On the 20th anniversary of their last visit to West Cork, the Howth 17s travelled to Baltimore this weekend as part of their season-long celebrations for the 125th year of their class.
The very active class is credited with being the oldest one-design racing keelboat in the world and is still built and rigged as originally designed by Walter Herbert Boyd in 1897.
Anyone familiar with the class will know there will be no shortage of stories from any events and trips they make, and this ‘rally’ will be no different. Even before the boats arrived at their destination, the adventure began and coincided with the change to more usual summer weather.
Not used to navigating on land, the newest-built boat within the class ‘Orla’ (2017), took an early but erroneous decision to choose the port attack to the M7 towards Limerick - a tactic that might be better suited at sea, with the forecast of a veering, fresh wind from the west. The recent warm and benign weather conditions were forecasted to end this week, and the Howth 17s greeted the news with relish rather than dread, setting out fully crewed but sensibly without their distinctive topsails, towards the Atlantic seas for their ‘acclimatisation’ day on Sunday.
Some took the opportunity to anchor off Sherkin Island, where the crew went swimming, while other teams tested the conditions and the long ocean swell following days of new westerly wind below the developing low-pressure system in the North Atlantic. The historic fleet hadn’t encountered such a sea state in 20 years, and when they previously travelled to Glandore in 2003 for their Championships.
It was a perfect day to circumnavigate Sherkin Island, passing through Gascanane Sound and viewing Roaringwater Bay towards Schull (Monday’s destination) before negotiating the ‘back passage’ downwind between Heir Island and Sherkin Island.
The six boats that chose to take this route needed to take precautions for what is a tricky undertaking in a non-engined keelboat, not least for those that hadn’t upgraded their iPhone marine-chart apps to the ‘paid’ versions.
More used to the younger members of Howth Yacht Club that make the regular journey to train and race in front of the harbour, Baltimore Sailing Club and Commodore Grahame Copplestone welcomed the crews to the club after their first day’s sail with a special BBQ for the Howth 17 crews on Sunday evening. Afterwards, the ever-energetic class members filled Bushes Bar and other local hostelries with scenes that will be repeated daily for some days to come.
The class will spend the rest of the week in West Cork, lifting out in Baltimore next Saturday for the road trip and returning back to Howth.
Below is a video from Sunday made by the Howth 17 ‘Eileen’ crew of Rima Macken, Cillian Macken, Simon Knowles, Christina Knowles and Leah Ann McHenry.