Hooker Racing

On the Sunday (19th Aug) we return to Kinvarra for another try to see Hooker racing, but this time we are more familiar with the race programme's talk of 5pm starts and 6pm high tides and we don't even set out for Kinvarra till 2.30pm - it's an hour and a half drive. This gives us plenty of time in the morning to garden and do some logging plus Mum, who has now had a phone call from Steak Lady saying she and Mr SL will be visiting on Monday, to have a bit of a tidy up round the house.

Heavy rain on the way down frightens us into thinking we'll not see any racing without getting very wet, but this clears as we arrive at Kinvarra and stays away long enough for us to have a brilliant time and get plenty of pictures. We have time to park up, stroll round the harbour looking at the 'trade stands', buy an ice cream and watch some race preparation. In hooker racing this takes the form of loading coal sacks with rocks filched from the beach and placing them low in the boat as ballast. These rocks can then be jettisoned during the race if they have done with 'beating to windward' and are 'running' home downwind. They are only needed to help keep the boat upright battling into the wind.

Before the race starts we move back out to our Parkmore Pier viewpoint where we get talking to some locals (including some ex-pats who prove to be an RAF armourer called Fergus and his Thames-born, Essex Girl lady who 'knows about' Thames barges and has heard of Cambria. The racing, as predicted, passes close to us and the sun shines on the ochre-red sails and Dad is able to get some beautiful pictures, a million of which we will not bore you with here. The racing is close and exciting and we see one close shave where the bow sprit of a boat nearly entangles with the back of the leading boat.

I have a lovely time racing about the pier meeting dogs, race-watchers and anglers all of whom seem to want to make a fuss of me and Mum and Dad swear I am remembering narrow boat holidays and all the fun jumping on and off boats. At one stage a fishing trip-boat pulls in to the pier to land its party of sport fishermen. It is skippered by a superb beardy character who then nips up the pier and jumps in his rowboat which is tied to the pier and loaded with his old bicycle. He rows the rowboat back to where his fishing boat is and loads the bike on board, tying the rowboat to his fishing boat so that he can tow it away. The 'Essex Girl' approaches him and asks to buy some mackerel which he has in a crate on deck, left over from the trip. He is selling them for 4 for €2 which is too much for Mum and Dad to resist so we buy 4 and that's supper sorted.

The run home, with Mum driving is notable for its 'Biblical' rain with massive puddles and flooding and aqua-planing opportunities. At one point Mum is doing 33 mph with the wipers going double-speed and she is still a bit worried. Probably the wettest drive either of them can recall. Back home we find the middle gate closed and cattle foot prints all over the place. There has obviously been another escape in our absence and we are doubly determined to quickly buy an entrance gate. Luckily only the 'hay stack' is knocked about and no damage has been done to veg, the rabbit run or any other important stuff that wont repair easily. The beasts can stay on the tarmac outside next time, and not mess up our grass.

High and Dry in Kinvarra

 On Saturday 18th we return to Kinvarra hoping to catch some Galway Hooker racing as part of the traditional boat festival, "Cruinniú na mBad" (Gathering of the boats, or 'Harvest' of the boats). Only having seen the harbour last Thursday at half tide, we do not appreciate how low the tide goes or how the water all drains away leaving the harbour as acres of rocks and bladder wrack. High tide is promised for 6pm and the boat racing and events on Saturday start from about 4pm but we thought we would be able to see a few coming and going, jilling about in the harbour or practising. We'd left home at 10:30 and were there around midday. Not a bit of it. Everyone is high and dry. Dad takes a few picture of the hulls and rigging, some from walking about on the rocks and sea weed. I get a nice run around among the rocks hunting out crabs and nasty dead sea things to roll in.

Dad wondered if we moved further down the Kinvarra Bay to a place called Parkmore Pier we find some water and some boaty activity, so we re-load into the car and drove the short distance to there. Here there was one Hooker swinging at her moorings but still no activity. Never mind - this looked like a good place to take pictures from as it was near the narrow bay mouth and the boats were bound to pass close by. Easy range for Dad's 400 mm 'pap' lens.

At this point we gave up on Kinvarra for the day and decided it was way too early to head home, so we'd go home the scenic route back through 'the other Kinvarra' (See 2 posts ago), Connemara, the Maamturk Mountains and Cong. This time it would be Mum's turn to drive so that Dad could drink in the scenery but we had also brought a picnic, so we'd find a scenic spot and get out the metaphorical hamper.

This is just an awesomely beautiful drive and even in the cloudy change-able light it still took our breaths away. The picnic we took at the top of an inlet where the peaty stream emptied into the sea under a lovely stone bridge. There was a slipway, and I could have a paddle. The drive was as quiet and traffic free as before, with only a few rangey mountainy-rams with curly horns and the odd creamy coloured Connemara pony for company. Only at one point we were driving down a steep twisty lane following a dodgy looking tractor which pulled a livestock trailer and a smaller trailer with wobbly wheels 'in train'. The livestock trailer was open at the back and seemed to be stacked to the roof with bags of turfs, some of the bags threatening to avalanche out of the back. Perched in the back was an old guy leaning back on the load as if to keep it from falling and although we couldn't hear a word he was saying and presumably neither could the tractor driver, his jaws were working away as if he was having a right old swear up rant. Every so often he would cling to the side of the trailer and try to keep his balance while adjusting the position of a tumbling turf sack. If the whole rig made it safely home with the winter fuel we'll all be amazed, Mum sneaked a chance to overtake, not wanting to be stuck behind that lot and ferrying the poor bloke to hospital if it all went pear shaped.

