The vintage Etchells 22 transformed into a classic small cruiser last year by Bill Trafford of Alchemy Marine for a Crosshaven owner has been short-listed for an international award writes W M Nixon.

The superbly-finished Guapa – Spanish for “beautiful” – still sails like an Etchells. But she now looks like a very high quality miniature Swedish Skerries cruiser, with an exquisitely-crafted coachroof which can provide weekend cruising accommodation, although elegant and effortless daysailing is Guapa’s true forte.

With her teak-laid decks and appropriately classic-style McWilliam Sails, Guapa has impressed a wide range of people with vintage yacht experience, including America’s Cup superstar Dennis Conner’s classic yacht specialist Johnny Smullen, who has described her as “an amazing bit of work”.

Halfway stage of the transformation which created Guapa. The hull has been lengthened, the sheerline has been accentuated with an increase in freeboard, and the new coachroof has been built “to Chippendale standards”. Photo: W M Nixon

Now Guapa has been short-listed for the latest annual round of awards by the international publication Classic Boat, and she’s one of the final three that have reached the run-off in the Spirit of Tradition Under 40ft category.

All details on voting are here

We would guess that many readers will want to give Guapa and Bill Trafford their support, judging by the favourable response to our stories on Afloat.ie charting the complete transformation of this formerly well-worn Etchells 22.

Meanwhile, in his workshop near Skenakilla Crossroads in the rural heartlands of County Cork, Bill is busy on a new project - the complete transformation of an old counter-sterned Kim Holman-designed Elizabethan 29 into a new take on the Alan Buchanan-designed transom-sterned Colleen Class, which was built in Kinsale around 1950. It’s an utterly intriguing project - more of it on Afloat.ie in the very near future.

Guapa – “a delight to sail, and a joy to be aboard”.

Royal Cork Yacht Club's Jamie McWilliam has won Hong Kong's Around the Island Race.

It was a day of varied conditions for the 2017 Turkish Airlines Around the Island Race with everything from 2 to 28kts of easterly breeze being reported across the race track. Approximately 1,400 people on 230 boats and even two lifejacket-- clad dogs took part in this year's 26nm circumnavigation.

The big winners of the day were ex-pat Jamie McWilliam now based in Hon Kong with his crew Simon Macdonald and Peter Austin onboard the EtchellsShrub, they crossed the finish line at 14h 19m 07s to take the overall win with a corrected time of 4h 59m 02s.

It took two start lines located off of Causeway Bay and Hung Hom and 22 consecutive starts to get the fleet away. There were boat breaking conditions right off of the start with the first casualty of the day headed back to the club by 0830hrs due to a broken mast and boom. The fleet tacked their way up the starboard side of the Hong Kong Harbour course, avoiding exclusion zones and Hong Kong's busy marine traffic and through Lei Yue Mun gap.

Once the fleet reached Shek O rock they met with big swells of 2 to 3m, which proved difficult for some of the smaller fleets. Persevering on was the first Para athlete to compete in the Around the Island Race; Foo Yuen-Wai representing Sailability Hong Kong on board a 2.4mR, the smallest boat in the fleet The Kaplan, not only is Foo the first Para athlete to compete, he is also the first one to sail single- handed. Foo completed the race and sailed across the line at 16h 11m 24s.

Another first was Sean Law on board S M Kwan and Thomas Wong's Sunfast 3600 Ding Dong Sean who is just 77 days old did his first Around the Island Race with mother and father Sally and Dominick.

Kites were hoisted after the fleet rounded D'Aguilar point with gusts up to 28kts. There were a few exciting broaches and resulting in a few more retirements. However, with the large swell running along the Sheung Sze Mun channel, some boats were fully launched and able to surf in on the run towards Stanley Gate.

The swell tapered off as did the breeze, as the fleet approached Round Island. A park up ensued off the Cyberport Gate, where supporting sponsors St. James's Place were waiting to greet the fleet on a spectator yacht. Once the fleet rounded Green Island the breeze increased a little but there were still a few holes along the harbor. First to make the circumnavigation was Bruce Anson and Wei Jie's Discover Sail Asia an RC44 with an elapsed time of 4h 19m 21s.

Another top result for Royal Cork's Mark Mansfield in the Etchells Class this week as he took a podium in Cowes Week, racing as tactician,with Robert Drake.

Counting three race wins in the 7 race series they finished with a final race win on Saturday. Robert Elliott won the regatta with four race wins, with Stuart Childerley, three times Etchells World Champion, as tactician.

This one design fleet result comes hot on the heels of two other good one design results very recently for Mansfield. As Afloat.ie previously reported here, the four time Olympian was tactician on John Smart's J109 Jukebox which won the Tattinger J109 regatta in Yarmouth and taking a top–ten result as tactician with Mike Budd in the Dragon Edinburgh Cup.

