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Displaying items by tag: Gavin Watson

Gavin Watson has recently been appointed Vice Chair of RYA Northern Ireland.

He is the Honorary Sailing Secretary of Royal Ulster Yacht Club on Belfast Lough, and it is believed that he is the first RUYC member to take on this role. The Chair is Susan McKnight.

Gavin is an experienced yachtsman and was the mainsheet trimmer on the successful First 40, Forty Licks, previously owned by Jay Colville of East Down Yacht Club and recently sold.

Gavin was also instrumental in reviving the popular Bangor Town Regatta and has represented his club at the Belfast Lough Yacht Conference.

Published in RYA Northern Ireland

The Rankin Dinghy of Cobh, Cork Harbour 

A Rankin is a traditional wooden dinghy which was built in Cobh, of which it’s believed there were 80 and of which The Rankin Dinghy Group has traced nearly half. 

The name of the Rankin dinghies is revered in Cork Harbour and particularly in the harbourside town of Cobh.

And the name of one of those boats is linked to the gunboat which fought against the Irish Volunteers during the 1916 Easter Rising and later for the emergent Irish Free State Government against anti-Treaty Forces during the Irish Civil War.

It also links the renowned boat-building Rankin family in Cobh, one of whose members crewed on the gunboat.

Maurice Kidney and Conor English are driving the restoration of the Rankin dinghies in Cork Harbour. They have discovered that Rankins were bought and sailed in several parts of the country.