Last night’s Annual General Meeting of the 1929-founded Irish Cruising Club in Dublin was more than the usual agenda-guided review of a year of activity afloat, a time-honoured long look at twelve months of varied cruising and voyaging on waters near and far, combined with the continuing dissemination of information on everything to do with this specialised and sometimes bureaucratically complex version of sailing.
For like every other sailing organisation, the ICC – whose membership extends well beyond the island of Ireland – had to deal with the changing fallout from the pandemic and its two long lockdowns.
NEW COASTLINES AND FRESH ISLANDS
Cruising’s very basis is in the freedom of movement to travel along new coastlines and sail unhindered to fresh islands. So for a while, the pandemic situation looked like bringing everything to a complete stop. But soon enough the impositions had some easing, and busy brains were finding ways of going cruising while being squeaky-clean compliant.
In this fluid situation, a steady and experienced hand was needed on the helm, and the club’s day-to-day situation was greatly eased in the “lost years” by the willingness of David Beattie to serve as Commodore for four years instead of the usual two, thereby providing continuity with his exceptionally useful ability either to do something with a maximum of efficiency and a minimum of fuss himself, or else delegate its fulfillment to someone equally reliable.
David Beattie’s willingness to serve two consecutive terms as Irish Cruising Club Commodore has brought the club through a difficult international cruising period in good health
It was the first time since the 1940s - when the club was much smaller - that anyone had remained in the top position for more than two years. Yet Commodore Beattie filled the role for those four long years with speed or patience or whatever special mindset each situation required. And while he was able to be totally reliant on the support of his wife Aoife Nolan Beattie, and Vice Commodore Derek White who is based on Strangford Lough, it was his personal example which has been the leading inspiration for the club to have reached 2024 in such good health.
FOUR YEARS OF INSPIRED LEADERSHIP
One of the reasons must be that he is all things to all folk, yet in a genuine way. He lives on the shores of Lough Ree where he has his own little port, and proudly asserts himself as part of the ICC’s Western Chapter, emphasising this by cruising Ireland’s inland waterways with his characterful traditional 47ft Dutch lemsterak Schollevaer.
“And now for something completely different” – the 47ft one hundred and eleven-years-old traditional Dutch lemsterak Schollevaer is David Beattie’s boat for the inland waterways and lakes
But down at the coast, he’s at the heart of things as a Trustee of the Royal Irish Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire, and his burgee as Commodore of the ICC is hoisted aboard the much-travelled steel cutter Reespray, wherever she may be. He discovered her as a stalled attempt to re-created Joshua Slocum’s world-girdling Spray, and brought the project on to a successful conclusion to provide a hefty sailing cruiser which has covered many of the coasts of Ireland, in addition to much of southern Europe.
MODERN OUTLOOK, HISTORIC BOAT
Naval architecture anoraks will be aware that when Captain Joshua Slocum set out to re-build the world-girdling 36ft Spray in 1892, he was doing so on the lines of the hulk of a shorebound boat which was known to be more than a hundred years old in the first place. Thus the fleet-leading Commodore of the ICC was showing the way for his members through one of the most difficult four year periods of its existence with a boat whose basic hull design was somewhere north of 220 years old.
Joshua Slocum’s Spray in Sydney Harbour in 1896 – her already ancient lines have proved unusually timeless
Yet this alliance of the very ancient with cutting-edge communications technology is part of the makeup of many leading cruising people. As travel restrictions eased and David & Aoife Beattie were able to reinforce the ICC’s long-established fraternal links by representing the ICC at events afloat and ashore with organisations like the Cruising Club of America, the Royal Cruising Club, and the Clyde Cruising Club, they could find any amount of cruising buffs who thought it perfectly natural that a hull shape more than 250 years old should be allied with some very 21st Century communications technology.
Despite that, the human presence – preferably with warmth, humour and tolerance - is central to the good health of any organisation, and while Zoom was invaluable at the height of the lockdown, the opportunity to give thanks in a personal capacity at the end of David Beattie’s double-service saw a good turnout at the 2024 AGM in Howth Yacht Club last night.
Howth Yacht Club agreed to be part of Dublin for the night that was in it. Photo: HYC
ROYAL CORK ADMIRAL AWARDED
Certainly the spirits of Harry Donegan and his Fastnet Race pioneering cutter Gull were very present in Howth last night, with the Royal Cork’s new Admiral Annamarie Fegan at the ICC gathering with her husband Denis Murphy. Their Grand Soleil 40 Nieulargo was winner of the Gull Salver for the top-placed Irish boat in the Fastnet Race, but now they’re gearing themselves for another go at the Round Ireland in June, despite Denis admitting that in the 2022 circuit, the waters off the Blaskets provided them with the roughest sailing Nieulargo has ever experienced.