As also reported previously,  Mansfield also won the ICRA class one championships for the third consecutive time last June as tactician on John Maybury's Joker 2, and then went on to win the highly competitive Class 1 event on Joker 2 at Dun Laoghaire Regatta in July. This win also won Joker Two, the regatta's boat of the week prize.

Next up for Mansfield is a 'chill–out week' at Calves Week in Schull, West Cork this week followed by the Half Ton Classics Regatta in Kinsale next Sunday as tactician aboard Mike and Richie Evans Big Picture from Howth Yacht Club.

Cork sailor Mark Mansfield has just finished the Tattinger Regatta on the Isle of Wight as tactician on John Smart's J109 Jukebox where the team won the J109 Class and the overall regatta with straight wins.

Mansfield, a distinguished Olympic sailor, with four appearances for Ireland in the Star keelboat, has carved a niche for himself of late in the J109 design. Sailing with Smart, he also won the UK's Warsash Spring Championships in April on Jukebox, as Afloat.ie reported at the time here.

Of course, as regular Afloat.ie readers will know, this latest UK result come on the heels of two other J109 wins in Ireland this season. Mansfield, sailing with John Maybury, on Joker II, won the ICRA class one national title in June, for the third consecutive year, earning Maybury a Sailor of the Month award into the bargain.

This month at Dun Laoghaire Regatta Joker won her fourth consecutive win in that event to also give her boat of the regatta. Mansfield sailed in all four of these J109 wins as tactician and mainsheet hand.

The Royal Cork ace, who competed at the Dragon Edinburgh Cup in Cowes last week is back there today for the Etchells 22 Gertrude Cup, followed by Cowes Week in the Etchells Class too. A busy man.

Bill Trafford, Ireland’s boatbuilding sorcerer who beavers away in a shed near Skenakilla Crossroads in North County Cork, is already hatching new magic as onlookers continue to be entranced by his Super Etchells 22 Guapa currently making her debut on Cork Harbour writes W M Nixon.

This extraordinary project has already attracted several potential customers with their own ideas on re-configuring standard glassfibre boats. But Bill himself reckons that after an Etchells 22, a useful area for exploration might be found with the former Olympic class, the 26.75ft LOA Soling, which already comes with quite a pretty sheerline, and would only need a classic counter (and of course a teak laid deck and an elegant little cabin-top) to transform her into a very special 30-footer.

With a new counter stern inspired by the transom of the Friendship sloop of Maine, this is an Etchells 22 with a difference

Amidships, the Etchells 22 seems purest Scandinavian in concept

There’s no doubt that the Soling has a long-lasting hull, and one in reasonable order would respond very well to the Skenakilla treatment. But I think I’d pass on what used to be a Soling, which we spotted a couple of years ago when cruising the Hebrides.

This boat is to be found – or at least used to be found – abandoned at Port Ellen on Islay. The conversion to her presumably dates from the days of short-handed Round Britain & Ireland Races and other such ventures. Someone had taken a standard Soling, and stuck a sort of cabin on the forward end of the cockpit, and then for stowage space had put a box of sorts on the afterdeck.

The result, it could be argued, was a small centre-cockpit offshore racer. Somehow, she ended up on Islay. The concept is not quite what Bill Trafford has in mind. But it certainly proves that the Soling has considerable scope for innovation and re-configuration.

Once upon a time, this was an Olympic Soling…Photo: W M Nixon

....and this is how she looked originally

As Johnny Smullen, boatbuilder to America’s Cup legend Dennis Conner has put it, the transformation job on a tired old Etchells 22 is simply amazing writes W M Nixon

The well-worn white hull of a standard Etchells 22 went into Bill Trafford's shed near Skenakilla Crossroads in March last year. And this week, the gorgeous dark blue cruising sloop Guapa (it’s Spanish for beautiful) emerged. See our April progress report here.

Elegance is the hallmark

Next Wednesday she’ll be arriving in Crosshaven for her mast to be stepped and new sails fitted from Des McWilliam. But the boat is so utterly transformed, with judiciously-raised topsides and an extremely elegant Scandinavian-style coachroof and comfortable accommodation within, that Bill naturally wondered if his calculations as to the new location of the waterline were accurate.

Indeed, like every boat-transformer, he wondered if she’d float. So rather than give her a totally-untested debut at Crosshaven, Guapa was quietly towed up the road to Doneraile, where the equipe stopped outside the Townhouse Tea Room for some sustenance, as Bill’s wife works there (and it’s Georgina Campbell-recommended).

