Register of Irish motor boats

[joeirish]

I'm compiling a register of al classic wooden motor cruisers in Ireland. If anybody is interested please reply this posting. The register would be to put 'woodies' in touch with each other and maybe to organise some sort of gathering/rally from time to time.

 

[LiamS]

Doesnt seem to be too many owners of any type of motorboats in Ireland on these forums.I dont think we even have a dedicated club in the country.Where is your boat based?
Liam

 

[joeirish]

Liam

I have a few names of interested people and it is because we have no club or other focal point that I thought a register might be useful. I keep my boat, a Rampart 32, on Lough Derg near Mountshannon.

All the best

joe

 

[LiamS]

Would be very interested if a club was formed please let me know.I keep my boat on the marina at Arklow but have considered wintering on the Shannon.
Liam

 

[Pelican]

Hi Joe!

As Laim says not many Irish posting on this Forum...however I would like to trace a motor boat that I lived on in the early seventies mainly on the grand canal. She may be gone now but as she was built like the preverbal brick sh*t house she might still be around.

She was built of double diaganal teak on oak in 1915 by Kearney of Dublin. Apparently she then had a steam engine and was used by the Irish Lights for many years ferrying supplies to light house/light ships. She was approx 33 X 7 X4. In the fifties she was decommissioned by IL and sold to a D. Kennedy of Carrick-on-Shannon who converted her into a cruiser for hire on the Shannon. She was then fitted with a single 25hp Alsa Craig twin diesel engine, built in 1935. I bought her from Mr. Kennedy in the early seventies and lived on board at the 12th lock Lucan for the next 18 months whilst working in Dublin. (Tied outside a pub we had an interesting life!).

I subsequently sold her in 1973, after she spent some months on the hard in some boat yard (can't remember the name) north of Carrick just south of Lock Key.

I am now living abroad (Geneva Switzerland and live afloat most of the time) and on the odd trip on the Shannon I have always had an eye out to see if I could find her again without success. I would be very curious to know if she is still floating and where?

I participated in many of the early Shannon boat rallies in the fifties/sixties and I do remember there was a hell of a lot of wooden boats about then - some real beauties - but I expect with the marching of time a lot must now be gone..

Happy cruising

Pelican