And yes, I know that we try to claim here that Howth deserves the right to be considered as a place apart rather than a unit of Dublin. But as it was the ICC’s founding father Harry Donegan of Cork who insisted that the AGM should be held in the national capital in the Dublin area for all that his home town of Cork was the true cruising heartland, the least we can do is respect the great man’s generous viewpoint.
That said, it rather seemed like a Howth takeover, as Peninsular Person Alan Markey rose from Vice Commodore to the senior post as Commodore in succession to David Beattie, and fellow Howth sailor and hill dweller Donal Gallagher has for some time been in the role of Honorary Secretary. While both have their own cruising boats, they are also involved with the ancient Howth 17s, something which has been a fact of life in the Irish Cruising Club officer lists for nearly all of the club’s existence, for a class can acquire numerous extra links if it lasts for 125 years.
The only other major change was Kieran Guilfoyle of Dun Laoghaire, owner of the classic Nich 36 Samphire, taking over from Paddy Blaney of Dublin and Lough Derg as Honorary Treasurer for the very good reason that the previous incumbent has gone cruising round the world in his Hallberg-Rassy 54 Maelduin.
International fellowship. Incoming Irish Cruising Club Commodore Alan Markey (left) with Cruising Club of America Commodore Chris Otorowski
In reviewing a successful year which has seen a renewal programme continuing for the ICC’s much-valued Sailing Directions for cruising the coasts of Ireland (directed by Norman Kean of Courtmacsherry), the outgoing Commodore highlighted the Conor O’Brien Centenary Rally in Madeira, 1,300 sea miles from Dublin Bay and the first port of call after Dun Laoghaire in O’Brien’s 1923-25 circumnavigation with Saoirse.
As the re-build of Saoirse herself at Oldcourt near Baltimore is still barely out of the wrappers, the Gary Mac Mahon/Liam Hegarty restoration of the 56ft 1926-built O’Brien Trading Ketch Ilen served as a more-than-adequate flagship, with 28 boats getting to Madeira from every point of the compass for an excellent gathering organized by Southern Area Rear Commodore Seamus O’Connor of Bantry.
The 56ft restored 1926 trading ketch Ilen – seen here under sail at Baltimore – made a fine flagship for the Conor O’Brien Centenary Rally in Madeira
Apart from a brief period of relative sailing bliss from late May until the third week of June, the summer of 2023 often provided harsh cruising conditions, and those making the many and varied passages to and from Madeira experienced at least their fair share of this, with the 2023 Cruising Awards adjudicator Peter Fernie of Galway – appropriately, he lives on an island near Oranmore - found himself dealing with some rugged ventures, which he does so with typical wit and style to produce the following awardees, for nobody wins a cruising trophy - you are awarded them.
The tops. The vintage Contessa 35 Witchcraft (Ed Wheeler) seen here racing at the RUYC Regatta in Belfast Lough. Modified to be a true cruiser-racer, she has figured regularly in the Irish Cruising Club awards list since 1991
FAULKNER CUP (best cruise): Ed Wheeler, vintage Contessa 35 Witchcraft from Strangford Lough to Madeira rally, returning via Azores through sometimes atrocious weather, and logging more than 3,500 mile in all with the skipper returning “half a stone lighter and much fitter”.
Ed Wheeler at the helm – he returned from 2023’s cruise “half a stone lighter and very much fitter”
STRANGFORD CUP (alternate best cruise): Maire Breathnach and Andrew Wilkes of Dungarvan with replica Bristol Channel gaff pilot cutter Annabel J, northwards to Iceland which is left to port while calling at several interesting ports and coming through even worse weather than that experienced further south.
FORTNIGHT CUP (best cruise in 16 days): Colin & Alan Leonard (Starlight 35 Ariadne) In this era of weird working times, the classic cruise of two well-used weeks of leave is increasingly rare, but Colin Leonard and his father Alan were constrained by time, yet managed an interesting Hebridean cruise from Strangford Lough to the Outer Hebrides including St Kilda with their attractive Stephen Jones-designed Starlight 35 Ariadne.
