Wooden boats will dominate Baltimore Harbour this weekend when the West Cork village welcomes back the annual gathering of traditional vessels.
Like many other events the Baltimore Wooden Boat Festival, which had been held annually for seventeen years from 2002, came to a halt in 2019 with the wretched arrival of Covid. The organisers say that vessels are already arriving in Baltimore for the event in which there is huge interest.
Wooden boats will dominate Baltimore, West Cork this weekend Photo: Simon O'Shea
“We are delighted to re-launch the traditional festival,” Mary Jordan of the organising committee told me. “And we’re going to do so with a very special commemoration marking the centenary year when the legendary Conor O’Brien sailed off to go around the world in Saoirse, the boat built for him at the Baltimore Fishery School.”
The spirit of the re-born Saoirse is captured in this February 2023 Kevin O'Farrell photo taken off Baltimore. Photo: Kevin O'Farrell
The newly-built Saoirse from Hegarty’s boatyard at Oldcourt, Skibbereen, for Fred Kinmouth, will be seen at the festival sailing in company with the Ketch Ilen, the last of Ireland’s traditional wooden sailing ships, also designed by O’Brien and restored at Hegarty’s.
Mary Jordan is my Podcast guest this week and makes a very interesting suggestion that Conor O’Brien’s circumnavigation should be used as a focal point of developing maritime training
Listen to the Podcast below.
