Tag: Kinvarra

Old Gaffers’ Ode

If I may, a quick thank you for those welcome comments from Oliver Boyle, Nozz’s brother, and from Bill Nance. We always welcome feedback – apart from anything else it re-assures me that someone is listening!

Kinvarra fishing trip-boat Skipper

Kinvarra fishing trip-boat Skipper

Meanwhile Dick Durham has found a superb poem as part of his Yachting Monthly writings, in this case coming to me through the RSS feed. “Yachting Monthly can reveal”, writes Dick, “one of the shanties which will be performed for the Old Gaffers Association’s 50th anniversary. It is written by cartoonist Mike Peyton, 92, who is an East Coast section member and the only original founder member of the OGA left alive. Performed by the Brandy Hole Shantymen, it is a poignant dirge of seven verses”.

Here is (part of) the The East Coast Old Gaffer: – you will have to go to the Yachting Monthly website or (gasp) buy the magazine to see the Ode in its full glory. I’m guessing from the structure and rhyming scan that it is sung to the tune of  that well know folk song “I’m a rambler, I’m a rambler, from Manchester Way….” It goes along the lines of ….

“I’ve sailed all over, from Orford to Dover, Boulogne and Breskens as well,
I’ve brought up in the Quarters, and Walton Backwaters, been sick as a dog with the swell.
My blankets have often been sodden, in the bunk where I rest my old head,
But rather than pack up my sailing, I think I would rather be dead!

(chorus)

“I’m a sailor, a sailor from Maldon Town way,
I get all my pleasure when I’m under way.
I may be commuting on Mondays, but I sail my old gaffer  on Sundays.”

Excellent, Mike Peyton and thank you Dick Durham for keeping us entertained. Fingers in ears, lads… and…. SINGING!

The picture, by the way is just a superbly bearded fishing trip-boat Skipper who caught my eye in Kinvarra (Co. Galway) whilst tracking hookers, so it is kind of Gaffer related even though it may have nothing to do with the OGA.

 

Hooker Racing at Last!

Galway Hookers run.

Galway Hookers run down Kinvarra Bay towards Parkmore Pier, pic by Matt Care

After a much more intelligent and organised day down at Kinvarra, we finally got to see some Hooker racing. We checked the tides and the race programme and didn’t even set out from here till 14:30 for the one and a half hour run.  We had plenty of time to park up in the town, walk down to the harbour to watch some race preparation. In this part of the world the shouts and hails and instructions to crew are done mainly in Irish, with occasional bits of English creeping in. I’d have to learn a whole new language to ‘volunteer’ here!  The race preparation included sending the crew off to the nearby rocky beach to gather coal-sacks full of rocks for ballast. These can be dumped during the race if they cease to be useful.

 

We “did a Dave B” using our local knowledge and a sneaky look over the shoulder of one Skipper as he jumped on board holding his laminated course-map. We could see that if we drove down the headland and waited at Parkmore Pier, we’d see some nice views of boats running down the Bay towards us. I just had to sit there in the pleasant sunshine and breeze with my ‘pap’ lens and talk to the other race fans till red sails appeared from the harbour.

Galway hooker running

Galway hooker running past Parkmore Pier in the 2012 Cruinniú na mBad races.

A brilliant experience which if any readers are in the Galway area mid August, I’d recommend you try to copy!

 

High and Dry

High and Dry

Galway Hooker high and dry in Kinvarra at low tide, pic by Matt Care

Ah well, the plan to watch Hooker racing didn’t quite work out. Seeing the harbour at Kinvarra on Thursday at mid tide we didn’t appreciate how it was at low tide – just acres of rock and bladder-wrack. When we caught up with a race programme and everything seemed to start at 4pm we thought “Ah well, there will still be boats coming and going, jilling about in the bay to photograph”. Not a bit of it. Never mind, we saw lots and took plenty of pics, then drove home the scenic route back through Connemara. A lovely day. We now have the perfect excuse to return tomorrow and see if we can get a bit more lucky.

Robert Simper on Hookers.

Galway hooker stern

Galway hooker stern, Kinvarra Harbour 2012, Picture by Matt Care

By an amazing coincidence, my latest Galway Hooker witterings struck a chord with the fact that I was re-reading Robert Simper’s excellent book, The Cambria Story (Robert Simper, ISBN 978-0-9563299-2-9, pub Creekside Publishing, 2012; available through our shop pages). In the section on the end of trading days (page 29) Robert says that “She had no rivals for her place in history since it was several years since the last Ipswich barge had carried a cargo under sail; only a few hookers on the west coast of Ireland were carrying turf”. So there you go Cambria – you might be last ‘sailorman’ in UK, but maybe not in Western Europe as a whole.

Kinvarra

Galway Hooker in Kinvarra

Galway Hooker in Kinvarra Harbour, Aug 2012, Photo by Matt Care

There’s no point being a blogger on a trad sailing work-boats website and living within an hour and a half of the centre of Galway Hooker restoration, Kinvarra, just south of Galway, if you can’t indulge your own passions for things non-barge occasionally. Today we went all touristy and headed off first for the ‘wrong’ Kinvarra (there are several, and this one was in Connemara so it seemed like a good bet. We enjoyed superb West of Ireland mountain + lake scenery for an hour or so, but that Kinvarra proved to be 3 houses and a farm. No beach, no harbour. We headed in along the north side of Galway Bay and on through the city of Galway, then South to the next Kinvarra on the list, the one down in Cliffs of Moher / The Burren country. Here not only did the town signs have hooker logos on them, but as soon as we could see harbour we also spotted the lovely black hull of the big hooker Cliona na Toinne moored alongside (plus a smaller one, possibly of the type they call “púcán”)

Trad Boat Festival Poster

Trad Boat Festival Poster, Pic by Matt Care

Naturally we had to stop and take so many photo’s I filled my memory card. Not only that, we discovered notices around the town saying that the Traditional Sailing Boats Festival is Friday (tomorrow!) Saturday and Sunday of this weekend. Will we be heading back, do you think?

© 2024

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