News Archive
Mermaid Makeover
The Dublin Bay Mermaid is undoubtedly John Kearney’s most famous and enduring design with almost 200 boats built since it was designed in the 1930’s. These beautiful seaworthy boats are sailed extensively around Ireland and still enjoy a highly competitive racing scene. They are one of the few National Classes in Ireland that hold a week long championships for the much coveted Mermaid Trophy presented to the class by Norman Hodgson in the late 1950’s.
Despite an extensive rebuilding program of many of the older boats and the building of about 10 new boats in recent years, the Class has not been attracting newcomers.
It is felt by some fleet members this is because the cost of a new boat is prohibitively high (approximately € 35,000 to€40,000 professionally built complete with trailer) and the associated maintenance of a wooden clinker boat is not attractive in these busy modern times.
The recent advent of a minimum weight rule has helped to even up performance between the boats but the more recently built ones are generally acknowledged to be somewhat quicker in a breeze because of the introduction of epoxy construction techniques and the adoption of watertight bulkheads which are difficult to retrofit effectively into older boats. Having said that, 3 recent winners in the Championships, admittedly held in generally light conditions, have been boats that are all around 50 years of age, only marginally younger than their drivers.
The design is widely acknowledged as being extremely versatile and safe for family and fun activities whilst also providing good racing. It is easy to trail, can lie easily on a mooring which dries out and is comfortably crewed by young and old alike.
Roger Bannon, a long time stalwart of the class despite his many forays into other racing classes, decided the time had come to explore the potential of building a Mermaid using modern glassfibre techniques allied to a traditional wooden finish complete with wooden spars.
The principal objective was to build a boat with a durable glassfibre based hull, finished traditionally in wood with a performance comparable to the best of the most recently built wooden boats. The virtual elimination of maintenance, except for occasional varnishing of the deck, is seen as an essential attribute. It was also an important goal to reduce the build cost by as much as 50%.
It was decided to use one the older hulls with a traditionally acceptable all round shape. Endeavour No 102 was the first of 17 boats that John Brennan from Dun Laoghaire constructed over a 20 year period from the early 1960’s and having won 4 Championships over a protracted period, including a win in 2003, she is acknowledged as a consistent race winner.
A key factor in the growth of the class in earlier years was the extent to which amateur builders were involved. With this in mind all the assembly of the wooden elements of the new composite boat have been carefully templated and modified for home construction by reasonably competent amateurs.
Chris Allen, builder of Eamon Crosbie’s famous “Voodoo Chile” last year, undertook the moulding work and glassfibre fabrication. For the technically minded, the hull is constructed in a solid laminate using 5/6 layers of unidirectional cloth with additional reinforcing in high load areas.
Johnny Coates, who was also involved in the glassfibre aspects of the construction, worked with Roger Bannon on the structural design and fabrication of the wooden elements.
In an amazingly serendipitous manner John Brennan, now aged 72, and his son Edwin were responsible for much of the woodwork, adapting their long established Mermaid building techniques to suit the new hull.
The prototype, “Dolly” was launched on Sunday 12th September in the National Yacht Club. In a stiff and blustery force 5 to 6, “Dolly” performed superbly on her inaugural sail.
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