and Johnny Wedick and Denis Aylmer and the merry band with Paul Keogh on the Clondalkin-built Galway hooker Naomh Cronan and many others.
So we threw ourselves with enthusiasm into the DBOGA’s prominent role in the Golden Jubilee Celebrations in 2013, albeit with the Bermudan-rigged Ainmara. But then, her antique Ringsend associations probably gave her more right to be there than any other boat in the fleet.
Yet now with the Diamond Jubilee upon us, it’s disconcerting to find how much has changed in just ten years, which you’d think in Old Gaffer terms is just the twinkling of an eye. Ainmara has been sold to Swiss owners, Adrian Spence’s 1873-built Madcap has been sold to France, Joe Pennington’s Master Frank, the pride of the Isle of Man, is very much on the market, and now the Naomh Cronan is based in Galway.
THE GOOD NEWS
Yet the news is not all one way. On the upside, Hal Sisk and Fionan de Barra of Dun Laoghaire are more than halfway towards the restoration of the Dublin Bay 21 Class, with the arrival in Dun Laoghaire this week of the newly-restored Geraldine from the skilled hands of Steve Morris and his team in Kilrush.
And in Strangford Lough, the classic Manx nobby White Heather has returned, complete with her authentic widow-maker of a dipping lug rig, brought back to her longtime home by Gary Lyons who apparently more or less did a straight swap with his vintage Bermuda ketch Ocean Dove with previous White Heather owner Mike Clarke of Peel.
And as for this weekend at Poolbeg, the fact that all places were booked out within a few days of bookings becoming available tells us that the OGA – and Poolbeg Yacht & Boat Club with it - are in good health.