Royal Cork Yacht Club is leaving no stone unturned in its efforts to stage next week's Laser dinghy National Championships, one of the flagship events of its tricentenary celebrations in Cork Harbour.

With the postponement of Phase 4 COVID 19 restrictions, the hosts are not in a position to locate all sailors in the proposed format of three fleets.

In order to ensure that they can hold a safe event, the AIB Sponsored Nationals will, therefore, be split into two events, according to an update from the Laser class.

The position now for the event is that the Radials and Standards will be based in Crosshaven, while 4.7s will be based in Ringaskiddy, where a new slip will give easy access to the lower harbour.

• Standard and Radial Nationals hosted by the RCYC
• Laser 4.7 Nationals hosted by Monkstown Bay Sailing Club (MBSC)

"The 4.7 Nationals are now being hosted by MBSC, an entirely separate event with separate documentation, organisation committees, a separate venue (Paddys Point, Ringaskiddy) and a separate race course",  Royal Cork's Alex Barry told Afloat.

It is expected further details will be available in the next few days. The event starts on August 20th.

Cork based Irish Mainport Holding's Celtic Fergus, a tug stationed on the Shannon Estuary is currently dry-docking in Rushbrooke having departed this day last week bound for the Doyle Shipping Group facility in Cork Harbour, writes Jehan Ashmore.

It was during Monday that the Celtic Fergus was on a flood tide of the estuary when Simon Berrow of the Irish Whale & Dolphin Group (IWDG) captured this great photo of a Bottlenose dolphin bowriding the 24/45t bollard pull tug.

For information on how to identify ceteceans, learn more and join the work and efforts of the IWDG, visit their website here.

The 25m long Celtic Fergus having departed the Shannon Estuary from its base at the Port of Foynes arrived the next day into Cork Harbour, where the former Turkish tug Efesan Port was delivered by a cargoship in 2016.

The tug built in 2014 to Canadian designer Robert Allen was renamed Celtic Fergus and reflagged under the tricolor, the tug join Mainport fleetmates through subsidiary Celtic Tugs located at the mid-western waterway port operated by SFPC.

Celtic Fergus replaced the Celtic Banner to join fleetmates Celtic Rebel built 1984 and Celtic Isle completed two years later. Another pair of tugs but operated by DSG are DSG Alex and DSG Titan are also stationed alongside the site of Cork Dockyard. 

Afloat has observed in recent years the corporate theme by Doyle Shipping group in naming and renaming tugs using the operators company trading name which is abbreviated. This is demonstrated by the Rusbrooke based pair of tugs DSG Alex and DSG Titan on station at Cork Dockyard.

In addition a similar naming scheme also applies to Dublin Port Company, albeit by naming the UK built but French designed pilot cutter as the DPC Tolka which was delivered in December last year.

Excitement is building in the Royal Cork Yacht Club for this week’s AIB Optimist dinghy Nationals 2020 in Cork Harbour.

It will be the first time the Irish Optimist fleet will compete this year due to COVID and participant numbers at the event have been limited by organisers.

The event starts on Thursday but there has already been some pre-championship tuning going on at Crosshaven.

Photo slideshow below by Bob Bateman

Cork Harbour’s traditional boat fleet got a new gaff rig arrival this season when Crosshaven trawler skipper Gus O’Donovan launched his refurbished 1998 pilot cutter.

Gus bought the reproduction cutter on the east coast last year and was busy over the winter restoring her that included a new paint job.

Cork Harbour's newest Pilot Cutter was refurbished over the winter and now afloat at Crosshaven Photo: Bob Bateman 

Gus buys paint in barrels for his trawler, so now she’s the same colour as the Majestic IV, part of Crosshaven’s fishing fleet.

Gus O'Donovan's Fishing Trawler, the Majestic IV at Crosshaven Pier Photo: Bob Bateman

Uile-Ioc swinging peacefully on her Cork Harbour mooring Photo: Bob Bateman

The 18-footer was originally named Panacea when she came from Dun Laoghaire. Gus told Afloat that although it can be considered bad luck to change a ship's name, a translation can be acceptable so the fishing smack is now known as Uile-ioc, as Gaeilge.

The plans for Uile-ioc designed by Steve Prout and built in 1998 - she sails with one ton of ballast

Regular readers will recall that last week Gus, who is a former RNLI crewman, rescued two men last week when out at sea fishing off Cork Harbour. He spotted the two young men in a supermarket inflatable boat/toy with no lifejackets approximately 1 mile south of the Daunt Rock buoy. That story is here.

