Brian Cudmore of Crosshaven was boat-spotting recently as he ambled along the waterfront at Pollenca in Mallorca, and brought to a halt by a beautifully-maintained dark blue 46ft ketch called Meermin. She rang a bell, even if deep childhood memories may have remembered her as white, and gathering dust in the shed at Crosshaven Boatyard.
Meermin as seen last week in Pollenca. Originally gaff rigged when built in 1951, she is now a Bermudan ketch. The quality of her restoration is underlined by the properly aligned teak-laid deck, in contrast with the less expensive fore-and-aft version on the boat next door (left). Photo: Brian Cudmore
But in any case he recalled her primarily in association with Dr Rory O'Hanlon, the renowned and compassionate Dublin gynaecologist and obstetrician, who somehow also found time for a remarkable sailing career. In his sailing, he graduated from Mermaids - while maintaining a lifetime friendship with their designer John B Kearney - into cruisers and passage racers, with his debut as a schoolboy helm when Kearney's Mavis won the 1938 Tobermory Race.
Then it was into ownership of the 6-ton Kearney yawl Evora, before going back into DBSC One Design racing and a Dragon called Firedrake which he raced in Dublin Bay, and took through the Grand Canal with an outboard to cruise and race on the Shannon Lakes.
The young Rory O'Hanlon at the helm of John Kearney's Mavis, winning the 1938 Clyde Cruising Club Tobermory Race. In those days, the rules of this famous annual race stipulated that the yacht's tender be towed. Mavis has been restored by Ron Hawkins of Maine in time for her Centenary next year. Photo: CCC
IWAI AND ROUND IRELAND
This was followed by the lightly-converted International 6 Metre Ancora II which he cruised round Ireland in 1955, followed by the Dublin Bay 24 Harmony while at the same time sailing extensively offshore on the boats of another of his lifelong friends, Douglas Heard. This had additionally meant that The Doctor was involved in the founding of the Inland Waterways Association of Ireland in 1954 shortly after they'd made a weed-clogged voyage the length of the Royal Canal aboard Heard's converted ship's lifeboat Hark.
But sea sailing was Rory O'Hanlon's primary interest, and with the Dublin Bay 24 Harmony he had racing inshore and offshore, and enjoyed fast cruising too. He was also active in sailing administration as Commodore of the Royal St George YC from 1966-69, and the Irish Cruising Club from 1972-75.
Tjaldur when under the ownership of Sean Whiston of the Poolbeg Yacht & Boat Club. She is being restored by Liam Hegarty of Balimore. Photo: PY&BC
During the 1960s, he had the hull of the Peter Brett-designed Dee 27 Tjaldur built by Tyrrell's of Arklow, and completed her himself – for he was a very able woodworker – in his garden in Clonskeagh in Dublin. And somehow despite being at his busiest professionally, he raced her in the Fastnet, and shipped her to America to take part in a Cruising Cub of America Cruise-in-Company in Maine and Nova Scotia before making an efficient Transatlantic crossing to Kinsale.
Longtime friends and shipmates Douglas Heard (left) and Rory O-Hanlon aboard Tjaldur in 1967 on a damp day in Nova Scotia. Photo: Des Barrington
FASTNET RACE OVERALL WINNER
Subsequently he cruised Tjaldur to the Mediterranean, and she was followed in his ownership listings in 1971 by the S&S 43 Clarion of Wight, up-graded so effectively some years after being the 1963 Fastnet Race overall winner that in 1971 in O'Hanlon ownership, she won the Philip Whitehead Cup in that year's Fastnet Race. Then in 1972 he cruised her to the Lofoten Islands in the far north of Norway, but as her racing up-grade had included moving the auxiliary engine forward to a new stability-efficient position immediately aft of the mast. This resulted in a freakishly-long propeller shaft through many bearings, at least one of which was always giving trouble, while the shaft itself was prone to acquiring bends.