Quick sustenance stop as viewed from the Townhouse tea Room in Donraile

Then it was on up the road to Adare and down to Askeaton off the Shannon Estuary, where Cyril Ryan at his boatyard had the crane ready, and Guapa had her first splash in complete privacy. No leaks. And she floated perfectly on her marks. All being well, next Wednesday in Crosshaven, you’re in for a treat.

At Askeaton, Guapa floats to her marks

Some boats are Classics from birth, others acquire Classic status over time, and there are others beyond that again which have had imaginative things done to them in order to confer a new Classic status writes W M Nixon.

Back on February 11th, we ran a Sailing on Saturdays blog about the creative and energetic boat-builders who can be found in Ireland when you move outside the self-regarding bubble which is Dublin. One who particularly captured the spirit was Bill Trafford, who works from a shed near Skenakilla Crossroads somewhere between Mitchelstown and Mallow in North Cork.

They’ve been busy in Skenakilla – this is how it all looked two months ago Photo W M Nixon

Bill is doing things to an old Etchells 22 which fairly takes the breath away. For although there are those who would argue that this Skip Etchells-designed slim racing machine of 1966 vintage is something of a Classic anyway, Bill has done things to this particular example to move her into a completely new sector of the Classic Yacht movement.

He has raised the topsides by small but varying amounts to give a more elegant sheer. In doing this, he has provided the most perfect teak-laid deck, with a very elegant little Scandinavian-style coachroof set neatly in the middle. And he has provided a comfortable cockpit through extending her stern, which now finishes in a sophisticated interpretation of the Friendship Sloops’ unique counter transom to be found in Maine.

Bill Trafford has form in this sort of thing, as he won international awards for his transformation of a Elizabethan 23 into a lovely little fractional-rigged sloop with mostly day-sailing in mind. He prefers his boats to be finished in a classy and distinctive dark blue, and since we were last in Skenakilla, the new boat has had this treatment, and lovely she looks too.

The new deck is such a masterpiece that it should be hung on the wall as an exhibit in a spacious art gallery. Photo: Bill Trafford

In fact, there’s only one word for it, and it was provided by Johnny Smullen, shipwright to Dennis Conner, Mr America’s Cup. We were exchanging photos a week or so ago when I was putting together a piece about the Golden Jubilee of the Junior Section in the National YC, of which Johnny is a graduate. I slipped in that header photo of the Skenkilla Etchells 22 knowing that The Dennis has been an Etchells ace in his day. The response from Johnny Smullen was prompt: “That Etchells is amazing!”

It may be sometimes overused, but “Amazing!” really is the only appropriate reaction. Photo: Bill Trafford

There is really no reasonable comparison between Ireland’s eastern and western seaboards writes W M Nixon. The east coast is quite densely populated, and while it has some areas of impressive scenery, in general it lacks the majestic inlets and islands which make sailing the Atlantic seaboard such a joy. That said, there’s no getting away from the fact that, taken overall, the east coast leads in economic activity, and at the very least there’s no doubting it has much less rain.

But when the rain in the west clears to reveal the coastline in all its glory, the extra precipitation seems a small price to pay for such visual natural abundance. And then too, while there are fewer people, they’re all so much larger than life, and bursting with innovative and entertaining ideas, that you’re inclined to think one western person is worth a dozen easterners.

However, those of us living and doing most of our sailing on the humdrum old east coast have one inescapable and total advantage over those in the west. When our east coast life gets too stressed and samey, we can escape for a while to the big country, fresh air and crazy attitudes of the west.

If you live in the west, you simply can’t genuinely experience this moment of release. But on the east coast, if life gets tedious, all that is necessary is head west for a day or two. The moment you cross the River Shannon, the spirits lift, and as you crest the watershed between the Shannon and Galway Bay, the big generous country of the west is rising on the horizon, and all is much better with the world.

In the west, too, they operate on a different time scale. And they do it in a different time zone. Until the railways of the 19th Century made some national co-ordination of time essential, local time meant that the recognised noon was later the further west you moved. As is only natural, Galway was twenty minutes later than Dublin. It was only with the exigencies of the Great War in 1916 that an Official Act was passed making uniform time-keeping a legal requirement. Oddly enough, no-one seems to have discussed what effect this draconian measure might have had in provoking the outbreak of the Easter Rising in 1916. Be that as it may, all we know for now is that in Galway, they still operate on a local time zone which is at least twenty minutes later than everyone else’s time, and is probably nearer half an hour.

Galway hookers racing hard off the Connemara coast. This is the popular image of sailing in the west, but while vivid and true, the complete story of western sailing is much broader. Photo Paul Harris

This became apparent last week when I wheeled into the car park at Galway Bay Sailing Club to give a performance of the current illustrated warblefest, which is about Ireland’s unique relationship with gaff rig and how it has emerged that Irish sailors led the switchover to Bermudan. The details of that will have to wait for another blog, but on this particular night, the immediate concern – with less than a quarter of an hour to go to the advertised start time – was that there just one other car in the car park, and that was Vice Commodore John Murphy, who was there a minute earlier to open the place up for the night.