Onboard Uile-Ioc, the pilot cutter is fun to sail, according to new skipper Gus O'Donovan

Gus is keen to use the new purchase to teach his sons how to sail and even though he admits his hull is GRP, he didn’t want his kids to learn the ropes in a 'plastic fantastic’.

The overhauled inboard diesel engine

Sailing the 28' LOA Uile-Ioc in Cork Harbour Photo: Bob Bateman

Gus also plans local trips with his family and friends in the Steve Prout design and has already been a couple of hours west of Cork Harbour on day sails and is enjoying handling the gaff rig.

While other clubs have found it a big enough challenge simply resuming sailing in a regulation-compliant way, the 101-year-old Cove Sailing Club in Cork Harbour has also been bringing its new marina on stream, and in addition to resuming club sailing, it staged the first open event of the delayed 2020 season, the Squib Southerns, on July 25th-26th. It has been a superb team effort, but all teams need effective leadership, and CSC Commodore Kieran Dorgan has been providing it in a family tradition - his father Barry was in the same role, while on the water Kieran himself is no stranger to the front of the fleet with his First 36.7 Altair.

A win for Michael McCann in tonight's fifth and final race of the Union Chandlery July League at Royal Cork Yacht Club gives him the overall win of the IRC Spinnaker Division. McCann sailing the Etchells, Don't Dilly Dally had a single point lead over Annamarie and Denis Murphy's Grand Soliel 40, Nieulargo in a 14-boat fleet.

In a 12-boat White Sail division, the Grand Soliel 37 Prince of Tides (Frank Caul and John Molloy) wins by two points overall from the Sun Light 30 Expression.

Full results are here. Bob Bateman's Photo slideshow is below

Irish boats come, Irish boats go. And while some will always be remembered, others leave barely a twirl of wake in the communal memory. The best-remembered has to be Conor O’Brien’s world-girdling Saoirse. Yet it could reasonably be claimed that Harry Donegan’s Gull was the boat that made the difference, for she was there in Ireland when it mattered, whereas Saoirse was away, performing on the global stage.

Gull’s ghost? The 50ft ketch Betty Alan – built more than a hundred years after Gull – at Mullaghmore Regatta 2019. Photo: Brian Mathews

In 1921, the Donegan family of Cork bought Gull, an 1896 Charles E Nicholson-designed and Camper & Nicholson-built 18-ton gaff cutter, with a notably large jackyard topsail. The patriarch of the family, solicitor Harry Donegan (1870-1940) sailed her until his death on St Patrick’s Day of 1940, which came after a sublime 1939 end-of-season sail from Schull back to Cork Harbour, the perfect final passage for a great sailor.

During his time with the well-loved boat, he was soon busy with Gull in the final stages of the Civil War in 1922, carrying a messenger (Michael Collins’ sister, as it happens) with dispatches for the Pro-Treaty Government from Cork for eventual delivery to Commander-in-Chief Collins in Dublin, a task made necessary by the Anti-Treaty rebels destroying all other means of communication – road, rail, whatever - between the two cities.

The extraordinary Harry Donegan aboard his beloved Gull. During their 19 years together, he and Gull’s achievements were many and various

After peace of sorts had broken out in 1923, in addition to a programme of cruiser-racing in and from Cork Harbour, Harry Donegan was soon back to his hobby of surveying popular cruising anchorages for his privately-circulated cruising guide to southwest Ireland. And then when the call came for entries for the novel Fastnet Race of 1925, despite the fact that Ireland’s Fastnet Rock was only a mark of the course with the start eastward out of the Solent from Ryde, and the finish at Plymouth in Devon, he willingly entered Gull to be one of the seven starters. She was in the lead overall at one stage, and at the finish she placed third.

Thus Gull was present at the foundation of the Ocean Racing Club - soon to be the RORC – in Plymouth in 1925, and four years later she was present at the foundation in Glengarriff in 1929 of the Irish Cruising Club, a project which had long been dear to Harry Donegan’s heart.

During the eleven years he had with the ICC (of which he was Vice Commodore), Harry Donegan was one of the club’s keenest active members, regularly bringing his demanding cutter round to the Irish Sea for ICC East Coast events, while at the same time playing the leading role in Cork Harbour, and somehow finding space for the occasional RORC racing foray as well.

