You’re never too old to learn, and at 131 years old the Dublin Bay Water Wags (founded 1887, though current boats date from 1900) seemed determined to prove this by having a two-day Coaching Session last weekend at Killinure on Lough Ree, based at Quigley’s Boatyard & Marina writes W M Nixon.
The fifteen boats which travelled west were put through their paces by coaches Alistair Kissane and Rory Fitzpatrick. Those of us who find the current spell of unsettled weather an abomination will be charmed by Lough Ree YC Commodore Garrett Leech’s photos, which capture something that would feel like summer were it not for the bare look of the trees.
Mariposa (Cathy MacAleavy) zooms into a death roll in Sunday’s rising wind – they managed to roll out of it again. Photo: Garrett Lynch
Being a Coaching Session, we’re not really allowed to reveal who won the many races that they somehow managed to put through before the fleet adjourned for lunch at Wineport Lodge where – the Water Wags being an entirely Leinster-based class – the outcome of the afternoon’s rugby match on the televisual device was a source of great satisfaction.
Next day saw the weather going downhill as the morning progressed, so they finished as the wind piped up through the 25 knots-plus barrier in order to get home with everyone and everything intact, thereby recalling the Orders of the Day of the Killinure YC (founded 1831, and unearthed by yachting historian Vincent Delany) which required that the club fleet gather at 11 am on the first and third Monday of every month during the sailing season, and that “each member must be supported by a servant who shall remain sober enough to take him home in safety……”
Con Murphy upsetting the natural order with a heavier-than-air flying machine. Photo: Garrett Leech
