Time was - and it's not so very long ago - that if you wanted to see the nearest set of traffic lights and other road control paraphernalia to Crosshaven, then you'd have to go well into Cork City. Not so any more.

And the road on the immediate landward side of the of the Royal Cork Yacht Club's is one of Crosser's best fitted, with all the lights, bells and whistles of a classic Zebra crossing for wheeled and pedestrian traffic control.

So with the Bicentenary of the RNLI this year coming soon after the Tricentenary of the Royal Cork YC, and leading us on into the 55th anniversary of the final Beatles album, the yellow welly walkers of Crosshaven Lifeboat - who have been holding fund-raising walks every
Sunday morning in May - decided to mark the conclusion of their successful effort with a re-enactment by the core team of the famous Abbey Road image of The Beatles, but using the pedestrian crossing right outside the Royal Cork YC marina complex.

Abbey Road was first issued on 26th September 1969, and rumour has it that at least two of those in the photograph - excluding lifeboat mascot Stormy Stan of course - saved up their pocket money to buy copies of the album. Unlike London’s leafy Abbey Road in St John’s Wood, the village of Crosshaven has only this one Zebra crossing complete with old style Belisha Beacons at the RCYC which - conveniently - just happened to be the start point of the May Welly Walks. Next Sunday, the word is the RNLI crew look forward to “Golden Slumbers” in the “Octopus’s Garden” unless of course, their pagers go off. We're asked to convey apologies to the Fab Four.

Meanwhile, now it can be revealed: the perspiring hero fulfilling the Stormy Stan role in that heavy suit was Conor Barry.

A Cork Harbour houseboat resident has told of his shock at seeing a “tornado” whipping towards him on Tuesday afternoon (21 May).

As Echo Live reports, Gavin Higgins was watching TV below deck on his converted classic RNLI lifeboat in Drake’s Pool when he was drawn to his cabin by a loud boom.

“It was a lovely day and I thought it was thunder, but I came up into my cabin and I saw this tornado making its way toward me,” Higgins says.

Video shot by passers-by shows the waterspout — the term for a whirlwind that forms over a body of water — whipping across the normally tranquil anchorage.

Luckily for Higgins, his houseboat the Lilly Wainright was unscathed in the incident.

“I always wanted to retire to Crosshaven and now I have,” the Doncaster native added. “I’m at home here, although I don’t know why God sent a tornado after me!”

Ireland is not known for such extreme weather events, but last December a tornado dealt significant damage to a number of moored motor cruisers in Co Leitrim, as previously reported on Afloat.ie.

The weekly Sunday morning yellow-welly fund-raise walks that have been a feature of each May weekend in Crosshaven, going sociably along the easy Cork Harbour shore path to Drake's Pool and back to the lifeboat station for welcome sustenance, will conclude this Sunday (May 26th) with the walk beginning at 10.0am - the poster says it all.

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When started, it was hoped that May's usually springlike or just plain cold weather would keep things reasonably cool for the fully-foul-weather-clad lifeboat mascot Stormy Stan. But last Sunday morning's exceptionally bright sunlight was threatening to turn him into Sweatin' Stormy Stan, though he made it back to the comfort of the station nevertheless.

A cheery crowd with a purpose - last Sunday's Crosshaven Lifeboat walking group

The walks have been attracting a diverse crowd, and if they haven't been simple chatting with each other, they'v been observing the diverse and seasonally-growing fleet of boats in the river. So can somebody please tell us if the handsome white sloop in the first photo includes an American-built boat that first arrived into Fenit on Tralee Bay many years ago, shippered Transatlantic by a seafaring priest?

The very worthy reason for it all - the Crosshaven lifeboat running as smoothly as envisaged by her designer, in action to seaward of Roche's Point

Crosshaven RNLI in Cork Harbour came to aid of two people on Wednesday (24 April) after their 30ft yacht got into difficulty.