Poole Harbour in Dorset, where Gull ended her days, and Betty Alan was born 102 years after Gull had been built

In his latter days, his son Harry Jnr was an active partner on the boat, but after Old Harry died, things weren’t quite the same, Young Harry was interested in trying other boat types, and as soon as World War II was over, Gull was sold – now considered quite old by the standards of the time – to the south of England. The word is that she ended her days in the 1950s in a mud berth in Poole Harbour, gradually mouldering away into the bottomless sludge.

Yet it seems that while the corporeal Gull may have disappeared into Poole Harbour’s primaeval ooze, her friendly ghost was soon haunting the place, quietly looking for an opportunity to resume sailing the sea with the gift of fresh youth. But it wasn’t until 1998, when the noted local boatbuilder Ken Latham was commissioned to build the hull of a classically proportioned 50-footer, that Gull’s necessary opportunity presented itself, and somehow her spirit became successfully enmeshed in the style and appearance of a dreamship which was supposed to represent a miniaturised version of the very Scottish Alfred Mylne-designed 120ft gaff ketch Thendara from the 1930s.

The Mylne-designed Thendara. Betty Alan was originally conceived as a miniature of this Scottish classic.

Certainly, this had been the design brief for the late Jeremy Lines, who was a startling example of nominative determinism, for what could somebody called Lines possibly be, other than the in-house yacht designer for Camper & Nicholsons in their final glory days?

It was after his retirement that he was given the commission in his own right as a yacht designer for this meticulously-detailed 50-footer. And while he may have conscientiously tried to re-create Alfred Mylne as asked, the shadow of the genius of Charles E Nicholson was at his shoulder, and Gull emerged again – fresh and new and exquisitely built - beside Poole Harbour.

Not that anybody noticed at the time. In fact, it was upwards of twenty years later, at Mullaghmore on the Sligo coast, that a photo taken by Race Officer Brian Mathews at Mullaghmore Regatta 2019 rang a bell. And it wasn’t until a week or so ago, when were assembling a few photos to back up the Mullaghmore Regatta 2020 poster, that the mysterious ketch re-appeared, when it immediately clicked that regardless of the rig - which is indeed a quirky miniature of Thendara’s sail-plan – we were looking at the sweet sheerline and restrained stem of Gull all over again, even if they’re set in a beamy shoal-draft centreboard-carrying hull, whereas Gull was slim and deep.

When seen from more directly ahead, Betty Alan’s extra beam is much in evidence

Betty Alan’s commodious accommodation makes for a refreshing change from extreme racing-programmed boats

Be that as it may, now we hear that not only is this cleverly-disguised Ghost of Gull haunting the Irish coast, but she has found herself a long-term mooring in Glengarriff, where Harry Donegan’s most-cherished dream of an Irish Cruising Club became reality ninety-one years ago.

It’s all a bit too much, but then a state of things being just a bit too much seems to be normality when you get into the orbit around Ed Maggs, who has owned this “genuine fake” (his own words) with his wife Frances since 2011. The ketch is now called Betty Alan after his parents, and somehow he finds the time to use her as she should be used, despite the attention-consuming occupation of being a Maggs brother in the almost absurdly blue chip antiquarian booksellers Maggs Brothers in the fashionable part of London. There, they’ve been selling rare or very rare or indeed invisibly rare books at splendid prices since 1853, while additionally purveying some extremely odd items of exceptional historic interest which, alas, we cannot specify in a website with a family readership.

Be that as it may, Ed’s talents and endeavours as an antiquarian bookseller are no more than a displacement activity. For his real calling – would he but allow it - is as a sailing writer, and more specifically a cruising writer. It may be a good old reliable cliché, but his quirky take on the things that happen in and on and around the Betty Alan to himself and Frances and their friends (a credibility-stretching lineup of characters in themselves) is what Myles might have called that familiar inhalation of clear oxygen and nitrogen and some spots of hydrogen and other gases, best known as a breath of fresh air if that’s what you’re having yourself.

Man among the merchandise – Ed Maggs at work. Photo: Maggs Bros

But as the very special bookshop is there to keep the show on the road, Ed has no need to turn himself into some sort of internet star or performance artist, which is the only way a modern cruising writer could afford a boat like Betty Alan. So instead, his fans can enjoy his works in semi-private club and association publications with words and thoughts to be savoured in leisurely style, instead of having your head blown off and your mind melted by electronic overload.

Thus we’ve been catching up in recent weeks through various sources on the great adventure, which was meant to be a two years (or thereabouts) circuit cruise round Britain and Ireland from Betty Alan’s home port of Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex, which is about as different a place from Glengarriff as you’ll find on this planet.

