A “Classic” summer run along the Cork Coastline

Just after Calves Week (first week of August) ended my eldest son Chris asked me to crew for him on a trip along the Cork coast to bring “Jap” back to Crosshaven in preparation for her trip to the French Classics Circuit. Jap is one of the original Fife designed Cork Harbour One Designs and was built in 1897. Restored by Fairlie in 2002, she is the ninth of the class to race out of Cork.
In typical Bateman style it involved a late night drive to Schull – a fortuitous offer of a bed in a beautiful house south of the village itself and an 0500 wakeup to suit the anticipated breeze and tide for the day.
Jap was on a mooring off of Colla Pier so we launched in a little rubber duckie to get out to her. Given the weather of the previous days there was a fine swell running and the timing of the getaway between breaking waves was critical to avoid two sailors ending up very soggy indeed. The little engine caught first pull and the two of us got away with it…
The dawn was a horrid dark grey affair but at least it was dry. The breeze was very light as we ghosted away from the land but filled in nicely as we headed for the Gascanane Sound.
Chris had been anxious to get closer to home as fast as possible; the breeze was forecast to drop later in the day. Jap doesn’t have an engine so contingency plans are always in the back of the mind when you need to cover bigger distances with her. As it would turn out, we were glad of our backup plan.
For the main part the trip was unremarkable, once you get over the fact that you are onboard a legend from 1897 and she just feels a little different from most other yachts. It was a bit roly-poly for a while, her elegant long boom occasionally dragging in the water and the goosewinged jib giving flaps of displeasure as she yawed around. It is fair to say that Jap is as good as gold in Chris’s hands, but she did seem to resent the older Bateman when he stood his trick at the helm.
The breeze started to lighten as we ticked off the headlands on our trek back. We finally ran out of puff outside of the Sovereigns on the rhumb line for Cork Harbour. The wind drop co-incided with the tide turning and then the heavens opened. It was decidedly bleak looking at that point, the official food for the day (one snickers bar – I was on a diet) having being shared out at the appropriate time. Chris quickly rigged a cover for us over the open cockpit and we activated Plan B at that point. I had figured two generations of Bateman mightn’t be enough so we called in a third – Grandad. He duly arrived with his RIB and more food supplies. I swapped over to his ship for the tow and we headed for Crosser with all haste. We were tucked up on the mooring by 1900.

Watching the trip on Navionics as we made our way back