Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Dublin Bay 21 'Naneen' is Drop Dead Gorgeous

5th December 2019
Naneen, the Dublin Bay 21 sailing on the Shannon Estuary Naneen, the Dublin Bay 21 sailing on the Shannon Estuary

“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.

Tom MacSweeney

About The Author

Tom MacSweeney

Email The Author

Tom MacSweeney writes a column for Afloat.ie. He is former RTE Marine Correspondent/Presenter of Seascapes and now has a monthly Podcast on the Community Radio Network and Podcast services

We've got a favour to ask

More people are reading Afloat.ie than ever thanks to the power of the internet but we're in stormy seas because advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news sites, we haven't put up a paywall because we want to keep our marine journalism open.

Afloat.ie is Ireland's only full-time marine journalism team and it takes time, money and hard work to produce our content.

So you can see why we need to ask for your help.

If everyone chipped in, we can enhance our coverage and our future would be more secure. You can help us through a small donation. Thank you.

Direct Donation to Afloat button