Hello and welcome to my weekly Podcast …. Tom MacSweeney here ….
There is a great lot to be said about the pride of a family in a boat and there is nothing wrong with being old when age is appreciated, understood and revered. A man I met in West Cork, where he and his family are involved in restoring a boat that is one hundred and sixteen years old, underline that to me.
That a yacht, with close and long links to the West Cork community, is being saved for future generations. underlines the embodiment of the attraction of boats in the life of a family.
Simon O’Keeffe told me why he is restoring the boat which his great-grandfather designed and built in 1902. It was launched then at the fishing port of Schull in West Cork and is now being restored at the yard of Roe Boats, not too far away in Ballydehob.
The boat is the Lady Min which once was a “thorn in the side” of the renowned Cork Harbour yacht racing aficionados.
Listen to the podcast below as Simon tells me why he and his family decided to restore what is probably going to be the oldest racing yacht ever restored to the waters of the South Coast.
