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The ISA’s just-published financial statements reveal it spent €1,642,500 in operational grants in 2021, made up of €589,000 on core activities and €1,053,500 on High Performance. At the end of the year, just over €205,00 of core grants remained to be spent.

Capital Grants received on core activities amounted to €104,150 while €293,000 was received by the High Performance.

Core activities generated a surplus of €140,685 (2020 - €123,095) helped by Special Project Grant of €138k, of which only €38k has been specifically identified as an outlay in the accounts.

Increased sailing activity contributed to increases in;

  • Membership income €12K
  • Training Income €31K
  • Handicap Income €14k
  • Competence Certs €20k

Office income fell by €11k, reflecting the fact that the office has been closed for nearly two years due to the pandemic.

In that context, it seems surprising that payroll costs have increased by €76k or 16%, particularly when the accounts acknowledge that €39k in Government Payroll subsidy was received and credited against payroll costs.

The other big increase in costs is in legal and professional fees, which recorded a massive jump from €17k to €45k or 164%.

Communication costs have also grown, from €32k to €44k or 38%.

The High-Performance area experienced a surplus of €36,061 compared with a surplus of €179,044 in 2020 when activities were severely curtailed by Covid restrictions. Apart from special grants towards the cost of the Olympics, Government funding remained at the same level of €800,000. Staff salary costs at €284k for 2 full-time and one part-time staff is a significant proportion of overheads.

There are no details of the Irish Sailing Foundation in the accounts, apart from a note that €14,000 was received as a donation during the year.

The balance sheet shows a trade debtor of €387,658 compared to €743 in 2020. Surprisingly, there is no explanation offered about how this arose or from whom it is due.

The depreciation policy of the ISA means that Fixed Assets are valued at €720k and include the premises in Park Road, at a value of €122k with an open market value probably closer to €2.5m.

The net liquidity of the Association is very good.

  • Assuming the Trade Debtor is readily convertible into cash, the ISA has liquid resources of €668k plus €388k making a total of €1,056k
  • From this must be deducted designated but unspent deferred Government Grant expenditure of €205k and tangible real creditors and accruals amounting to €221k making a total of €426k.

The true net liquidity is therefore about €630k.

The aggregate real-world value of the Association’s assets is, therefore, closer to €3.5m, made up of €2.5m in fixed assets, plus book value €.5k and net liquid resources €.6k.

Download the 2021 ISA Accounts below as a PDF file

Published in ISA

Ireland's Trading Ketch Ilen

The Ilen is the last of Ireland’s traditional wooden sailing ships.

Designed by Limerick man Conor O’Brien and built in Baltimore in 1926, she was delivered by Munster men to the Falkland Islands where she served valiantly for seventy years, enduring and enjoying the Roaring Forties, the Furious Fifties, and Screaming Sixties.

Returned now to Ireland and given a new breath of life, Ilen may be described as the last of Ireland’s timber-built ocean-going sailing ships, yet at a mere 56ft, it is capable of visiting most of the small harbours of Ireland.

Wooden Sailing Ship Ilen FAQs

The Ilen is the last of Ireland’s traditional wooden sailing ships.

The Ilen was designed by Conor O’Brien, the first Irish man to circumnavigate the world.

Ilen is named for the West Cork River which flows to the sea at Baltimore, her home port.

The Ilen was built by Baltimore Sea Fisheries School, West Cork in 1926. Tom Moynihan was foreman.

Ilen's wood construction is of oak ribs and planks of larch.

As-built initially, she is 56 feet in length overall with a beam of 14 feet and a displacement of 45 tonnes.

Conor O’Brien set sail in August 1926 with two Cadogan cousins from Cape Clear in West Cork, arriving at Port Stanley in January 1927 and handed it over to the new owners.

The Ilen was delivered to the Falkland Islands Company, in exchange for £1,500.

Ilen served for over 70 years as a cargo ship and a ferry in the Falkland Islands, enduring and enjoying the Roaring Forties, the Furious Fifties, and Screaming Sixties. She stayed in service until the early 1990s.

Limerick sailor Gary McMahon and his team located Ilen. MacMahon started looking for her in 1996 and went out to the Falklands and struck a deal with the owner to bring her back to Ireland.

After a lifetime of hard work in the Falklands, Ilen required a ground-up rebuild.

A Russian cargo ship transported her back on a 12,000-mile trip from the Southern Oceans to Dublin. The Ilen was discharged at the Port of Dublin 1997, after an absence from Ireland of 70 years.

It was a collaboration between the Ilen Project in Limerick and Hegarty’s Boatyard in Old Court, near Skibbereen. Much of the heavy lifting, of frames, planking, deadwood & backbone, knees, floors, shelves and stringers, deck beams, and carlins, was done in Hegarty’s. The generally lighter work of preparing sole, bulkheads, deck‐houses fixed furniture, fixtures & fittings, deck fittings, machinery, systems, tanks, spar making and rigging is being done at the Ilen boat building school in Limerick.

Ten years. The boat was much the worse for wear when it returned to West Cork in May 1998, and it remained dormant for ten years before the start of a decade-long restoration.

Ilen now serves as a community floating classroom and cargo vessel – visiting 23 ports in 2019 and making a transatlantic crossing to Greenland as part of a relationship-building project to link youth in Limerick City with youth in Nuuk, west Greenland.

At a mere 56ft, Ilen is capable of visiting most of the small harbours of Ireland.

©Afloat 2020