“Oh Jaysus, Nixon” thought I, “you’ve bombed tonight, there’s not going to be a soul here.” But there wasn’t a moment to brood on the prospect of a showbiz flop, for I was with Pierce Purcell the mover and shaker of the west, and he wanted to show me the almost-finished refurb job they’ve been doing on the ground floor setup in the clubhouse, where they’ve managed to greatly enlarge the floor-space and rationalise its use for a state-of-the art changing room and multiple-use room and boat and equipment store setup.

You know the feeling you get when you’re looking at a job which is going very well indeed. It’s heartening. The re-furb in GBSC is precisely that. It’s being overseen by members Pat and Emer Irwin - he’s the Project Manager and she’s the Architect – and is being done with exemplary efficiency, on time and within a budget of only €160,000, which is the best value in building work I’ve ever seen anywhere.

Galway Bay SC is nearing the completion of a clever refurbishment project which is within time, within budget, and excellent value. Photo Pierce Purcell

We emerged much encouraged from seeing all this to be further cheered by the fact the club was warming up with its famous big stove in the middle of the bar getting into its stride, and the place filling up with people from near and far. For of course I’d temporarily forgotten that Galway’s in a different time zone and it wouldn’t be until around 8.30pm that we’d have some idea of the real turnout, and how effective it might be for the yellow welly collection. This is an idea imported from Poolbeg Y & BC which provides the most painless way of raising funds for the lifeboats. You just provide one yellow RNLI seaboot and request the audience to see how many €5 notes they can get into it. Usually it concludes with some worthwhile figure inevitably ending in either zero or five, but Galway being Galway, the night concluded with the boot yielded up a sum ending with six euro and eight cents……

The show became something we all had to go through with, just in order to justify being there, so it went ahead and finally got to its meandering conclusion. Then the lights went up to reveal even more people had arrived. Pierce Purcell had certainly done his stuff in the phonecall chivvying department, for despite all your modern means of instant total-cover communication, the personal phone call seems to be more important than ever, and the photo below gives some indication of the coverage he achieved, while also hinting at the conviviality of an evening in which a shared love of boats and sailing and a good club atmosphere completely obliterated any feeling of it still being winter outside.

Western gathering. In Galway Bay SC are (back row, left to right) Simon McGibney (Commodore ICRA & ISA Board Member), John Leech (Commodore, Lough Derg YC), Afloat.ie’s W M Nixon, Adrian McConnell (Royal Western YC, Kilrush), Peter Fernie (Rear Commodore Irish Cruising Club) and Richard Glynn (Commodore, Royal Western of Ireland YC). Front row left to right Elaine O’Mahony, (outgoing Hon Sec Foynes YC, 2016 Volvo ISA Training Centre of the Year), Cormac McDonnacha (Chairman, WIORA Week), and Gary Allen, outgoing Commodore GBSC. Photo: Pierce Purcell

It was good to talk again with Barry Martin of Galway who made such an impact as bo’sun on the Asgard II many years ago that he found himself being recruited into the same role for both the much larger Britsh sail training schooners Winston Churchill and Malcolm Millar, a job in which he was so successful that he ended his sail training career as a senior officer on the Churchill.

There too were Jim Grealish and Barry Heskin, against whom we used to race inshore and offshore in the days when we each had boats around the 35ft size, boats of very different type yet rating notably similar, so if the Morrisssey-Grealish-Heskin squad appeared on the starting line with Joggernaut, aboard Witchcraft of Howth we knew we were into a boat-for-boat battle in which no quarter would be given, yet everyone would be the best of friends afterwards.

But if there was ample opportunity in GBSC for memories of good times past, equally there was plenty of discussion of the here and now, and it was fascinating to meet up with Dan Mill who runs the busy boatyard in the industrial estate beside Galway Docks. Dan’s story is such that we’ll be developing it into a complete blog in due course, sufficient to say at the moment that his links to Ireland are extraordinarily complex, for although he was born in England, at the age of three his parents together with another family set off to sail to New Zealand from Lymington in the then-bermudan-rigged 43ft Tyrrell ketch Maybird, and Maybird of course is now back in Ireland fully restored as a gaff ketch, and well-known in the ownership of Darryl Hughes.

Maybird as a Bermudan ketch. It was under this rig that Dan Mill sailed on her from England to New Zealand while still a child

As for young Dan, growing up in New Zealand he naturally moved into boat-building in what is probably the best boat-building school in the world, the New Zealand marine industry. But then Mna na hEireann took a hand in his life-path.