The yacht’s crew who were on passage from Dublin to Crosshaven alerted the Irish Coast Guard at Valentia of a mechanical problem some five miles south of Roches Point and requested assistance.

The coastguard activated the pagers of the volunteer crew and the inshore lifeboat slipped moorings at 2.50pm with Aidan O’Connor in command, assisted by Clare Morgan, Jeff Lacarda and Maeve Leonard onboard.

The lifeboat made good time in a slight sea and was soon alongside the casualty vessel.

Checks were made of the yacht and its two occupants before it was decided that a tow was essential.

The yacht was brought into the nearest safe port at Crosshaven and safely berthed.

Shore crew for the call-out were Conor Barry, Gary Heslin, Michael Livingstone, Caoimhe Foster, Warren Forbes and Michael McCann. Launch authority was Hugh Tully.

We’ve become so accustomed to the RNLI’s Yellow Wellies being used as receptacles for Lifeboat Fund-Raisers – with silent donations much preferred, and usually generously given - that we can easily forget they’re practical items of footwear. But Crosshaven Lifeboat Branch have decided to give a new twist to this by combining most known uses of the distinctive footwear with a series of Yellow Welly Fund-Raiser Walks every Sunday morning in May at 10.0am. And the route is along the comfortably flat shoreside path from the Royal Cork YC to Drake’s Pool and back.

Project testing under way at a secret shoreside location near Crosshaven

The walks will start at the Royal Cork YC car-park (centre-right) and head west for Drake’s Pool. Photo: Robert Bateman

There’ll be prizes for the best-decorated childrens’ wellies on the day. And though the plan is to walk there and back for a “Brew With The Crew” in the Lifeboat Station afterwards, we’d be very surprised if participants at each extreme of the age spectrum aren’t allowed their cuppa even if they do get a lift back from the turning point.

For those who wish this well but can’t be there themselves, donations can be made here

The 1980s tend to get a bad press as a time when young people left the country in droves, searching for jobs that matched their potential and training. Those of us who stayed at home to battle on, but now find ourselves living in one of the allegedly richest countries in Europe, survived the bad times by generally not keeping overly close tabs on those who had made the Great Escape. For indeed, some had more or less vanished without trace, while others were rumoured to have made some sort of determinedly-sought breakthrough to become household names in their own household, or even better.

GETTING OUT IN 1985

One such is Ken Corry, now Commodore of the highly-regarded 1901-founded Los Angeles Yacht Club. Yet when he departed the intense Cork sailing scene in 1985, boats and sailing in his new life in California were barely even on the to-do list as he worked with increasing success on the lively West Coast, where the multi-opportunity California is nearly 15% of the entire US total economy, while New York state is only 8%.

Neill Love from Cork with Commodore Ken Corry at the Los Angeles Yacht Club

DEEPLY INTO CROSSHAVEN JUNIOR SAILING

Yet back in Crosshaven he’d been completely invested in the junior sailing programme, having joined the Royal Cork YC as a kid in 1970, then moving up the ranks to race in the Mirrors and be a helm in the RCYC Team which beat Sutton Dinghy Club for the historic Book Trophy by a cool 17.5 points in 1976.

The most junior of juniors – a young Ken Corry at Crosshaven (left) with Eddie Tingle and the late Suzanne Crosbie. The lifejackets back then were so uncomfortable that where the rules said “Life Jackets Must Be Worn When Sailing”, the youngsters interpreted that to a very fine point, and in a less prosperous era of fewer items of equipment, life jackets could be used as fenders when the boats weren’t actually under way

Success! Forty-eight years after the event, the 1976 page of “The Book” show young helm Ken Corry (bottom left) proving his worth for Royal Cork in the annual tournament against Sutton Dinghy Club

MOVING UP THE ROYAL CORK SAILING RANKS

Then he went on to the National 18s for a couple of years before being elevated to a crewing role on Denis Doyle’s new Crosshaven-built Frers 51 Moonduster in 1981, going on to race with The Doyler in that year’s Admiral’s Cup including the Fastnet, and the Sardinia Cup in Porto Cervo in the Mediterranean in 1982. By 1984, he had been swept into the wave of enthusiasm for the J/24s, crewing both for Stephen Hyde in that year’s Worlds at Poole, and subsequently with Anthony O’Leary in the legendary Flying Ferret.

