Time was that when you went down to do the West Cork regattas with your beloved little cruiser-racer, you naturally expected to live aboard throughout the week. But as the fleets grew and the racing became more intense, even the keenest female sailors were wont to complain as their attempts to maintain a comfortable country cottage atmosphere below were being knocked astray by the rough arrival of an often extremely wet spinnaker in the middle of it all at least three times every racing day.
Then too, there were the skippers – meek “Yes Dear” heads of households ashore - who became ruthless hard-driving tyrants afloat, determined at the very least to get all unnecessary weight out of the ends of the boat before racing, and quite prepared to dump everything superfluous into the dinghy or onto the quayside if they thought they could show that it was within the rules. It all made for a lot of hassle before you could go anywhere near a starting line, and too much effort for an exhausted post-race crew who then had to re-organise the boat as living quarters.
When there was room to breathe, and Schull Regatta 1960 was an easygoing affair with plenty of space for Tom Crosbie’s International 8 Metre If to make an elegant start at the pier. Photo: Cork Examiner
ACQUIRING HOUSES
So inevitably as prosperity crept into the land, people began to acquire houses as near to the waterfront as possible in the popular southwest sailing centres, enabling their cruiser-racers to be stripped out for the week into total racing mode.
Schull Harbour in the process of becoming Dublin 4a
But as you could never be sure whether it was socially acceptable to describe your new West Cork pied a terre as a house, bungalow or cottage, the transferring of this bit of welcome info about crew accommodation was modestly restricted to saying “We’ve a bit of a place ashore there”, until there were so many “bits of places” that Schull in season has become Dublin 26 (though some would prefer Dublin 4a), while Baltimore in summertime is Carrigaline West.
Gentle racing in Schull during Calves Week. But when the wind is up, it’s difficult to keep the “country cottage” dry enough for comfortable overnight accommodation
But now it seems that crowded spaces and soaring property prices means we are emerging out the other side of that general mood of shoreside base expectation. A very seasoned observer of Calves Week 2026 in August at Schull reckoned the welcome new increase in fleet numbers is largely due to the fact that newer crews are more prepared to accept that their hot racing machine of the daytime is also their accommodation at night. And once they accept that with a level of enthusiasm, the economics of involvement in the West Cork Regattas is much more manageable.
HAZARDS OF SELF-INFLICTED LIQUID HARM
But as to keeping crew in good racing trim with this arrangement, there are if anything more potential hazards of self-inflicted liquid harm when cruiser-racers are rafted together post-race, with crew living on board, than there are when a base has been secured ashore, however close that shore base may be to some après sailing gluepot of many temptations.
I can remember being the shoreside half of a crew that was split between boat and town each night in Cowes Week. We particularly remember carefully seeing the boat-dwellers back afloat for a sensibly early night, but turned up for racing next morning on an increasingly windy day to find that they’d been sucked into such a level of inter-boat socializing that they could scarcely lift a finger between the lot of them.
Packing them in at Cowes Week. Some skippers reckon that the best way to keep the crew in top racing form is to get them off the Isle of Wight altogether each night.
We were lucky that the only ill-effect during that day’s racing on the Solent in one of its ultra-purple moods was a spinnaker broach of such thoroughness that the bilge water was well above the cabin sole when we finally got it sorted, the sea having poured through the compact little high-placed companionway with astonishing vigour as we proceeded up-Solent in pursuit of the spinnaker, with the boat flat on her ear and beyond.
FASTNET RACE
Yet two days later we went out to start the Fastnet Race, and managed to nab second overall in our class such that the celebrations in Plymouth put the Cowes Week strayings from the path of righteousness into the ha’penny place. For only in Plymouth could you find that a first floor premises in mid-afternoon could unblushingly describe itself as a Cellar Night Club With Strip Show. But at least when the guy carrying the trophy arrived at the door, he was let in for free, even if he was only carrying it because the winning skipper had fallen out of the taxi, with the noble RORC trophy then rolling along in the gutter.
Be that as it may, in those days there were many sailors who felt that you weren’t doing a race week or an offshore series properly unless you truly regarded your boat as both home base and racing machine, and it’s good news to hear that it’s a notion which is once again becoming accepted.
LUST FOR SPEED
But it does mean that the Sportsboat dilemma arises, for as you may have seen, ace helm Mark Mansfield of Cork has been promoting the idea here in Afloat that racing would see a rise in popularity if only people would do it in boats that have a very significant speed potential, such as the FarEast 28R that he and Jon McLean have been campaigning down Cork Harbour way and beyond after a successful season with an H Boat.
Designed by Hans Groop of Finland in 1968, the H Boat would have been just the boat Ireland needed back in the early 1970s if there’d been a bit more money about, and if our seas were not already cluttered up with Folkboats and suchlike of every kind.
For even with its drawback of restricted sitting headroom below, it’s a club racer which really can go to sea. Yet I know of only two currently in Ireland – the McLean boat in Cork, and ICC Rear Commodore Paul McSorley’s Wild Cat in Lough Swilly.
Designed by Hans Groop of Finland in 1968, the H Boat would have been ideal for Irish waters, but there wasn’t the money around, and everybody already had something like a Folkboat or similar.
The H Boat has shown she can out-perform the former Olympic Soling, though I doubt she could do the business against an Etchells 22. But the fact that in New Zealand in elderly Etchells 22s have been converted into swift little cruisers shows that there really is a demand for this kind of cruiser.
Nevertheless I have to admit that I have never done a live-aboard regatta week in a boat that didn’t have full standing headroom, and I would further add that there are few things more satisfying than getting a race-winning performance out of a comfortable cruiser-racer, something which the JPK have catered for with boats of genius.
Design of genius. Paul O’Higgins’ JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI on her way to winning Calves Week at Schull. Photo: Robert Bateman
But there’s no way any JPK boat could be described as a Sportsboat, and though we have 1720s a-aplenty for those who wish to go that way, they’ve been around since 1994, and the kind of people who would be attracted to the Sportsboat thing are the kind of people who would be attracted to something as new as the day after tomorrow.
In Irish sailing terms, that would be the FarEast 28R. But with this column’s West Cork emphasis in mind, may we propose again something that was suggested when the 1720s first appeared.
For it seemed to us that the 1720s had enough seagoing ability to contemplate inter-port racing in areas like West Cork. That feeling has been reinforced by the way that the Howth 17s hopped around the waters between Baltimore and Crookhaven and out to the Fastnet to celebrate their 125th Anniversary in 2023.
Hopping around West Cork…..the Howth 17 Isobel (Conor & Brian Turvey) speeds past the Fastnet Rock during the class’s 125th Anniversary Cruise-in-Company in West Cork. Photo: Howth 17 Class
But though the FarEast 28R can go offshore, its enclosed interior is not what you’d call accommodation. However, those of you who have frequented the exotic southwest will be aware that there are cycling groups which progress steadily from one up-market hotel to another, followed by a bus/van with everyone’s personal gear.
The cyclists get themselves in shape through each day’s journey while enjoying the continuous changing of the fabulous scenery, and then at night they rest and relax in hotel luxury.
There are enough up-market hotels on the coast of West Cork and southwest Kerry to provide a sequence of interesting day sails for a fleet of FarEast 28Rs. And if bikes can do it, why not boats?
It will be cruiser-racing for the mid 21st Century.
Way out, way to go? The FarEast 28R is definitely a boat for the mid-21st Century