It would be difficult to overestimate the influence that the charms of the Women of Ireland have had on the development of a small yet top-level boat-building industry in this country. But there’s something about marine craftsmen and Irish women which gets them together and entices the craftsmen to settle in Ireland despite the fact that, let’s face it, anyone trying to produce such top quality work here is ploughing a lonely furrow a long way from the great centres of the specialist industry, such as the Solent district, parts of the Baltic, certain places in Brittany, and particularly New Zealand.

Yet the women get them, and they get them home to Ireland, and they keep them. Thus we have the likes of Dan Mill in Galway, Steve Morris in Kilrush, and Bill Trafford in the hidden depths of the country near Mitchellstown, all three of them trying to ensure work of the highest quality in a country where “Ah sure, ’twill do” is sometimes the defining motto in woodwork.

Having arrived in Galway, Dan Mill found himself within the orbit of the formidable John Killeen, with whom all ideas are possible, and somehow they found themselves setting out to build a cruising version of an Open 60.

The galley area in Nimmo under construction

Beauty in detail – Dan Mill’s craftsmanship in evidence on a table for Nimmo.

In the end she became a very one-off 68-footer named Nimmo in honour of the great Scottish harbour engineer Alexander Nimmo, who is one of John’s heroes. When she was eventually finished after four years with Dan being responsible for virtually every bit of skilled work in her complex construction and superb finish, he was exhausted, but his reputation in Galway was well established at a very high level, and he’s now the man to go to with boat maintenance needs and problems. He’s not above undertaking a mid-level job such as putting a new deck and coachroof on an older fibreglass hull, but as for launching another project on the Nimmo scale, that would require some thinking about.

Launching day for Nimmo, built in a very basic shed in Galway
Dan Mill this week in the boat yard in Galway

Nevertheless, talking with the man who built Nimmo was an eloquent reminder that there’s a lot more to sailing in the West than Galway Hookers and other traditional craft. But equally it was a reminder that the traditional skills are still being maintained and indeed nourished out beyond the Pale. So after a leisurely breakfast next morning with Pierce and Susan Purcell in their dream house in Clarinbridge, with a busy red squirrel feasting on the bird table close outside the generous window, there was time to inspect Pierce’s boatshed out the back, one of those green steel sheds which sit so well in the Irish countryside, particularly when – like Pierce – you have your 26-footer comfortably winterised in it, and a fine well-equipped workbench right to hand.

What price a facility like this at your house on the East Coast? Pierce Purcell in “the little shed out the back” at Clarenbridge Photo W M Nixon
It’s the sort of ideal setup very few can manage on the over-crowded East Coast, and I headed south musing on the east-west imbalance, and readying the thinking for something entirely different - the Ilen Boat-Building School in Limerick. This started as the backup service for the restoration of the Conor O’Brien 57ft ketch Ilen by Liam Hegarty at Oldcourt near Baltimore, and recently in the Ilen School they’ve produced deckhouses for Ilen to the highest standard, and are currently finishing the last of the new spars.

But under the inspiration of Gary MacMahon (who personally was responsible for bring Ilen home from the Falklands) and others such as Brother Anthony Keane of Glenstal Abbey, the Ilen School has become a remarkable educational and training resource undertaking a wide variety of projects such as creating replicas of the traditional Shannon Estuary gandelows, and building a class of the very handy CityOne sailing dinghies to a design by the late Theo Rye, a successful project which further revealed the multiple talents of that much-mourned expert in every aspect of naval architecture.

Courses constructing traditional Grand Banks Dories provide popular night classes at the Ilen Boatbuilding School in Limerick. Photo W M Nixon

Another handy course which the Ilen School offers is through building traditional Grand Banks dories, simple yet effective boats which must have seemed very small indeed as you were left behind in the Grand Banks fog by the Bluenose fishing schooners to get on with the day’s business of ling-lining for cod. By the time the schooner found you again towards evening, your little dory would be dangerously laden with a great catch of wet and scaly silvery wealth.

In fact, the Ilen School is a whole host of experiences, for there in the main work-space were the mighty new spars for Ilen together with the distinctly aged original gaff which goes all the way back to Tom Moynihan and his shipwrights in Baltimore 91 years ago. And in another workspace, the Ilen team are building two very able little dinghies to the Valentine type from dimensions supplied by Hal Sisk, and they will in time be Ilen’s boats. But before you get to these sensibly–shaped little dinghies, you’ve to take on board the Hildasay, the Ilen school’s latest acquisition.

