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The article below is the diary of the voyage home to Fenit from Cork during June, aboard the Jeanie Johnston, as a volunteer crew member. The writer, Peter Malone, is a journalist with our local newspaper The Kerryman, in which the article was first published, our thanks for their permission to reproduce. The accompanying pictures are in black and white, as they were kindly sent from the newspaper.
Thursday 6 June, 2002
The Fenit men have landed. They gather on the quay where the Jeanie Johnston is berthed after her three weeks in Cork being tried, tested and certified as seaworthy. The Fenit men* have come to sail her home.
The crew for the voyage have left wives and work at 24 hours' notice; some travelled down from Galway and Dublin. All are supporters of the Jeanie Johnston project. They are managers, shopkeepers, bank officials and architects; there's an ex-mariner from the US navy, a student of homeopathy, and a man who must be 80. Some are blue-water sailors; others have never been to sea in their lives.
We get on board ship while the ship's crew gets ready to put us in order.
1600 hours. Down the stairs below deck the ship opens into the midships area: a long table flanked by two rows of berths partly secluded by timber partitions. There are more berths forward, rising towards the bow of the boat, while the permanent crew's cabins and navigation room are set aft towards the stern.
The ship holds 40 men in its 123-foot hull, and it's important we don't trip over one another. We gather round Chief Officer Robin Kilroy, who briefs us on the schedule for the next three days.
He divides the assembly into Watches named for the ship's masts Fore, Main and Mizzen. Each will be on duty for four hours, and other duties are also rostered thoughout a 24-hour day. Each Watch is subdivided into individuals listed by the number on their bunk: Fore 1, 2, 3 ; Main 1, 2, 3 etc. We make a stab at calling out our Watch numbers in sequence and find we are muddled immediately.
"If you have to be on deck on a bad night or in an emergency," Robin points out, "we need to know quickly if you're actually there."
We take the second attempt more seriously. |
Crew members out on the yards |
2000 hours. You need to know the ropes on board a 19th-century barque, and we don't. There is no end of ropes and rigging, and to confuse things further they're called sheets, halyards, clew lines, bunts, up-hauls, down-hauls. There's the working end and the bitter end, and in clumsy hands they're soon a tangle.
Second Officer John Gill gathers the Mizzen Watch on the bridge to talk us through steering the ship. He's a jovial man who walks with the ambling gait of someone who has spent many years making his way across an uneven surface, and seems entirely unconcerned at the thought of passing 500 tonnes of timber into the hands of us innocents. We will all take turns on the helm on the journey home.
As an optional extra, we are invited to climb the mast to the main spar.
Cook Sue Taylor and Der O'Sullivan
3 square meals served up every day |
Friday 7 June
0400.
The Mizzen men and women begin their Watch on Jeanie Johnston. All is well. After breakfast there are two sittings at each meal to cater for our numbers, and the cook serves up three square meals each day we are drilled in safety routines. Then we practice yard bracing.
The ship's main and fore masts each carry four sails which hang from the yards, great cross-beams which pivot on the trunk of the masts. The yards are hauled into position by main force, and we gather like tug-of-war teams on ropes either side of the ship while Chief Officer Kilroy stands atop the main cabin co-ordinating our efforts. I'm not sure if we didn't defeat him.
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1300. The Jeanie Johnston begins to glide down the River Lee and out through Cork harbour, setting a course that brings her 20 miles south to find a line on the wind that will sail her to Kerry. A lone seagull races past, heading for God knows where. A flock of seabirds swoop round the stern, hoping we're a trawler.
From here it's easy to see that Ireland is an island, not a direct flight to New York or Brussels. Already we're out of touch with the daily news, but hear the new government has abolished the Department of the Marine.
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Saturday 8 June
0400. The Mizzen Watch takes the graveyard shift as wind and weather change direction. The night is wet and blustery, the sea a different black from the dirty shades in the sky, and the darkness is broken only by the brilliant green of phosphorescence glittering in the water. It sparkles in pin-pricks of emerald which gather into luminous streams of light.
The first helmsman up is not used to the run of the wheel and begins to pump it round and back: the ship sways in protest. She is rescued with a woman's touch when Margaret Moriarty from The Kerries takes Jeanie's helm and brings her round, and as we sail into the night the Galley Head lighthouse winks in the distance.
When the Fore Watch comes on we go below to our bunks where, snug in a sleeping bag, the sea is just a soft rill of water along the sides. We are happy to have put a bad night behind us. Later we learn there may be worse to come. |
Margaret Moriarty, the Kerries,
at the helm. |
0800. We wake in Baltimore harbour, where we've put in out of the weather. Captain Mike Forwood is playing careful with both ship and crew. One of the seams is also leaking, as the seams between the timbers on a wooden boat are sometimes wont to do. The leak quickly becomes a flood of rumour, and there are reports from shore that the Jeanie Johnston is sinking. This is news to everyone on board.
As the ship lies at anchor Chief Officer Kilroy takes the bravest among us out along the yards, where they learn how to trim the sails. The rest of us stay on deck, where we can offer advice and encouragement.
Chief Engineer Peter O'Regan
with Captain Mike Forwood |
1400. Good weather has brought us out to sea again and the un-forecasted sunshine lifts everyone's spirits. It's time to set the sails.