Fresh out of Crosshaven Boatyard in May 1981, Denis Doyle’s new Frers 51 Moonduster had a youthful crew – including Ken Corry – who took a while to realise just how much they needed to ease the backstay when running. Photo: W M Nixon

But in the mid-1980s, the winters were long and the economic outlook was bleak, and in 1985 he fetched up in California, keen to work. The way his friend Neill Love back in Cork tells it, his reinvolvement – eventually to the highest levels – in the sailing scene in the new environment came about in a very laid-back style:

• Sailed casually with friends for a number of years before becoming a partner (and now sole owner) of a Cal 40 in restoration project.
• Joined Board of Directors (the Committee) in Los Angeles Yacht Club 2018
• Launched superbly restored and successful Cal 40 in 2021
• Commodore LAYC 2024

Joining the real club….the restoration of Ken Corry’s Cal 40 nears completion in 2021

It’s a beautiful story, and the involvement of a Cal 40 is the cream on the cake. Back in 1963, sailors of a modernist mind in Ireland were much taken by the new van de Stadt-designed Excalibur 36, virtually all fibreglass and with a spade rudder in the newest of the new styles, completely separate from the keel. There was an attempt to get an OD class going in Dun Laoghaire, but it had petered out by the 1970s, as moving from the very stylish and classic DB24s to the utterly plastic fantastic Excalibur was just too much of a leap.

CAL 40 IS CALIFORNIA’S ENDURING CLASSIC

But meanwhile, in California in 1963, Bill Lapworth unveiled the Cal 40, the same concept as the Excalibur 36, but with a more slim Pacific style in that very useful extra 4ft of length and enough traditional varnish-work – particularly a wooden cockpit coaming – to keep many traditionalists happy.

The ultimate restored Cal 40 – Stan and and Sally Honey’s Illusion sweeps into another ocean race win. After many years of massive successes on both the Pacific and Atlantic coats of the US with Illusion, Stan and Sally have gone over to the dark side with the purchase of a fully-powered trawler yacht, while Illusion has gone to Stan’s nephew “as he gets what she means”.

To cut a long story short, you won’t see any Excalibur 36s making the offshore racing scene these days. Yet in the US on both coasts the Cal 40 wonderboat just keeps on winning, and restoring one – as super-sailors Stan and Sally Honey did with their hugely successful yet ancient Illusion, which had bullet holes in the hull when they took on the job - is looked on along the West Coast as an almost sacred duty for serious sailors.

Thus from being someone from a cosy Irish sailing community who was making a leap into the dark in moving to the Coast, Ken Corry is now very much at home at the heart of Los Angeles sailing and its finest traditions. Rather than travelling to visit, he is the one to be visited – he has had Neill Love calling by, and when his mother Sheila arrived, they were able to get together with Ron Holland down from Vancouver, and his daughter Kelly.

And so far, he seems to have comfortably resisted any projects to make the LAYC the Western Station of the RCYC, but may well be open to the idea that the RCYC becomes the Eastern Station of the LAYC.

Sailing folk from several homes in Ken Corry’s home club are (left to right) Ken’s mother Sheila, Ron Holland down from Vancouver, Ken Corry in one of the places he knows best, and Ron Holland’s daughter Kelly.

After 50 years, there is a major change in sailmaking at Crosshaven, Cork Harbour’s dominant sailing centre.
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Outside the village, the loft associated with the legendary Des McWilliams and family is no longer a sailmaking centre.