The Valentine dinghy, from plans provided by Hal Sisk, has been built at the school to be a ship’s boat for Ilen. Photo W M Nixon

Ilen’s new main gaff boom (left) and the original (right), which was shaped in Baltimore in 1926. Photo W M Nixon

The mighty mainmast for Ilen, with topmast temporarily in place in Limerick, is ready for dismantling and transport to Baltimore. Photo W M Nixon

We all know that Limerick is a Viking city, in fact there are those who would argue that it still is, and in its rawest state too. But nevertheless it takes a while to get your head round how a boat like Hildasay, of the very purest Viking descent, should have ended up in a big shed in a trading estate in Limerick.

Hildasay was built in Shetland as a sailing development of the traditional clinker-built sixareen (six oars) in 1951, and is such a sweet little 26-footer that your heart falls for her, even if your head tells you that the slim Viking stern mean there’s very little space just where you most need it most, while the classic clinker construction poses its own special maintenance problems in a vessel which is a semi-keelboat.

Jack Hawks with the Shetland sailing sixareen Hildasay, whuch he has donated to the Ilen Boatbuilding School. Photo: W M Nixon
She has been in and around the Shannon Estuary for abut 15 years, but owner Jack Hawks was recently seriously ill, and though he has fully recovered he felt the demands of Hildasay were getting a little too much for him, and wondered if the Ilen Boat Building School would be interested in her as a gift.

She’s an ideal gift, as she’s of a size to be very manageable, she provides special maintenance problems which, while not enormous, are very educational as part of the school’s courses, and each summer when she’s in commission she could be based either on Lough Derg, or somewhere down the Estuary.

The “day team” at the Ilen School with their new acquisition Hildasay include Luki O’Brien, Jack Hawks, Elan Bromley, Owen Lacey, Sid Dorchenas, Matt Diss, Gary MacMahon and Luna MacMahon. Photo W M Nixon
The problem in Limerick is that though the Shannon is very much in the midst of it, access to it in the heart of town is limited, and in any case below the weir the big tides are a problem. But up on Lough Derg or further down the Estuary, there are all sorts of opportunities to get conveniently afloat, and having the use of an interesting sailing boat which is bigger than a CityOne or a gandelow is a natural add-on to the Ilen School’s activities, providing a broadening of the mind for some young would-be boatbuilders who may have spent too much time solely at the workbench without seeing what the resulting use of the end product is all about. And who knows, but they might even manage a race with the lovely gaff cutter Sally O’Keeffe built by Steve Morris of Kilrush with the community team from nearby Querrin as a replica of the traditional Shannon Estuary trading hooker.

Having seen the possibilities of mind-broadening in Limerick, the final part of this western tour took in a project which is mind-blowing. Admittedly the good people of the townland of Skenakilla would never for a minute think of themselves as being in the west, but for the rest of us this hidden spot beyond Mitchellstown in North Cork seems to be in the middle of nowhere. But then when you’ve found it, and spent a bit of time with the ebullient Bill Trafford in his remarkable Alchemy Marine boat workshop in Skenakilla, you feel you’re at the hub of the universe.

Bill is another case of Mna na hEireann reeling them in – a classic yachtbuilder and particularly an enthusiast for the International 6 Metre Class, he met an Irish girl and that was that. He made a living plying his highly specialized trade the length and breadth of our island working from a van, and then discovered his own niche in doing interesting, indeed extraordinary things, with old fibreglass boats.

Bill Trafford’s transformation of an Elizabethan 23 won international awards last year.

Bill Trafford’s current project at Alchemy Marine is the transformation of an Etchells 22 into a weekend cruiser by raising the freeboard, and providing a beautifully-made coachroof (foreground) Photo: W M Nixon

Bill Trafford – he is as enthusiastic about the full potential of glassfibre construction as he is about using classic yacht joinery work. Photo W M Nixon

He’s unusual in that he’s as enthusiastic about the wide potential of glassfibre construction as he is profoundly satisfied by working in wood to the highest classic yacht standards. While his special abilities were well known to a select few, he came to international notice last year when one of his masterpieces, the complete re-working of a seemingly tired little Elizabthan 23 into an elegant 26ft sloop with a classic New England style, was awarded a top prize in the Classic Boat annual competition.

His current project for a Cork owner is even more intriguing, the transformation of an ordinary and no longer young Etchells 22 into a 34ft LOA day cruiser of unique appearance. He has raised the topsides using glassfibre moulding to give her a completely fresh sheerline, he has transformed the stern by giving it a new-look counter with a curving transom which gives more than a nod in the direction of the unique sterns of the Friendship sloops of Maine, and he has built the most beautiful coachroof in the best Knud Reimers style to provide a boat which comes with a heady combination of Down East and Scandinavia to her.

