This weekend sees ancient gaff-rigged and other craft of multiple vintages gathering at Poolbeg Yacht and Boat Club in Ringsend in the heart of Dublin Port, within sight of some of the most modern ships afloat. It’s the 60th Anniversary of the Old Gaffers Association, and the fact that Dublin is central to the OGA’s Diamond Jubilee Cruise-in-Company speaks volumes for the welcome the port provided for the Golden Jubilee Cruise in 2013, when it became clear that owners of vintage or classical Bermudan-rigged boats were also welcome. It seems that being part of the community is a matter of the right attitude rather than undue fussiness about exactitude of rig.
Yet it’s a curiosity of international sailing history that in 1963 the definitive gaff-rigged One Designs of Dun Laoghaire - the 1902-originating Dublin Bay 21s - were in the process of changing to Bermuda rig. For at the same time, separate meetings in the south and southeast of England were - unbeknownst to each other – laying the foundations for the beginnings of the Old Gaffers Association for the preservation of gaff-rigged sailing skills.
THE MAN FROM THE ELEPHANT BOATYARD
As one of the main movers in the initial south coast meeting in Winchester was Mike Richardson of the renowned and distinctly characterful Elephant Boatyard on the upper reaches of the Hamble River, it’s not surprising that over the years, it was recognised that a contemporary meeting at Maldon in Essex was where the Old Gaffers Association really came into being.
The rapid development of the OGA on England’s East Coast soon meant there was a keen Dutch branch, and they were present in strength in Dublin Bay in 2013, with the steel-built Cinne Mara (based on the design of a Galway hooker) seen here chasing fellow Dutch boat Raven, built to a Lyle Hess design. Photo: W M Nixon
For they could focus on moving things forward in a single-minded way, whereas Mike of the Elephant and his friends – unaware of any developments on the East Coast – had so many boat interests on the go at the same time that the progressing of an idea for a new association had to take its place in the queue. For sure, they did eventually run a couple of races for old gaffers in the Solent. But once they realized that things had been happening in a more clear-cut form on the East Coast, the two groupings became one with the East Coast setting the pace.
INTERNATIONAL LINKS
Soon they were drawing in fellow enthusiasts, both countrywide and with international links. Success was such that by the time the Golden Jubilee came around in 2013, they had the strength and enthusiasm to organise a well-supported Round Britain Rally with many interesting ports visited, and with two stops on Ireland’s East Coast - at Poolbeg in Dublin, and in Belfast Port in Northern Ireland hosted by the NIOGA.
Legends of the sea. Dickie Gomes, first winner in 2013 of the Leinster Plate with the 101-year-old Ringsend-built Ainmara, with Tim Magennis, President at the time of the hosting Dublin Bay Old Gaffers Association, and himself a veteran of a round the world voyage in the gaff-rigged Colin Archer ketch Sandefjord. Photo: W M Nixon
The Irish stopovers were extensively covered on Afloat.ie with special enthusiasm, as your columnist happened to be sailing throughout all the happenings on the Irish coast with Dickie Gomes of Strangford Lough aboard the Ringsend-built 9-ton J B Kearney yawl Ainmara. And our enjoyment was in no way lessened by winning the inaugural race for the Leinster Trophy in Dublin Bay, with the trophy being handed over about 200 yards from where Ainmara had been born 101 years earlier.
Even ten years ago, Bermudan rigged vintage boats were welcomed as OGA members, and here Ainmara is leading the inaugural race for the Leinster Plate in Dublin Bay at the OGA Golden Jubilee in 2013. Photo: Dave Owens
TWO IRISH BRANCHES HAVE BECOME ONE FOR ALL
Since then, the two Irish branches of the OGA have become one, with the DBOGA in effect covering the whole country, as the President is Adrian “Stu” Spence whose 47ft ketch El Paradiso is based in Ringhaddy Sound in Strangford Lough, while the Honorary Secretary Darryl Hughes now lives in Crosshaven, where he bases his 43ft gaff ketch Maybird, designed by Fred Shepherd and built by Jack Tyrrell of Arklow in 1937.