Galway Hookers

There's no point in being in this lovely part of the world if you can't go out and do 'tourist' once in a while, and (says Dad) there's no point in being the official blogger on a website devoted to working sail boats of you can't occasionally indulge your passions for the West Coast traditional sailing work boat, the Galway Hooker. In these days of puppy and kitten overload, I am occasionally indulged with a car trip rather than be left alone to kill the kindergarten and so it was today that I was loaded into the car for a bit of touristing.

The plan was to look up the Hookers in the centre of restoration excellence, Kinvarra, but there are several Kinvarras on the map. We headed first for the one in Connemara - we knew that the hookers were mainly used to ferry turf, supplies and livestock between the islands and headlands of Connemara, so this seemed logical and anyway, gave us all a superb scenic run out through Ballyhaunis, down to Ballinrobe and then threading out between Lough Corrib and Lough Mask and on through the Maamturk mountains and down to the first Kinvarra. This proved to not be a sea harbour (all be it very scenic) so we headed on south and the east along the North shore of Galway Bay, stopping for a picnic on the beach, where I got a nice run a round.

From there we headed on through Galway and south again to the Kinvarra near to the Cliffs of Moher and The Burren. Not only did the town signs have Galway Hooker logos, but as soon as we set eyes on the harbour we spotted the lovely black hull of a big hooker (Cliona na Toinne). We parked up and went for a walk, spotting another couple of hookers including the small type they call púcán. Dad took a million photos (it takes all sorts). Mum spotted a poster advertising a Traditional Boats Festival running tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday

Hands up who thinks we'll be going back?

Deefs.

The Princess and the Hooker

Just in case you thought we all descend on the Silverwoods at the weekend for a chance of a rest and relax after all the builder-ing, here's the truth. Evil Landlady Mrs Silverwood makes us slave for our dry bread and water with a bit of painting and decorating. Here are, in no particular order

1) a nice coat of cream paint and a big "R" in princess style for a 4 year old R who is mad keen on all things Princess. On the opposite wall will go one of those fancy new 8' x 6' wall-paper murals, in her case containing an underwater scene of mermaid x princesses (Mermesses? Princaids?) as well as dolphins, shark and fishes.
2) Some fancy pink-roses on black wall paper, sealer/varnish on the new tongue and groove panelling and pink paint on the walls for the two older Silverwood girls, Em-J who is a bit 'goth' and wanted BLACK, and J-M who is girlie-pink and wanted PINK. Nice compromise. Went on well too till the very last minute of the first coat of pink when, holding a roller-tray and reaching for the open tin, Dad did a pink paint version of that cliche mistake where you spill your mug of tea because you rotate your wrist to look at your watch. Bubble gum pink paint all down his front and on his (old, fortunately) suede shoes. Gah! Excuse the mess, by the way. This is a teenager room and the builders are in (and the painters).
3) Also here, the Silverwoods keep 2 big rabbits (Ginny and Padfoot named after Harry Potter characters) in a hutch for the amusement of visiting Deefers. The two local dogs are bored with them at this stage, or scared of them. They got out onto the decking once and Max and Lily had to be rescued from a high vantage point, the kids' trampoline. Haggis has even been for a look in when toddler R left the door open and just stood there, nose to nose, confused as if asking them "What are you? Birds? Dogs? Big Mice?" I, though, an still convinced I should like to play with them, so here's me and Lily chatting them up through the hutch front. There are those who say I should know better because I have already fallen foul of local cat Thomas, taking a swipe across the nose when I got too close, which bled! He don't take no prisoners, that boy.
4)The beer? Dad says it's a nice local one, brewed in an artisan brewery in Roscommon. A place of pilgrimage, I would think.

Deefs

An Dreoilin

There you are. I promised you a Galway Hooker. I hope you weren't hoping for an Irish Lady-of-Negotiable-Affection because that just wouldn't do. No, No. We refer here to the traditional West Coast working sail boat. Ours is possibly the only example of such a craft currently in England, and even more certainly in Kent.

This one, "An Dreoilin" (The Wren) is 24 feet long, so is from the 3rd size class down in 'hooker' terms. a Gleóiteog (pronounced, as best we can render it from Mum's speech "Gli-choge", to rhyme with Rogue). She is not really old, having been built half way up Bray Head (a bizarre location to be a-building trad West coast vessels) in 1984 by a German boat builder for a local author, as a copy of an original 1894 boat. Our man (Ray) actually bought her from a bloke in Waterford and brought her to Kent on a trailer on the back of a big 4x4. He has since done quite a bit of re-planking and restoration, though her frames were all sound.

Ray is a well known local Sailing Barge aficionado who was good friends with the father of Dad's fellow Cambria volunteer, Dave B and also owns an Essex fishing smack (Nercissa). Dave managed to wangle an invitation last night for himself and Dad to come and clamber all over the nearly finished boat to take pictures. They report that Ray was delighted that Dave and Dad had even heard of Galway Hookers, never mind knew a bit about them and had read books on the subject. Ray also turns out to have a huge collection of trad sailing boat pics including, amazingly an old fashioned Kodak photographic-paper-box of various Hookers.

So, now you know!

Deefs