We don’t dwell too much on what happens when a really great boat becomes absent from the sailing scene. Maybe we don’t want to know, avoiding sick jokes about landfill and preferring to dwell instead on fond memories of times on board when the going was good. And the going was often very good indeed on board this really classic Frers 49, whether she was Noryema XI, Hesperia III, or Killary Flyer.
She had a way of going through the water that was continually fascinating and wonderful to behold, and she was an absolute joy to helm. Although initially she was a bit awe-inspiring with her on-deck coffee grinders for the huge winches, you got used to it, and the flush deck meant the accommodation below was surprisingly roomy and comfortable with a neat trimming of teak, even if it was dominantly laid out with pilot berths and other arrangements which spoke of an active well-crewed long-distance racing life at sea.
Hesperia III looked like a tough and demanding character, but she was the sweetest boat to sail.
It wasn’t all rugged hard driving. Dickie Gomes on Hesperia’s helm on passage between regattas, and his double-peaked baseball cap – a present from the crew – does indeed say: “I’m the Leader, Which way did they go?” Photo: W M Nixon
KETCH CONVERSION?
If pressed about her future, we might have come up with some idea about fitting a ketch rig above a reduced keel, and modification to the accommodation to sacrifice a pilot berth or two to provide more wraparound settees. But it can be incredibly expensive to have to undo one arrangement in order to fit another, and the fact is that after 46 active years, the routine maintenance was becoming an increasingly expensive challenge.
In other words, much of her was worn out. Her alloy hull may have been the very best that the renowned Irish-ancestored firm of Joyce Brothers of Southampton could produce – which was very good indeed – but enough metal fatigue has been demonstrated with alloy-built aircraft to know that there’s a useful safe limit to everything.
PROPER RESPECT
On top of that, Jamie Young of Killary Adventure Centre was unable to find or think of anyone who would take on such a special rejuvenation project with the proper respect. It was better that she should go while still redolent of her glorious prime, and now it’s done.
Killlary Flyer’s winter berth in this 2014 photo showed her hauled into the most sheltered spot the area could provide. For voyaging in ice, she had been stripped back to bare alloy. Jamie Young on left, with Deirdre Gomes (who was an active crewmember in the racing days) and Dickie Gomes. Photo: W M Nixon
Jamie has been freed up to give more attention to one of his pet projects, the carrying of coastal and transoceanic cargoes by wind-powered vessels. But despite us having more winds around the coast of Ireland than we might often want, he has experienced what many of us have felt for a long time. For he has been forced to acknowledge that Ireland may be an island nation, but by and large our population is not sea-minded - we are not really a maritime people.
The wind-powered ships of the future may not be sailing ships as we know them, but either way Jamie Young has been frustrated by the lack of interest in Ireland despite our generous supplies of wind.
NON-MARITIME ISLAND PEOPLE
That may be because any land bridge that ever connected Ireland to Britain and thereby to Europe was long gone before anyone set foot in the place, and thus none of us is descended from any remote ancestor who walked here. So the core communal memory – as it is with the ancient people of the Canary Islands – is that the sea for seafaring is something to be avoided if at all possible, and anyone trying to promote maritime potential in Ireland is often a voice crying in the wilderness.
SAIL TRADING MOVEMENT
Consequently Jamie has turned his attention to the growing sail trading movement in France, and doubtless once they and other maritime nations like the Dutch have developed it to a reasonably viable stage, we’ll latch on to it here. But he focuses on France with some extraordinary memories of Killary Flyer and voyages to the High Arctic while also finding the time and energy to sail her solo round Rockall, and then also succeeding on another tack, rounding Cape Horn in kayaks.
The two current ICRA “Boats of the Year”, Swuzzlebubble with Bateleur beyond, are both well-preserved veterans, with the 1976 Suzzlebubble having been rescued from a scrapyard in Greece. Photo: Robert Bateman
MIRACULOUS RECOVERIES
Because Killlary Flyer had been so clinically dispatched, we can move on to other stories of boats that were past their sensible life-spans, yet were brought back to full strength. I don’t know if the Tony Castro-designed Three Quarter tonner Bataleur was ever on the threshold of the knacker’s yard, but now as the ICRA ECHO Boat of the Year, she joins RCYC clubmate Swuzzlebubble, ICRA IRC Boat of the Year, at the peak of national success.
SCRAPHEAP IN GREECE
The 1976 vintage Farr Half Tonner Swuzzlebubble was discovered on a scrapheap in Greece, and brought back to glorious life by Peter Morton of Cowes. The Dwyer family of Crosshaven now sail her with such style that she’s seldom off the podium, and it’s not the first time that she’s been ICRA IRC boat of the year.
The 1898 Cork Harbour OD Jap in cruiser form but minus her rudder on the foreshore in Falmouth Harbour in 1994. Photo: W M Nixon
Another very Cork story is the saving of the 1989 Cork Harbour OD Jap. She was found in the 1990s in the upper reaches of Famouth Harbour in the later cruiser conversion form, but was minus her rudder and looking rather sorry for herself when the late great Clayton Loves Jnr took over and gave her to Duncan Walker of Fife design specialists Fairlie Restorations.
SUPERB RESTORATION
The resulting restoration was superb, and after several very successful seasons on the Mediterranean classics circuit, she was Solent based, and now is in the care of the Royal Cork YC.
The restored Jap, now in the care of the Royal Cork Yacht Club, racing in Cork Week 2024.
