Sailing in West Cork for the past couple of weeks and more seems to have been elevated onto a new plane of meaning and enjoyment, with events around the traditional Baltimore Regatta on the Bank Holiday weekend (July 31st-August 2nd) phasing into the more modern scenario of the four day Quintas Capital Calves Week at Schull from Tuesday August 3rd through Friday August 7th.
It’s an event that provides participants with the priceless photo of the pride-and-joy sailing past the Fastnet Rock with a minimum of hassle setting the scene, and that’s as a by-product of a civilized programme in which there’s only one heart-rate-raising race start per day, and everyone’s nicely in for the late afternoon and early evening al fresco de-briefings in the pedestrianised Main Street in Schull.
Commodore Jack Allen of Schull Harbour Sailing Club led the team of many volunteers in providing the setup that could take advantage of the superb conditions. Photo: SHSC
PEDESTRIANISING MAIN STREET SCHULL
Since when, you ask, has Main Street Schull been officially pedestrianized? So who needs official sanction for such a civilized and sensible state of affairs? The people vote with their feet. It’s people power that introduces this useful temporary situation, and any vehicular driver trying to hasten on to Crookhaven or Goleen or Barley Cove or Toormore or wherever clearly has not let the West Cork State of Mind take them over to the level essential for reasonable survival. Not to worry, they learn.
ALL POWER TO THE HOST OF THE ALGIERS INN
Meanwhile, all hail and salutations to exiled Californian Bill Hillyard of the Algiers bar and hospitality house in Baltimore, which he runs with his wife Ann. Bill is no stranger to boat restoration and ocean voyaging himself, so as he – like many others – followed the story of Leo Sampson Goolden’s meticulous restoration of the 1927 Fastnet Race overall winner Tally Ho on America’s West Coast, it was mine host of the Algiers who got the idea that as Tally Ho would be passing quite close to southwest Ireland near the end of her 2026 Transatlantic passage to Europe, it would surely make sense to contact Leo and his crew and persuade them to divert slightly to check that the Fastnet Rock was still in situ for 2027’s great commemoration, and while they were at it they could take a bit of R&R in Baltimore.
Beyond magic…..the handsome Tally Ho off the Fastnet Rock. Photo: Facebook/BSC
It was the genuine diamond geezer scenario, for as Tally Ho closed towards the Rock and the hospitality beyond, the fleet that converged to greet her included master-shipwright Liam Hegarty’s highly-respected re-creation of Conor O’Brien’s Baltimore-built Saoirse, pioneering Great Capes pioneering global circumnavigator of 101 years ago.
HISTORY MADE WITH TALLY HO AND SAOIRSE
Fair play to the restored Tally Ho, she is such a handsome all-of-a-piece gaff cutter – not at all like some of Albert Strange’s more fey designs – that getting her together with Saoirse was a gathering of the Gods, an extraordinary thing to contemplate in all its magnitude and many layers of meaning.
Multi-generational sailing in the best Cork tradition. The Radley family of Cove bringing their successful veteran Sunfast 32 back in from the Fastnet Rock in drag-racig style. Photo: Robert Bateman
In fact, they were at such a level that the prospect of some straightforward racing for four days out of Schull with the much more contemporary fleet that is attracted to Calves Week was something to look forward to as a source to relief, for too much history in the heart of a heatwave can bring on an attack of the vapours in even the most dedicated sailing history anorak.
SCHULL’S OWN HISTORY
Needless to say, Schull struck back with its own history, as the racing fleet included the gaff cutter Lady Min raced by Simon O’Keeffe and his team, and restored by Tiernan Roe of Ballydehob in a style befitting a boat which was designed and built in Schull in 1902 by distinguished ancestor Maurice O’Keeffe.
The Queen of Schull – Simon O’Keeffe racing Lady Min, designed and built in Schull in 1902 by Maurice O’Keeffe. Photo: Robert Bateman
As if that weren’t enough, also racing was the Fairlie Restorations enlivened Fife-designed Cork Harbour One Design Jap, whose many claims to fame include the fact that in 1898 she was built in the boatyard at Carrigaloe in Cork Harbour alongside the 43ft Fife cutter that in time would become Eric Tabarly’s magnificent Pen Duick.
The restored Fife-designed Cork Harbour OD Jap was built in 1898 at Carrigaloe in Cork Harbour alongside Eric Tabarly’s famous Fife-designed 43ft cutter Pen Duick. Photo: Robert Bateman
Such thoughts of legends of sailing and yacht design may have set the bar high, but the fleet racing Calves Week 2026 were well able for it, with the style set by Frank Whelan racing the Pride of Greystones, the Sydney 43 El Syd, which emerged from the multiplicity of racing that had been enjoyed at Cork Week 2026 at Crosshaven from 6th to 10th July with such a good scorecard that El Syd was additionally laurelised as the new Irish Cruiser Racing Association National IRC Champion 2026.
SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE IN THE ACTION
This was of particular interest at Schull, as the four day week was to be handicapped three ways – ECHO for encouragement, IRC for harsh assessment, and introducing IOR for those who think IRC is less than perfect. All of which has meant that a regatta with an excellent yet handy fleet of 80 good boats produces so many results that the casual observer is left dizzy and swivel-eyed, but for participants it can mean that it’s reminiscent of a seaborn version of Uncle Gaybo with something for everyone in the audience.
Lakeboat on the ocean….Henry Hogg’s Dehler 36 Lisador of Garry Kennnedy SC on Lough Derg, seen racing in Calves Week. Photo: Robert Bateman
While the weather may have been restless further north, Quintas Capital Calves Week 2026 was blessed wih some of the best conditions in Ireland, with lows to the north skirting a big high pressure to the southwest, and wind speeds between southwest and nor’nor’west easing as the largely sunny week went on. A look at the deeper reasons reveals that a vigorously sinuous Jetstream may have been writhing about above the northern half of Ireland, but despite its determinedly curling tentacles, Schull’s deep south location kept it clear of the meteorological monster.
The weather chips fell each day in such a way that the race out and back to the Fastnet was something of a classic drag event. But any crews who reckoned that it’s not a real race without a beat and a run found that a couple of roaring reaches draw on hidden skills to show that even a classic soldier’s wind can provide a worthy sailor’s challenge.
While her sister-ship 2Farr was battling with the wrong side of the Jetstream at the Half Ton Classic Worlds in Norway, James Dwyer’s famous Farr Half Tonnner Swuzzlebubble was revelling in the glorious sailing off West Cork and roun the Fastnet. Photo: Robert Bateman
THE ALAN CROSBIE GUARANTEE
Senior Race Officer Alan Crosbie’s reassuring presence was yet again a guarantee that the fleet could enjoy the best sailing possible. As the week went on, so much sport was experienced that those involved thought it really was a week of hot competition, even though the number crunchers tell us that calling it Calves Week is rather a case of pushing the envelope, for it was all done and dusted by last (Friday) night in the space just 57% of a week.
Definitely one for the mantelpiece or a proper wall hanging – James Andrew Kennedy’s Dehler 38 Jacada 2 and the best background around. Photo: Robert Bateman
QUALITY AND QUANTITY
Thus it was a case of quality rather than quantity, and the photos say it all. For sure, conditions were splendid, but such a superb outcome absolutely requires all the right elements and organisation to be in place, and SHSC Commodore Jack Allen and his teams of many volunteers deserve the highest praise for seeing it through with such style.
DISCARD AFTER THREE RACES
With a discard coming into play if four races were sailed – and they most certainly were sailed – the kid gloves feeling about the entire event is inescapable, yet any top places and big prizes were well earned, with the progressive ECHO Performance System doing what it’s meant too, in that in Class 0 as surey the supreme example, Pat Burke and his partners from the Royal Irish YC in the First 40 Prima Forte may have taken first in Race 1, but the scoreline thereafter for first was Johnny Treanor’s NMD 43 CrisTina, Parima Forte again in Race 3, then Frank Whelan’s El Syd wining the fourth and last race until the totting had Prima Forte and Joe Kiernan’s First 44 Out of Office tied for first, with Prima taking it on the tie break and third slot going to Royal Cork’s Simon Coveney with the Corby 34 Waterfront.
IRC Zero told a different story, with the Steady Eddy Waterfront winning overall from El Syd, and the quietly successful JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI (Paul O’Higgins, RIYC) taking third. As for the look of it with ORC, the top two positions are reversed, with Rockabill VI taking the overall win from Waterfront, but with a new name in at third, the J/111 Joyride (Tim McCarthy & Wan Waterman) of Royal Cork.
Sweeping in from seaward, and the breeze is warm. Photo: Robert Bateman
JPK AND IOR FOR THE MAGIC NUMBERS
In the recent fuss about how ORC numbers are obtained, it was revealed that the design team at JPK in France were producing boats that were something like the ORC ideal. Or was it the other way round? Either way, the wonderful Quintas Capital Calves Week 2026 hosted by Schull Harbour Sailing Club has provided a magnificent set of laboratory results for comparisons of all handicap systems, and here we are, still in single figures for the date in the month of August and the 2026 season has given Ireland what may well be our best sailing season ever.
Calves Week 2026 IRC and ECHO results are below and ORC results are here.
Read all Aflloat's Calves Week coverage in one handy link here