The lengthened stern has seen the rudder being moved aft by half a metre to provide a much roomier cockpit. Photo: W M Nixon

While compact, the accommodation provides for weekend cruising, but it’s expected to be comfortable day sailing which will be the best use of the “new” boat. Photo: W M Nixon

The stern is lengthened such that the LOA is now 34ft instead of the original 30.5ft, and the possibilities this has provided for a large cockpit to match the very pleasant accommodation (including a proper toilet compartment and a Beta diesel auxiliary) have been met by moving the entire rudder half a metre aft.

With his experience of tweaking boats this way and that, Bill reckons the sailing balance will if anything be improved by this re-location of the rudder. Personally, in the standard Etchells I’d always thought it too far forward anyway, so I could live with this change, yet found it entertaining to note that while he talked of moving the rudder aft by half a metre, when I asked him how he calculated the perfect-looking camber in the new deck, he said his rule of thumb is one inch for every four feet of beam. This is as near as dammit one in fifty, but his mixture of measurement systems makes him just like the rest of us who are mere bodgers, for when we’re measuring something we just use the side of the steel rule which comes up first, be it metric or imperial…….

Under the new foredeck – Bill’s rule of thumb is a deck camber of one in 48. Photo: W M Nixon

This is very much a bespoke project, so Bill has been able to introduce all sorts of quirky little features, a very attractive one being the ports for the navigation lights, which are set well into the hull either side of the stemhead, and look for all the world like the eyes put in Mediterranean boats to ward off evil spirits. In fact, they give such an appearance of good cheer to this new-old boat that when you see her from ahead, she looks for all the world as though she is smiling so much that she’s about to burst out laughing.

The Watchful One…….it was a Bill Trafford’s idea to build special ports for the navigation lights. Photo W M Nixon

There’s still quite a bit to do before she’s ready for the water, but Bill is now in such a rhythm of working on his own that he can put in long productive hours without really noticing it, so we hope to get back to Skenakilla sooner rather than later. As for those around him, one unexpected advantage of being near Mitchellstown is you’re right in the heart of the dairy engineering industry, where the use and working of stainless steel is second nature. In fact, down there they sometimes use stainless steel which is of a superior grade to the 316 which is usually good enough for the rest of us.

Truth to tell, I didn’t know there were types of stainless steel superior to 316, but you learn many things down in Skenakilla, and it was encouraging to hear that the best workers in the stainless steel fabricating shops are happy to lend their skills in their spare time to bring Bill’s self-made stainless steel fittings up to professional standards of finish.

Thanks to the local presence of high-grade stainless steel engineering for the dairy industry, it has been possible to make these fittings in Skenakilla. Photo: W M Nixon

A work of art in its own right, the new coachroof will be fitted any day now. Photo: W M Nixon

All being well, the new boat will be a star at the 25th Anniversary Glandore Classics Regatta from July 23rd to 29th, in fact Bill rather hopes the owner might consider taking her to the Classics Regatta celebrating the Bicentenary of Dun Laoghaire Harbour from July 6th to 9th as part of Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta.

The good news here is that Cathy MacAleavey, chair of the Dun Laoghaire Classics organising committee, and Sally Wyles, who heads up the Glandore organisation, got together last weekend to see about selling their two events as a sort of package, as the clear fortnight between them makes participation in both a very realistic proposition.

Certainly the Dun Laoghaire Classics is beginning to look impressive, particularly if you go by the measuring method of counting the number of famous designers involved. The recent interest shown by Rob Mason of Milford Haven to come over with his newly-restored 36ft Alexander Richardson-designed 36ft Myfanwy brings a once-famous Liverpool designer back into the limelight. It’s where he deserves to be, for Richardson designed John Jameson’s all-conquering Irex in 1884.

Rob Mason with his restored 1897 Alexander Richardson 36-footer Myfanwy off Milford Haven. He has indicated interest in participation in the Bicentenary Regatta in Dun Laoghaire in July

In Dublin Bay, Myfanwy would see this Richardson creation shaping up to designs by G L Watson, Alfred Mylne, William Fife, John Kearney, O’Brien Kennedy, Arthur Robb and others, and that’s the list already with the net only newly cast.

As for what Glandore can offer, there’s at least one unique proposition. A special race will be sailed to honour the memory of Theo Rye, the fleet including the CityOnes from Limerick and a host of other boats, new and old. On each and every one of them, Theo would have had something new and of real interest to say, for that’s the kind of devoted student of naval architecture he was throughout his far-too-short life. He is much missed.

