“They are drop dead gorgeous.” Those words came to mind this week when, amongst the collection of many Emails, phone texts and post that arrive each week there was a photograph which nicely illustrated those words.
Stephen Morris sent me from Kilrush the photograph here of the first sailing of the Naneen, the Dublin Bay 21, that I last saw at Kilrush on the morning she was returned to the water after her restoration led by Stephen.
“Thought you might enjoy this,” he wrote and I responded: “Beautiful would be an understatement.”
My colleague, our wordsmith-of-sailing-record, WM Nixon, will tell the detailed story of this “first” sail in his Afloat blog this Saturday, so suffice for me to say that Hal Sisk and Fionán de Barra had a magical day after they traversed across an icy morning on Naneen’s deck on Monday to go sailing. When I saw the photos those words I quoted at the outset were so apt, from a maritime discussion of which I was part at Kilrush when Naneen was re-launched and which I’ve waited for the opportunity to Podcast, which has come with this first.
The granddaughter of James Clancy, who built the 21s - Ann Griffin takes up the story on the Podcast below.
