It was launch day for ‘The Five Pilots’ last Saturday on the bay at Carrigaholt, when the community built St Ayles skiff was introduced to the Estuary waters.
Loop Head Rowing Club is the local group behind the building of the St Ayles skiff, a four oared rowing boat normally crewed by four sweep rowers with a coxswain. Built by 16 members of the club, the skiff has been named ‘The Five Pilots’ as a tribute to the five fishermen from Kilbaha who drowned when their boat was hit by a freak wave on May 8, 1873.
The five pilots were Michael Brennan and his nephew Thomas Brennan, John McNamara, Patrick Carmody and Seamus Bán Crotty. Seats in rowing boats are ordinarily numbered but in this craft each of the eats will be named after a pilot. Poignantly, a reserve seat, a sixth position, was named after one of the boat builders, Fintan Ryan from Carrigaholt who died suddenly in May.
While Fintan’s death was a hard blow and a difficult time for the club members, they continued on by throwing their efforts into the boat-building project and fortunately, everything has fallen into place since then.
Speaking to The Clare Champion, Chairperson of Loop Head Rowing Club, Seamus Graham explained how the project originally came to pass.
Having first got involved with the Seol Sionna club when he moved to the area from the midlands two years ago, Seamus was encouraged to consider a boat build in Carrigaholt.
“They suggested to me a couple of people out west would be interested in building a boat and said if I was interested as well, they’d put me in contact with someone. It was the best thing I ever did,” he said.
Next he contacted Marcus McMahon, and together they approached Limerick Clare Education and Training Board for help with the project. Dealing with Community Education facilitator, Breda O’Driscoll and Director of Further Education and Training, Paul Patton, they got significant support from LCETB.
With much paper work to be completed and criteria to be met, a friend of Marcus’ Jill O’Connor then came aboard applying her excellent administrative skills to the task and helping place all their ducks in a row to achieve funding.
Therafter, a number of interested people met at Carrigaholt in early summer of last year to form their own club which subsequently became Loop Head Rowing Club, and which now has around 20 members based at Carrigaholt. They joked at first that they were the only rowing club in Ireland without a boat. However, things were progressing with the LCETB, and when they discovered a shipwright was required to meet the criteria, they engaged the services of Steve Morris, a New Zealander who lives in West Clare.
“Thank god Steve come on board and we got everything over the line and LCETB came on board with the funding. The mantra in our club is to try to get people back in the water and get rowing again,” said Seamus.
The unique point about the St Ayles’ skiff is that it is a kit boat which can be built in communities and by groups like mens sheds and schools.
“When it first came I was quite surprised, I was like ‘really just four boxes’? It is glued together with a resin and it takes three pieces to make one boat. So Steve Morris showed us all how to construct it from a kit,” he said.
And so, 16 builders from the Loop Head Rowing Club started the build in January and usually worked on it for a couple of hours on Saturdays before they finally finished last week, just ahead of the launch.
This is the second such skiff in West Clare; the first was the Éalú built by the West Clare Currach Club which sailed out on the bay alongside the Five Pilots last weekend.
At its heart, the project is a great example of a community led project that encourages skill growth and will give opportunity for people to get out on the water for years to come.
“We want to get people to know it’s not hard to row, and it is for people who are a bit apprehensive about the water. We have purposely turned the Éalú back over to show it is really safe and it is so buoyant on the water. The aim now is to get this boat out as much as possible. People will be trained to take out the boat, and they will be trained in water safety. Safety is paramount with the boat and there will be no risk taken,” Seamus said.
LCETB helped enormously in funding the entire project from the cost of the kit to the shipwright and even the miscellaneous things they needed along the way. Breda O’Driscoll and Paul Patton from the LCETB’s Ennis office were “superb” according to Seamus but more importantly, “they believed in us”.
“The important thing is that we want to get people to know it can be done and you will get the funding,” Seamus said.
Looking to the future, the rowing club plan to organise ‘Try a Row’ events to encourage new people out on the water as well as attract new members.
Advocating for the benefits of rowing, Seamus says “It’s great to get people out and it’s great for your mental health as well.
“The thing I find is you can get rowing and your mind will go away once you are in sync with the other rowers. And on a sunny day, it cannot be beaten. I just can’t say enough about it.
“You have to experience it…We didn’t think we would do it but Seol Sionna gave the encouragement. If you can ignite something and get people out because it’s a wonderful facility especially in Carrigaholt where we row.”
People who are interested in getting involved are encouraged to contact them on loopheadrowing.com.
Sharon Dolan D’Arcy covers West Clare news. After completing a masters in journalism at University of Galway, Sharon worked as a court reporter at the Sligo Weekender. She was also editor of the Athenry News and Views.