Much missed. The late Theo Rye aboard the 1887 Fife cutter Ayrshire Lass, which was restored by Michael Kennedy at Dunmore East. Theo Rye will be commemorated in a special event at the 25th Anniversary Glandore Classics Regatta from July 23rd to 29th. Photo: Darryl Hughes

The overall winner of the 2016 Etchells World Championship, hosted by the Royal London Yacht Club, is John Bertrand (AUS), representing the Royal Brighton Yacht Club, with a crew of Paul Blowers (GBR) and Ben Lamb (AUS). In 2nd is Steve Benjamin (USA), representing the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club, with a crew of Michael Menninger , Ian Liberty and George Peet (all USA). In 3rd is Irish born Noel Drennan (AUS), representing the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, with a crew of Brian Hammersley and Andrew Mills (both GBR).

On the final day of the 2016 Etchells World Championship, Race 9 was won by John Bertrand's team. 2nd was Pedro Andrade (POR), with a team of Henry Bagnall and Charles Nankin, representing the Norddeutscher Regatta Verein, Germany was second. In 3rd was Ante Razmilovic (GBR) representing the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda Italy, with a team of Chris Larson and Stuart Flinn.

Mark Mansfield sailing on ice skippered by Andrew Cooper finished 16th overall. Third crew was Calum Healy, a month ago this trio had won the Etchells 22 class at Cowes Week.

In 27th place was Julia Bailey with Dulbiner Jay Burke from Dublin and Martin Payne.

In 47th place was Howth's Richard Burrows with Samantha Burrows and James Downer.

All results here are provisional.

Big breeze arrived at the 2016 Etchells World Championship today; fully powered up, punching through Solent chop upwind and pulling the trigger down wind, several teams experienced gear failure. The conditions were unexpected, 25 knots of solid breeze with bullets of pressure, sending the wind speed past 30 knots. Race 6 was completed, guaranteeing a series for the regatta, and bringing a discard race into play. Argyle Campbell, representing the Newport Harbor Yacht Club, (USA), won today's only race. Andy Beadsworth, representing Warsash Sailing Club (GBR), was 2nd and reigning Etchells World Champion, Skip Dieball, representing North Cape YC (USA), was 3rd.

John Bertrand representing the Royal Brighton Yacht Club (AUS), extended his overall lead at the top of the fleet, scoring a 6th today and discarding a 22nd. Steve Benjamin's team suffered damage to their main sheet system before the start, which they repaired, but the knock-on effect was a rushed pre-start, and a 20th place dropped the team to 3rd overall. Irish born Australian, Noel Drennan, scored a 5th place to steal past Benjamin by a single point. Drennan has competed in the America's Cup, Volvo Ocean Race, and 30 Sydney Hobart's. This is Noel 'Nitro' Drennan's 18th Etchells World Championship.

“John (Bertrand) has got quite a big lead and Steve Benjamin and Chris Hamilton are close behind us, so there is still plenty of racing to come.” commented Noel Drennan. “It looks like it will be windy again tomorrow, and things can happen. We will try to start well and try not to do anything stupid.

Today's race winner was Argyle Campbell, representing the Newport Harbor Yacht Club, (USA). His team of Tom Forrester-Coles, Kelvin Matthews and Victor Diaz de Leon, were racing Rock N' Roll, an apt name for today's conditions. “We have been in Cowes a while, training in high winds, so we were used to the conditions today and had worked out a good set up for the boat.” commented Argyle Campbell. “ We decided to keep the tactics simple and minimise manoeuvres. We banged hard left and it worked pretty well. We had a good lead at the top mark but Andy Beadsworth was really fast and closing on us all the time. I didn't have much time to look around today, it was hard enough keeping the boat in the water upwind and from under the water downwind! But today was a much better view!”

In the Corinthian Class, The General, skippered by James Badenach, has taken charge. His team from the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club; Christian Thompson, Elliot Hanson and Martin Wrigley, smoked the Corinthian fleet today, and dropped a big discard, to take the lead by 17 points. Over night leader, Martin Webster, representing the Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club, retired from today's race, putting the team into 3rd position. Thomas Brennan's team, representing the Royal Thames Yacht Club (GBR) remains in 2nd position.

“We got disqualified yesterday, which put a bit of a spanner in the works.” admitted james Badenach. “We have been looking to make the top 15 to the first mark but for the last three races, we need to step it up a bit and maybe take a few more risks.”

With the discard rule kicking in, several teams have broken into the top ten. Lawrie Smith (GBR) representing the Glandore Yacht Club, sailing with Joost Houweling and Tim Tavinor move up to 6th place. Past Etchells World Champion, Andy Beadsworth (GBR), sailing with Grant Simmer and Steve Jarvin, occupy 7th position. Scott Kaufman (USA), racing with Jesse Kirkland, Lucas Calabrase and Austen Andersen, have scored a bullet and a 15th in their last two races to move up to 8th overall.

Racing for the 2016 Etchells World Championship continues on Friday 9th September.

Provisional Results here