Mike McDonnell, Station Training Manager of the Fenit lifeboat, is first out on the bowsprit to help set the headsails. Mike is in his element, and gets happier and happier as the voyage continues. When his Watch is finished he finds more to do. He even spends a night down in the bilges, helping with the electrics.
We set two headsails and another at the stern called the spanker, then sit back to admire our handiwork. As the Fastnet comes abeam, able seaman Hugh Friel is moved to remark that, at heart, "All sailors are romantics." Then he dons his landsman's cap managing director of Kerry Group and talks about the organisational skills that have turned 38 individuals into a working team on board this boat. "Imagine the impact that could have on a bunch of young people," he says, "giving them a challenge they won't get on the street."
"Well, we didn't have the mutiny on the Bounty anyway," Captain Mike Forwood says. |
2100. We are to set more sails and travel entirely under sail for the first time. It is a big moment for boat and crew. When it comes to raising the topsails though, the Mizzen men find the Main Watch are still around and have taken up position at some of our stations. There is dark muttering about "the bloody cheek of it".
Still, as the engines fall silent and the Jeanie Johnston settles into her natural sea-going rhythm, we congratulate ourselves and more so the Captain and his officers. The sailors among us are somewhat in awe of their experience, while we novices have come to realize that, just as we can't sail the Jeanie Johnston, with the officers on Watch neither can we sink her.
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Mike Jones and Hugh Friel
as Jeanie sails off the Fastnet |
2300. The weather is deteriorating rapidly and the forecast is a Force 7. As the ship sets a course to bring her out and round the Blaskets, a French trawler comes by, steaming hard for Dingle. "Those boys don't often run for home," Peter O'Regan remarks. At midnight the Mizzen hands over to the Fore Watch as the wind passes 30 knots.
Sunday 9 June
0100. Inside, the ship's timbers creak as the boat resists the force of wind and water. A pile of crockery crashes in the galley. The O'Regan brothers from Dingle are up and down all night tending the ship they built.
Most countries in Europe boast a maritime tradition which they celebrate by maintaining or replicating their traditional craft. Britain enjoys four sail training vessels: two steel ships; the Lord Nelson; and the Tenacious, a 180-foot timber ship like our own. It was six years in build at a British shipyard and cost £8 million sterling. The Jeanie Johnston's keel was laid as a yard was being built around it. Under the direction of Foreman Shipwright Ciaran O'Regan and Foreman Engineer Peter O'Regan the boat was completed by a team of shipwrights, carpenters and trainees inside four years. |
Below decks as the wind continues to blow
a tired member of the Main Watch
catches a nap |
A break in the sunshine for the
crewmen on the good ship Jeanie Johnston |
0800. Captain Forwood announces that all available hands are to get ready on deck "to worship". It is Sunday morning, and after the night we've had it seems appropriate. The Fore and Main Watches are knackered; some had to retire from deck as a squall reaching 50 knots hit west of the Skelligs. At breakfast a sailor aims milk at his cereal and ends up pouring it over the table.
When The Kerryman correspondent asks the Captain if he might have a brief interview after the service, Mike Forwood bursts out laughing. "We're going to wear ship, not worship!" he says.
In short, we're going to turn it about.
0900. First of all we must put up the sail that's been reefed during the night, but there's a heavy swell off Sybill Head that makes antics of all our efforts. As the ship rolls with the waves men can opt to hang off their ropes or fall. They choose to swing, then twist together as the ship rolls back in the trough. Jeanie sways once again for luck, and leaves the men entangled like dancers on a Maypole. |
1200. "This is the best voyage I was ever on!" says Fergus Moyles from Tralee. "Sunshine and plain sailing wouldn't be half the fun." The Jeanie Johnston knocked an hour out of sailing but now we've turned tail against the heavy sea and a forecast that threatens strong gales reaching Force 9. We are running for shelter in Brandon Bay.
Below decks, Mike Jones is recalling how he built his first boat with plywood, thumbtacks and glue and learned to sail her off Ballybunion when he was ten years of age. Now 78, there is lots of the ten-year-old in him still, and he cuts a caper at the drop of a hat.
As the ship lies at anchor in Brandon the weather clears again and the Captain informs us we are going home after all. The last job to be done is to clean the ship. Mike picks up a sweeping brush and makes to dance a sexy little salsa. |
Michael Diggins,
spud bashing |
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1700. The journey home is a ride across the waves rushing in to Foilmore strand and throwing spray high against the Magharees islands. Jeanie steers through the rolling sea, swinging from side to side like a perfectly balanced pendulum and leaving a straight wash in her wake.
A curtain of rain descends again as we approach Fenit, but the welcome 200 on the quay makes up for the weather's badness. Everyone is sorry to be leaving the ship, eager to get ashore. Under the gaze of families and friends Jeanie Johnston's new-found sailors drag out the gangway and heft it hurriedly onto the quay. Ciarán O'Regan appears on the scene and makes us take it in again.
"We'll rig it up properly and do it right," he admonishes.
We step ashore. And now that we have sea legs under us, dry land feels strangely awkward.
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NOTE *The "Fenit men" are from all over Kerry but Fenit is their point of reference here. Many quotes attributed are paraphrased from memory and notes: conditions were not ideal for on-the-spot note taking.
The article above was written for The Kerryman newspaper, Ireland, by Peter Malone. With thanks for permission to reproduce.
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