Clarion racing to success in the 1971 Fastnet
Rory O'Hanlon at the helm with Michael O'Leary (right) aboard Clarion as she "monsters" her way to windward in a Royal Alfred YC race, May 1971. Photo: W M Nixon
Job almost done. At Carion's helm, approaching the finish line in the lead, and the "Saturday pipe" in action. Photo: W M Nixon
But in any case Rory felt he'd done his duty by the racing game, and for some time he'd been intrigued by a hefty steel vessel stored year round in the Crosshaven Boatyard shed. Designed and built in Belgium at Antwerp to a somewhat retro gaff ketch design , her first owner had been a cousin of the Belgian Royal family, but there was a German connection by the time she came to Cork with an owner who had lost interest in cruising Meermin while sailing in Ireland. Really? With our perfect sailing weather?
BUSINESS DONE IN DUN LAOGHAIRE
Be that as it may, Meermin's owner found the fascination of Rory O'Hanlon so great that he came to Dun Laoghaire to close the deal. This involved much convivial dining in the waterfront clubs, and Rory at his most mischievous in introducing the Teutonically-precise former owner to any of his friends who were veterans of the World War II Allied forces as someone who had "probably biffed lots of your lot in the last bash", a statement which - with Rory's turbo-powered stammer - acquired its own surreal meaning.
Meermin was the polar opposite of Clarion, their only shared characteristic being the fact that both experienced many great Rory-hosted parties. But then, he could have thrown a party in a muddy field on a rainy day and it would go well. Either way, Meermin was a boat on which you could comfortably spend long days at sea.
Jan Mayen looking northeast. It's just possible that a bit of Meermin might still be found in the cliffs of the cove in the foreground
In 1976 with Douglas Heard, his longtime shipmate and lifelong friend on the strength, Meermin sailed north to fulfill an ambition to visit remote Jan Mayen island. But they hit a spell of bad Arctic weather and though anchorage of sorts was found in the southeast cove close under the cliffs, the wind whipped round to Force 10 onshore gusts. They managed to get clear, but left the bowsprit behind lodged in a cleft in the cliffs, and nothing needed to be said when Meermin returned to Dun Laoghaire, as her bald-headed condition said it all.
CRUISE-IN-COMPANY FLAGSHIP
Despite health problems for much of his life, Rory approached everything with zest, and it gave him great pleasure that Meermin was one of the flagships when the Irish Cruising Club celebrated its Golden Jubilee in 1979 with a Cruise-in-Company from Crosshaven to Glengarriff involving several clubs such as the Cruising Club of America, the Royal Cruising Club, the Royal Cork Yacht Cub, and the Clyde Cruising Club.
But he was already in the grip of his final illness, and died in May 1980, with a burial at sea at the mouth of his beloved Dublin Bay accompanied by a substantial fleet with his very many friends. Yet his memory lives on, both in his wonderful medically-pioneering self, and in the boats with which he was associated, a notable number of them now restored classics.
No comment needed. The "bald-headed" Meermin on her return to Dun Laoghaire in the Autumn of 1976
Mavis is in Maine, restored in the ownership of Ron Hawkins and gearing up to celebrate her Centenary next year. As for the lovely little Evora, another Kearney design, she was reported in Darwin in northern Australia in a poor way a long time ago, so we must fear the worst. But Harmony, as a Dublin Bay 24, is still enough in existence to be totally restored as a boat-builder training project, as these boats are just the right size for learning requirements.
As for Tjaldur, she is being restored by Liam Hegarty in Oldcourt for Dublin Bay Water Wag sailors David & Emer Kelly, while the very special Clarion has been rescued from dereliction and imminent destruction in France by David Elliott of the Association of Yachting Historians, and will be restored in England as a boat of exceptional historical interest on a dozen different counts.
And meanwhile the dear old Meermin, a little bit of which will always be Jan Mayen, is now so loved that her current owner even races her races her occasionally. I don't think the great Rory O'Hanlon and his unique blend of shipmates ever contemplated that.