Annabel J is no stranger to negotiating the high Arctic as seen here, but 2023’s weather restricted her crew of two to a circumnavigation of Iceland
FINGAL CUP (log the adjudicator most enjoyed): Daragh Nagle is one of the outport members, based in British Columbia and cruising the Pacific coast with his Moody 376 Chantey V, and his explorations up several rivers to destinations of unexpected character provided much entertainment for crew and log-reader alike.
ROCKABILL TROPHY for seamanship: Paul Conway & Gillian Fletcher, Contessa 32 Cevantes. Seamanship often involves a maritime version of the old military dictum that no set plan survives the first contact with the enemy. Their plan was to complete a three year detailed cruise to the Baltic with a return to Ireland via a leisurely meandering of the Dutch waterways and Brittany, but the reality with one named storm after another was hopping from one hurricane hole to another along the south coast of England, yet in due course Kilmore Quay was reached and home at Greystones was within manageable distance with a weather shore.
GLENGARRIFF TROPHY for best cruise in Irish waters: Conor O’Byrne of Galway with Sadler 26 managed to carve a worthwhile cruise out of an extended visit to Kerry and West Cork, with the unpredictable yet almost always bad weather making such significant gaps in his crew schedule that he completed it with an excellent solo passage from Catletownbere back to Galway.
PERRY GREER BOWL for best first log: New member Tony Linehan bases his Jeanneau SO 409 Sea Witch in Greece, which means he was the most easterly participant in the Conor O’Brien Rally in Madeira. Getting there was no cakewalk as the boat perforce had been laid up ashore for two years, and it made for one very long shakedown cruise brought to a successful completion with the growing ICC flotilla in Northwest Spain.
Outward bound for the Azores – Frank Cassidy’s Ocean Blue takes her departure from Kinsale
WILD GOOSE CUP for log of literary merit: Frank Cassidy of Dun Laoghaire is the moving spirit behind the current re-birth of the Cruising Group in the National YC, and with his ICC hat on he shows that he can also turn a shapely sentence or three while he’s at it, and his cruise from Kinsale to the Azores with the hefty Pacific Seacraft 12.8 Ocean Blue delivered the goods.
MARIE TROPHY for best cruise by boat under 30ft: Paddy Barry and Drascombe Lugger. As Peter Fernie points out, with 55 ICC boats under the 9.14 metres limit, you’d expect this trophy memorialising the first awardee of the Faulkner Cup (she’s still with us) to be hotly contested, but though it attracted few enough entries, the clear winner was well down the size scale. The great ocean voyager, high latitudes cruiser, and traditional boats enthusiast Paddy Barry turned 80 in 2022, so now he’s settling in with a Drascombe Lugger, and his imaginative use of the boat’s full potential saw him cruising – at different times – in Connemara, Waterford, Kerry and Galway.
“Try this for size” – renowned voyager Paddy Barry is now focused on a Drascombe Lugger
The Maimie Doyle-designed Marie of 1894 vintage is seen here sailing in Strangford Lough in 1966 while owned by Michael McKee, ICC Commodore 1998-2000. The first awardee of the Faulkner Cup in 1931, she still sails, and is honoured in the Marie Trophy
It makes for an interesting contrast with his sailing mate Mick Cotter when they graduated together as engineers from UCD. Their first “learner boat” together was a 505 dinghy which – with trapeze and all, yet totally unaccompanied – they blithely sailed from Roundstone very quickly out to Kilronan in the Aran Islands. And with the ideal tow vehicle in a little MG sports car, they’d then take the entire combo as the perfect babe magnet to the Rose of Tralee festival.
But now with both as ICC members, Mick Cotter has the 105ft Wolfhound which works for her living on the charter circuit when he’s not cruising her himself, while Paddy is learning how to keep water out of the tent as he cruises his 19ft Drascombe.
Such contrasts are part of the colourful tapestry of the Irish Cruising Club as it starts to focus on its approaching Centenary in 2029. Its history is such that it has already produced two books, one for the Golden Jubilee in 1979, and the other for its 75th in 1994.
But the total overview for the Centenary is something else altogether, a prodigious task. Fortunately, super-sailor Maire Breathnach of Dungarvan, who already produces the professional-standard ICC Annual in style, has agreed to take on the challenge of over-seeing this new encyclopaedic work about an organisation that reflects all that is best in Irish sailing.
Game for the challenge. Maire Breathnach – seen here at the helm off Cape Horn – has taken on the challenge of the ICC’s history for its Centenary in 2029
