In July 1897, a small flotilla of the new Fife-designed 25ft LWL Belfast Lough No 1 Class visited Dun Laoghaire for the Royal Irish YC Regatta, and this inspired some of the leading Dublin Bay skippers to develop an almost-identical DBSC 37.5ft LOA class, also from Fife’s drawing board.
Yet where the Belfast Lough boats had all been built by one firm – John Hilditch & Son of Carrickfergus – under rigid controls to ensure total one-design and maintain cost control, the Dublin Bay sailors had a more lackadaisical approach for their new Dublin Bay 25 class. They used several builders around the bay, in both Dun Laoghaire and Dublin Port, and the inter-shipwright competitiveness for sailing speed meant the class could have been more accurately described as the Dublin Bay 26.
But there was an owner who went even further in his builder selection. One Sebastian Nolan, a man of means with sporting and social ambitions, went to Charlie Sibbick in Cowes, legendary builder of fast racing yachts, of which the most exceptional has to be the 45ft Bona Fide which he designed and built in 1899 with so many in-built speed factors that she continues to be unbeatable in the Mediterranean Classic circuit.
Charlie Sibbick of Cowes in 1899, a year he built Punctillio.
So by all reasonable expectations, Sebastian Nolan’s new 1898-built Punctillio should have had her fair share and more of wins in the nascent DB25 class. But she didn’t. So Nolan sold her after one year to two formidable Dublin Bay talents, John Stephens and George Arthur Newsom, a pair of shrewd men who may well have struck a tough deal, but then Nolan just wanted out.
Without him aboard, Punctillio became – after a couple of so-so seasons – one of the most successful and best-loved boats in Dublin Bay until the very elderly John B Stephens finally sold her away in 1962, the last of her class in Dun Laoghaire, to new owners in Cork.
Dublin Bay 25s Make the Scene in High Society
Meanwhile, back at the turn of the century, the story had taken an entertaining twist, as the Dublin Bay 25s moved on to a new social plane in 1903 when Lady Dudley, wife of Viceroy Lord Dudley, gave him a new James Doyle-built DB25 – the Fodhla – for his birthday.
Thanks to Donal O’Sullivan’s Centenary History of DBSC published in 1984, we know that as soon as word got out about the Viceregal DB25 being under construction, despite everyone being sworn to secrecy by Her Ladyship, the socially ambitious Sebastian Nolan immediately got himself back into the class by having the Conche built in Dun Laoghaire by Clancy.
The Viceroy’s DB25 Fodhla takes the win at a crowded regatta finish line in Dun Laoghaire.
Monumental Crew Party in the Castle
But even after Dudley ceased to be Viceroy and left Ireland – having departed by throwing a monumental crew party in Dublin Castle, which he rounded out by making a present of the boat to his shipmates in appreciation “of the most enjoyable sailing he’d ever had” – the DB25s continued to soar and increase until World War I in 1914.
One of the last owners to join in the class’s golden days in 1912 was William Martin Murphy, who managed to be Ireland’s most successful businessman and infrastructure developer while at the same time being its most unsuccessful politician.
Bantry Based
His DB25 Eva was built by Hollwey in Ringsend in 1912, but as his favourite sailing port was his birthplace of Bantry in West Cork, it may well be that Eva was soon based there, as he was not at all popular around Dublin after the Lock-Out of 1913.
And as it happens, it was in West Cork that the unique Sibbick-built Punctillio ended her days, as she struck a rock while cruising there some time around 1970, and that shook her to bits. The Fife hulls of the Belfast Lough No 1s and the DB25s were incredibly efficient to windward thanks to the marked toe on their keel, but that hard-profile toe can be unforgivingly damaging to the boat’s hull construction if the keel wallops a rock good and proper.
The profile of the DB25 reveals the marked toe to the keel which gives improved windward performance, but will be very damaging if striking a rock.