Barry Hayes and his wife, Claire Morgan, who took over the business seven years ago, have moved sailmaking to a new loft at Carrigaline, a few kilometres away. In addition, they have opened the first sailing shop in the village of Crosshaven itself, an impressive premises looking out onto Cork Harbour, the marinas and the RCYC sailing grounds.

The new McWilliam Sailing Shop in Crosshaven was opened on Friday, November 17, 2023. The impressive premises looks out onto Cork Harbour

For this week’s Podcast, I discussed these changes at Sailmakers at The Square, Crosshaven, with Barry Hayes, who did not start his working life as a sailmaker - he was making chocolate when Des McWilliam convinced him to switch careers.

We discuss the modern changes in designing and manufacturing sails. He describes making canvas sails in Hong Kong, the long-lasting effect that had on his hands and how today, sails made from many different fabrics are also made to last longer.

Listen to the podcast and check out the photo gallery of the Sailmakers at The Square launch in Crosshaven below. 

Photo Gallery: Sailmakers at The Square Launch in Crosshaven

RTÉ News reports on a multi-agency search and rescue operation for a child missing in the water off Fountainstown Beach near Crosshaven in Co Cork.

It’s understood that an eight-year-old child was swept out to sea on Tuesday afternoon (5 September).

The Shannon-based Irish Coast Guard helicopter Rescue 115 is on the scene along with local coastguard and RNLI units, gardaí, ambulance crews and divers, according to Cork Beo which has more HERE.

Elsewhere, a surfer was prounounded dead after he was pulled from the water near Portrush on Sunday evening (3 September). The Belfast Telegraph has more on the story HERE.

The volunteer crew of Crosshaven RNLI were kept busy on Monday evening with two back-to-back callouts in Cork Harbour. The first callout came at 7.45 pm when the crew was alerted to a 19-foot motor boat with two people on board that had mechanical issues and an anchor that was dragging at Roches Point, near the mouth of the harbour. The crew quickly arrived on the scene and established a tow to Monkstown Marina.

As the lifeboat was berthing the casualty at Monkstown, Valentia Coast Guard diverted the crew to take part in a medical evacuation at Rushbrook Hotel. The National Ambulance Service requested assistance in extracting a patient with a lower leg injury from the shoreline. Cobh Fire Service was also in attendance. 

The patient was placed on the lifeboat by stretcher and taken to the ferry slipway before being handed back into the care of the paramedics. The lifeboat returned to the station at 10.50 pm, where it was washed down, refuelled, and declared ready for service once more at 11.30 pm. 

The RNLI crew involved in the operation included Alan Venner, Kline Pennefather, Molly Murphy, Conor Barry, Gary Heslin, Jeff Lasarda, Darryl Hughes, and Ian Venner. Michael McCann was DLA. 

This successful operation highlights the dedication and commitment of the Crosshaven RNLI to provide assistance to those in need.

A member of the public alerted the Coast Guard to a stranded vessel with one person onboard near Spike Island and Haulbowline Island in Cork Harbour on Saturday afternoon (July 29th).

The Crosshaven lifeboat volunteers were called to action and launched at 5.40 pm. The crew, consisting of Alan Venner, Susanne Deane, and David Venner, located the 20-foot motor vessel at anchor near the Haulbowline bridges.

The skipper explained that he had experienced engine failure after leaving the slipway at Paddy's Point. The weather conditions at the scene were challenging, with a westerly Force 5 and choppy sea.

After establishing a tow, the crew returned the vessel to Paddy's Point and helped the skipper retrieve it to his trailer before heading back to the station. Helm, Alan Venner, commented, "all water users should carry a means of calling for help and to call for help in a timely manner." He also praised the member of the public who reported the incident.

The crew members involved in the operation were Alan Venner, Susanne Deane, and David Venner, while Gary Heslin, Jon Meany, Michael Livingstone, Kline Pennefather, and deputy launching authority Hugh Mockler participated in the launch and recovery.

In case of an emergency on or near the water, contact the Coast Guard by calling 999 or 112, or by using VHF channel 16.