The Baltimore Wooden Boat Festival in West Cork will be held this weekend, starting on Friday and continuing until Sunday.
“This area has a long history of engagement with trans-Atlantic sailing ships, with Eastern-bound ships picking up a Pilot off Oileán Chléire to guide them into European waters. Generations of Chléire pilots had detailed knowledge of ports from the Mediterranean to the North Sea. The Festival will re-enact the rowing out of a ‘Pilot’ from the Harbour to a vessel under sail by Sherkin, the ‘Pilot’ has to jump on board and be sailed back to the Harbour. While this is a fun event, it can get very competitive,” says Mary Jordan of the Organising Committee.
The iconic Saoirse will be the Committee Boat. The original Saoirse was built in Baltimore in 1923 and was the first yacht to sail around the world under the new Irish flag, skippered by Conor O’Brien.
This year’s Festival will celebrate the locally famous 39-foot Ketch, The Richard. The first boat built by Paddy Hegarty in Old Court in 1948, whose sons and grandson continue this tradition of building heritage vessels, will be the subject of a talk by Maritime Historian Cormac Levis of Ballydehob on the opening Friday night at 8 p.m. in Baltimore Sailing Club.
Ketch Richard moored off Sherkin Island when she was owned by Dermot Kennedy
The rowing race from Skibbereen to Baltimore can not be held this year as the tide is wrong for rowing down the River Ilen. Instead a new event for small boats will be Orienteering on the water, with boats hunting for designated rocks, headlands and landmarks, it should be fun to watch from land and sea!
Among the many visiting vessels, including the Shannon and Bristol Pilot Cutters, we are delighted to welcome two Bantry Long Boats who will be sailing/rowing together, the Unité from Bantry and Fionnbarra from Cork, replicas of the French Long Boats that came into Bantry Bay in 1798 to assist Wolf Tone.
While our maritime history is not taught in any Irish schools, this Festival gives an glimpse of the richness of maritime heritage and the wealth of traditional sailing and construction skills thriving in West Cork. It has one of the widest variety of traditional vessels in Ireland, from rowing currachs and punts to sailing Heir Island and Long Island fishing boats to large ocean-going vessels.
And not to forget that it is also a seafood festival in a village whose heritage includes the fishing industry.