Soft Profile Survival
By contrast, the soft-profile underbodies of the Cork Harbour ODs of 1896 and the Howth 17s of 1898, while not exactly rock-friendly, can still provide the sight of the boat rearing up and going over the rock – particularly if it’s well covered with seaweed – relatively undamaged. Or else she can come to a halt and then slide off in astern, which is extremely undignified, but at least the hull structure may well remain sound.
The Cork Harbour OD Jap in cruising mode before her restoration back to full racing trim on the 1896 Fife design. The soft profile of the hull makes for a much less damaging impact if a rock is struck. Photo: W M Nixon
Photos Sought for Sibbick History
All of which may have got us a very long way from Sibbick and Punctillio, but as it happens sailing writer Martin Nott is nearing completion of a book about the tragic boat-creating genius that was Charlie Sibbick. As Punctillio was one of the few Fife-designed boats he built, Martin is looking for a good photo of her under sail, and a clear set of plans.
I’ve scanned the header photo and the plans from Donal O’Sullivan’s 1984 DBSC Centenary History (a good example of this little book is a pearl beyond price – mine is disintegrating), but maybe there’s something better out there.
Confession Time
A confession of personal interest is in order. Apart from thinking that Punctillio was one of the most marvellous boats I’d ever seen when I first saw her as a schoolboy sniffing around the Coalyard Boatyard in Dun Laoghaire, later on – in 1962, as a totally feckless college student – I sailed on a Sibbick designed-and-built performance cruising ketch called Armorel.
In the economic recession of 1912 she had been sold by a desperate owner to some Ramsgate fishermen, who promptly made her look like a proper trawler with a straight pine stem, iron fastenings and the whole caboodle spatchcocked onto the spoon bow of the original teak-built, copper-fastened yacht.
The former Ramsgate sailing trawler Armorel was originally a round-bowed Sibbick-built sailing cruiser. Photo: Mike Balmforth
Clyde Week Luxury
With another equally aimless sailing friend from college, we’d signed on to get Armorel from the Hamble to a new home in Belfast Lough in 1962. But first we had to do Clyde Week with Peter Odlum of Dun Laoghaire on his 8 Metre Cruiser/Racer Namhara.
This made for some contrast, as he seemed to have leased all of the Clynder Inn for our very comfortable shore base for the entire week, following which we two feckless ones were dropped across to Gourock to start hitching our way to the Hamble.
It’s not a style of travelling to be recommended for that route, and it left us with memories of being woken by an increasingly irritated bull while trying to sleep under a hedge in Cheshire.
Payback time – only a week previously luxuriating at Clyde Week, now stitching sails if Armorel is to reach port at all. Photo: Mike Balmforth
State of Transition
As for Armorel, she was so messily in a state of transition while being put back to a yacht of sorts that we’d have headed elsewhere had it not been for the extremely hospitable friendliness of the staff in the pub at Bursledon.
When we finally got away, a rising gale north of Land’s End saw our over-stressed skipper round up to take down the main without warning anyone below, resulting in a sudden roll and the entire galley collapsing on top of the cook.
This happened to be me, focusing on a celebratory dinner after rounding Land’s End, a rough feast which seemed to involve a lot of boiling liquid-filled saucepans, two of them with those convenient but dodgy tinned whole chickens that Ninian Falkiner used to reckon were rabbit at best, but rat could not be ruled out.
Everything drawing as Armorel makes progress, even if towards a gale north of Land’s End. Photo: Mike Balmforth
Miracle Medic
Whatever the provenance of the feast, it left my entire left arm scalded. Miraculously, medical student shipmate Peter “Min” Martin halted me as I headed up the companionway with a carving knife, covered the arm in olive oil and wrapped it tightly, cutting off oxygen. It healed cleanly within days.
Later, another owner recognised the gem beneath the trawler disguise and restored Armorel to her full Sibbick teak-built glory before she went to the Caribbean, where even Charlie Sibbick’s finest work eventually met a reef.
So it goes. But Charlie Sibbick deserves to be better remembered, and we look forward to Martin’s book.
Medical miracle worker Peter “Min” Martin aboard Armorel as she closes the Irish coast at voyage’s end. Photo: Mike Balmforth