On this planet, misplaced or displaced intentions often produce the best cruise yarns. Betty Alan got as far as southwest Ireland, and then began significantly slowing down. When she got as far as Donegal, she came to a stop with a stay-for-a-while mooring at Teelin, and then laid up for the winter with the excellent services of Mooney Boats at Killybegs. And when she launched again, it was irresistible to revisit places back south, which may explain that star turn at Mullaghmore. But what with one thing and another, she now has a fulltime mooring in Glengarriff, and Ed and Frances have found themselves spending the Lockdown in the latest bright idea.

A distinct change of style from Burnham-n-Crouch in Essex – Betty Alan’s current base in Glengarriff at the head of Bantry Bay

It’s a little old farmhouse that they’ve bought, with a bit of land - most of it heavily wooded - hidden away in the Roughty Valley midway between Kenmare and Kilgarvan. Thus they’ve the remarkable yet smooth life force of the Brennan brothers at Kenmare and Drumquinna to the southwest, and the forces of nature in the raw in the rugged frontier village of Kilgarvan, Kilgarvan of the Riding Clans, to the northeast, where ordinary folk run the danger of becoming the hyphen in Healy-Rae.

It is in the little farmhouse during this Lockdown that Ed Maggs has been writing for a select few of the woodlands and oddities of this place called Kilgortaree, and he does it with the same lively and totally frank frame of mind that he brought to describing the joys and hazards of cruising the coasts of Kerry and Connemara in detail.

And it all seems part of a perfectly natural and sensible process, when set in the story of how the Ghost of Gull has come to be happily haunting Glengarriff in recent weeks.

Kinsale overnight leader Colm Dunne at the helm of Allegro held off a strong Northern Ireland Challenge to win the Squib Southern Championships at Cove Sailing Club this afternoon.

As reported earlier, 13 boats contested the championships in Cork Harbour but no one was able to overhaul Dunne who counted three race wins on the windward-leeward courses.

Second place after five races sailed in the one-design keelboat competition went to Royal North of Ireland's Gordon Patterson. Third place went to Patterson's Belfast Lough club-mate Peter Wallace, skipper of Toy for the Boys.

Results are here

Bob Bateman's Day Two Photo Gallery below

The volunteers of Crosshaven RNLI lifeboat were paged at 5.51 pm this evening (Saturday 19 July) to go to the aid of a broken-down vessel, East of Power Head at the entrance to Cork Harbour.

The lifeboat with Ian Venner in command and with Claire Morgan, Derek Moynan and Jonathan Birmingham on board made best speed towards the Casualty in good conditions and a slight sea.

First reports were that the 23' powerboat with two persons on board had broken down and was at anchor awaiting help.

Enroute, the lifeboat crew was informed by the Coast Guard that the casualty had managed to restart their engine and was slowly making for Ballycotton and would be obliged for the lifeboat to escort the vessel into the harbour.

The lifeboat crew were happy to oblige and saw the vessel safely moored in the harbour at Ballycotton.

Commenting on the incident, helm, Ian Venner said the vessels owner had 'done everything by the book and called the problem into the Coast Guard immediately and then anchored the vessel.'

Launch crew on this call out were Sandra Farrell, Susanne Deane, Richie Leonard and Caomhe Foster. The lifeboat returned to station at 8 pm.

The National 18 crew of Colin Chapman, Owen O'Keefe and Eddie Rice were yesterday's winners of the AIB sponsored PY 1000 cash Prize at the Royal Cork Yacht Club in Cork Harbour.

With only the lightest harbour breeze available Race Officer John Crotty set the mixed dinghy fleet off on a course that involved all points of sailing from a beat,a run and reaches before heading home for refreshments on the RCYC lawn at Crosshaven.

Royal Cork Race Officer John Crotty had to contend with some fickle winds for the 2020 PY Race Photo: Bob Bateman

The PY1000 2020 dinghy course set in Cork Harbour covered all the angles Photo: Bob Bateman

Other cash prizes went to second overall to Tom, Cloe and Patrick Crosbie. Third place went to Andrew Crosbie, all sailing National 18s.

AIB PY 1000 Winners - Colin Chapman, Owen O'Keefe and Eddie Rice Photo: Bob Bateman

Chris Bateman won the Lasers and Shane Collins, the Topper division.

Knox Kohl was the youngest sailor and first female home was Sophie Crosbie.

The youngest crewed boat was sailed by Ethel and Olin Bateman and the oldest combined Crew was Tommy Dwyer and Willy Healy

RCYC AIB PY1000 Photos

See the full slideshow of images from the event below by Bob Bateman