It's seventeen years since Afloat.ie stumbled upon the forgotten Dublin Bay 24 Zephyra out the back of a castle in Mayo while walking the dog. The undergrowth around the Alfred Mylne-designed classic was breaking through the tiles and concrete at such a pace that, within a year or two, she might have disappeared altogether.
But after one or two further close scrapes with oblivion, she found her way to the US and the Apprenticeshop in Maine where – like other boat-building schools – they demonstrated that re-building a Dublin Bay 24 is exactly the right size to be manageable, while optimizing the number of people who can be usefully involving and learning all the way.
All being well, Zephyra should be sailing again over this weekend. We'll know soon enough. Meanwhile, here's a tantalizing image of her restored in all her beauty. And if you wonder why Alfred Mylne included that particular line of rise to the keel profile in 1938 even though some other contemporary designs by him had a horizontal underside to the keel, it's because small to medium boat builders in the Clyde and elsewhere had their yards on land which followed the rise of the beach, and this configuration enabled the deck to be level when the boat was hauled and stored for the winter.
May 2007 – Zephyra as she was found in far Mayo. Photo: W M Nixon