This national spread is further emphasized by former international OGA President Sean Walsh – in 2013, he was Dun Laoghaire-based with his Heard 28 gaff cutter Turn a nOg – now being a Kinsale sailor. He and Darryl Hughes have combined forces to sail Tir na nOg east and north to Ringsend to help co-ordinate the Poolbeg events, which are under the overall direction of Adrian Spence and former PY&BC Commodore Johnny Wedick.
Local boats join the international fleet – Sean Walsh’s Tir na nOg from Dun Laoghaire dicing in Dublin Bay with Paul Holden’s Peapod from Howth. Photo: Dave Owens
The friendly atmosphere in Poolbeg Y & BC lends itself well to mutlti-generational events of this type, an excellent example being the recent launching of marine and civic historian Cormac Lowth’s fascinating book about the Ringsend sailing trawlers. The Ringsend fishery began to be of major significance when the Brixham fishermen from Devon started expanding their operations after the ending of the Napoleonic Wars around 1818. And they succeeded so well in their new Ringsend base that by the 1880s the renowned Murphy family in Ringsend built and very successfully fished the largest Brixham-type fishing boat ever, the legendary St Patrick.
So successful were the Ringsend fishermen in adopting and developing the technology brought to them by their immigrants from Brixham that the largest fishing boat built to the Brixham trawler concept was the famous St Patrick – designed, built and fished by the Murphy family of Ringsend. Photo: Courtesy Cormac Lowth
RAYTOWN
Modern developments on the Ringsend waterfront mean that it is now difficult to imagine this area as a thriving fishery services foreshore, but such was very much the case. And the visit of a group such as the Old Gaffers is a timely occasion to reflect on the period when this was known to Dubliners as Raytown. The local fishing community kept the despised ray for their own consumption while selling the more profitable sought-after species. Consequently it was observed that you could find Ringsend in fog or total darkness relying only on the all-pervading smell of ray being wind-dried on lines for preservation for winter consumption.
THE DUN LAOGHAIRE WAY
Needless to say the arrival of the idea of local Old Gaffers Associations in Ireland was greeted with mixed feelings. It’s doubtful if those such as Cass Smullen, who were arguing to keep the DB21s gaff-rigged, would have been known that at the same time two separate groups in England were thinking in the same general way. Or if he did, then he would have been well aware that support from that quarter might not have helped his cause at all, as Dun Laoghaire has always liked its own way of doing things.
The Dublin Bay 21 Geraldine arrives back in Dun Laoghaire on Wednesday of this week, after being re-born under the skills of Steve Morris of Kilrush Boatyard. Photo: DB21
The restored DB21 Garavogue, setting her new “American gunter” rig, winning the last race of the 2022 season. The Dublin Bay 21s had decided to change to Bermudan rig in 1963 just as the Old Gaffers Association came into being to preserve gaff rig and the skills needed to use it.
For despite the interest in Bermuda rig, the fact is we were up to our tonsils in gaff rigged boats, and still are. But they are mainly used very actively for racing, such that boats like the Dublin Bay Water Wags and the Howth 17s don’t see themselves as Old Gaffers at all - on the contrary, their self-image is of a hot racing class which just happens to be gaff rigged.
ENGLISH CULTURAL IMPERIALISM?
This relaxed acceptance of gaff rig as being very much alive and a natural part of the contemporary Irish sailing scene was brought home to me many years ago when an English gaff-rigged enthusiast called Alan Hidden arrived to work in Northern Ireland, and although a decent enough person, he carried the usual baggage of English cultural imperialism in some maritime matters.
