The historic 1926-built 56ft ketch Ilen is to exit The Old Cornstore in Liam Hegarty’s boatyard at Oldcourt near Baltimore, the building which has accommodated her re-birth, early in the New Year writes W M Nixon.
Much remains to be done before she can be subsequently put afloat in April. But the pace of productivity in recent days, with the efficient completion of several jobs by the beefed-up team of nine craftsmen who have put in some very long days, shows what can be achieved as the work reaches it optimum pace.
The actual business of moving the ship out to an area of hard-standing, getting her there from a very limited space and negotiating some formidable obstructions en route, will be drawing on the deepest reserves of West Cork ingenuity, and deploying certain floating vehicles in unexpected ways.
All will be revealed in due course. But when we look at the photo of Ilen as she was when the programme was gathering pace, and compare it to photos of the ship as she is today, we realize - yet again - that the Ilen Project is something very special indeed, and dealing with unusual challenges is all part of the day’s work.
When Conor O’Brien of Foynes Island and Tom Moynihan of Baltimore were designing Ilen’s propellor installation, they took account of the fact that Ilen would be using some very confined little harbours and rudimentary piers, and the extra manoeuvrability conferred by having an intact rudder would give greatly-improved prop thrust. Many yachts of the day being fitted with auxiliaries used the easy option of taking much of the propellor aperture out of the rudder, thereby negating the effectiveness of the prop thrust for tight turns. But Ilen’s designers ensured that the entire aperture was taken out of the deadwood, leaving all the benefits of a completely intact rudder. Photo: Gary MacMahon