A less happy Cork Harbour story is the 1927 Charles E Nicholson Int.12 Metre Flica. It’s intriguing to reflect that when Flica appeared in 1927 she was – and remained for many years – the absolute epitome of what a proper Bermudan rigged 12 Metre should look like, despite the fact that only two years earlier in 1925, William Fife had designed and built his last gaff-rigged 12 Metre, the Lady Edith for John Good of Dun Laoghaire, who had been one of the founder members of the DB21 class in 1903.
The 12 Metre Flica racing in the Solent in the 1930s, when she was still a class pace-setter despite dating from 1927.
THE QUEEN OF CORK HARBOUR
In the 1950s, Flica was the Queen of Cork Harbour under the ownership of Aylmer Hall, and her dismasting during the Cobh People’s Regatta of 1957 is still the stuff of legends, the pieces of her former mast becoming prized ornaments.
Flica roaring seaward from Cork Harbour in a classic sou’wester while in Aylmer Hall’s ownership in the 1950s. Photo: Tom Barker
After she’d left Cork, she was under the radar for some time, but in 2014 when minding other’s people’s business in the boatyard at Birdham Pool on Chichester Harbour, I came across the lovely Flica in a clearly-stalled state of restoration in one of the sheds.
Stalled restoration. Flica taking up space in the shed at Birdham Pool on Chichester Harbour in 2014. Photo: W M Nixon
In time, with still no progress, she was seen as getting in everyone’s way, and eventually she ended up – minus her ballast keel, which is often the key to an authentic restoration – in a scrapyard of sorts with ancient steam engines and whatnot on Mersea Island in Essex.
Journey’s End – Flica in her final resting place among the old steam engines at West Mersea in Essex. Photo: Richard Matthews
BONFIRE END
Whatever happened in the meantime, eventually it was confirmed that she’d been the centre of a deliberately-made bonfire. Two days later – I’m not making this up – I got an email from the PA to a Mr Big in Italy who was into classic restoration. I hadn’t heard from them in years, but out of the blue came the news that they’d successfully completed their latest project, and now was the time to pencil in that historic 12 Metre I’d been waffling about. Quite.
RE-BORN BOATS
Naturally anyone who was involved in the superb racing between Denis Doyle’s 1981 Crosshaven-built Frers 51 Moonduster and what was then Hesperia III will wonder why no Hesperia equivalent of the Friends of Moonduster did not emerge to save the former Belfast Lough boat. But comparisons are unfair, as Hesperia was brought to Belfast Lough from the Mediterranean when she was already quite mature, whereas Moonduster was and is Crosshaven through every fibre of her being.
Moonduster in her glory days with Denis Doyle from 1981 to 2001, racing in the Solent. Photo: Courtesy Derek Holden
That said, we’ve recently alluded in Afloat.ie to Stan and Sally Honey’s restoration of the scrapyard-battered bullet-holed Cal 40 Illusion, which was so all-involving and time-consuming he reckoned it was the greatest mistake of his life to undertake such a heart-directed project. Yet anyone who saw the reborn Illusion sweeping into Hawaii to win the Transpac must have felt it was all very worthwhile.
Scrapyard babe re-born – Stan and Sally Honey’s restored Cal 40 Illusion sweeping towards the finish line to win the Transpac Race
RESTORING A CLASS
We probably could say that properly restoring anything above 35ft is big business, but even smaller craft are demanding, and some maritime historians can be very picky in what they approve. Thus Hal Sisk and Fionan de Barra are very careful to claim only that they are restoring the DB21 Class, but nevertheless the multi-skin timber hulls of the “new” boats reveal this Alfred Mylne design of 1902 to have been one of the most beautiful hulls ever created.
The Dublin Bay 21 Naneen on her maiden sail after restoration was an eloquent reminder that Alfred Mylne had designed one of the most beautiful hulls ever seen for this local OD class.
Finally, we have to face the fact that the breaking up of a condemned boat has to actually begin before people are spurred to action. Many years ago, a now long gone offshore racing ace in our harbour had a 44ft boat for sale for so long without success that he despaired, and decided to sell her in pieces.
REASSEMBLING THE BITS AND PIECES
Thus the rig and sails were sold in various lots, then the keel was disposed of, and finally he was left with this large bare hull which he reckoned somebody might turn into a useful Shannon motor-cruiser. But at this stage, a rising offshore star in another port heard about the slow break-up of this noted boat, and set about reassembling the bits and pieces, and she sailed again.
To top that, once upon a time a characterful old Dublin Port tug found a new life on the Shannon, but somehow she ended up with nobody accepting responsibility for a very decaying asset, and the recent need to tidy up places like Shannon Harbour meant that it was finally decided to break her up.
TWO HALVES TOGETHER AGAIN
But they had only got as far as cutting her in two amidships to provide a couple of heavy loads for transportation to the nearest scrap metal yard when someone up on the North Shannon finally got to hear of it. And having always fancied the look of the old tugboat, he went down and bought the two pieces on the spot, and now he has fastened them back together again.
We’ll have more on that story in due course. And inspired by it, I’ve no doubt that somebody somewhere will start to think that the Frers 49 Killary Flyer is still capable of restoration. But Jamie Young sadly assures us that she is gone, utterly gone.
The current phase in Jamie Young’s adventurous life is the promotion of wind-power for seagoing vessels.