One of the most interesting boats due in Poolbeg is the former Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter Letty of 1905 vintage. But don’t assume that her impressive presence will be a subtle case of English maritime cultural imperialism. Her owner-skipper Steve Cogdell proudly flies the Cornish ensign, which suggests that he and his crew see themselves as being completely independent of just about everyone else on the planet. Photo: Patrick Vyvyan-Robinson
For very soon, we had a letter from him to Afloat Magazine saying that he had discovered a marvellous old clinker-built gunter-rigged 14ft sailing dinghy called Mantis which once upon a time had belonged to a “long extinct” class called the Ballyholme Insects, and his plan was to restore her and use her as the foundation on which to build a Northern Ireland branch of the Old Gaffers Association.
THE PICKLE FORK CLUB
“Mixed feelings” barely begins to describe the reaction in the luxuriously-appointed editorial offices of Afloat Verbiage Industries plc.. For once upon a time, we owned, sailed, raced, cruised and did many others things of a rites-of-passage and highly educational nature with an Insect. Thus the thought that somebody should see them as quaint Old Gaffers was appalling.
Worse still was kitting an Insect with tan sails sporting an OGA number and the Old Gaffer symbol. It’s supposed to be based on a set of classic gaff boom jaws, but a totally Bermuda-rigged shipmate always refers to the OGA as “The Pickle Fork Club”, and on this evidence of English cultural imperialism as applied to a Ballyholme Insect, I was inclined to agree with him.
Sacrilege! The Ballyholme Insect Class Mantis being re-purposed as a propaganda tool for the Old Gaffers Association, showing clearly why sniffy Bermuda-rig enthusiasts refer to the OGA as “The Pickle-Fork Club”. This photo of Mantis was taken at the very tidal inlet of Dundrum on the County Down coast, where Regatta Day is selected so that at low water ponies can conveniently be raced around the same course that sailing craft use at high water.
THE DBOGA ARE OKAY
Until, that is, I found that the Dublin Bay Branch of the Old Gaffers Association included such solidly maritime souls as Tim Magennis and Johnny Wedick and Denis Aylmer and the merry band with Paul Keogh on the Clondalkin-built Galway hooker Naomh Cronan and many others.
So we threw ourselves with enthusiasm into the DBOGA’s prominent role in the Golden Jubilee Celebrations in 2013, albeit with the Bermudan-rigged Ainmara. But then, her antique Ringsend associations probably gave her more right to be there than any other boat in the fleet.
Solid sailing citizen. DBOGA pioneer Dennis Aylmer of Dun Laoghaire may sail the “plastic fantastic” Mona these days, but back in the 1960s he was one of the key enthusiasts for Galway Hookers in Dublin Bay.
Yet now with the Diamond Jubilee upon us, it’s disconcerting to find how much has changed in just ten years, which you’d think in Old Gaffer terms is just the twinkling of an eye. Ainmara has been sold to Swiss owners, Adrian Spence’s 1873-built Madcap has been sold to France, Joe Pennington’s Master Frank, the pride of the Isle of Man, is very much on the market, and now the Naomh Cronan is based in Galway.
THE GOOD NEWS
Yet the news is not all one way. On the upside, Hal Sisk and Fionan de Barra of Dun Laoghaire are more than halfway towards the restoration of the Dublin Bay 21 Class, with the arrival in Dun Laoghaire this week of the newly-restored Geraldine from the skilled hands of Steve Morris and his team in Kilrush.
Current DBOGA President Adrian Spence (right) absorbing wisdom (and much else) with old salts Joe Pennington (left) and Dickie Gomes. Photo: W M Nixon
And in Strangford Lough, the classic Manx nobby White Heather has returned, complete with her authentic widow-maker of a dipping lug rig, brought back to her longtime home by Gary Lyons who apparently more or less did a straight swap with his vintage Bermuda ketch Ocean Dove with previous White Heather owner Mike Clarke of Peel.
And as for this weekend at Poolbeg, the fact that all places were booked out within a few days of bookings becoming available tells us that the OGA – and Poolbeg Yacht & Boat Club with it - are in good health.
Summer’s evening at Poolbeg in Dublin Port during the 2013 visit of the Old Gaffers Association. Photo: W M Nixon
