Two Irish Designs Launched by the Apprenticeshop

Photographs By Polly Saltonstall

A crowd of apprentices, supporters, and wooden boat fans gathered in late June for the launch of the Dublin Bay 24 at the Apprenticeshop’s Rockland campus.

Irish eyes were smiling last summer at the Apprenticeshop in Rockland as the boatbuilding school finished work on two historic Irish one-designs, with the launching a Dublin Bay 24 sloop named Zephra, and a 13-foot Water Wag sailing dinghy.

Both boats were built for an Irish owner, David Espey, who was on hand for the Dublin Bay 24 launch in June. A retired packaging company executive, he grew up sailing in Dublin Bay and had always admired the one-designs—his parents had owned a Dublin Bay 17.

The boatbuilding school began work on the Dublin Bay 24 in 2018.

Designed by Scottish naval architect Alfred Mylne, the Dublin Bay 24 is a long, lean Bermuda-rigged racer-cruiser. It has a LOA of 37 feet, 11 inches, a waterline length of 24 feet, a beam of just 8 feet, and a draft of 5 feet, 4 inches. Mylne described his design as a “fast cruiser with accommodations for living aboard in moderate comfort,” according to an account by Vanessa Bird in her book Classic Classes. The design was commissioned by the Royal Alfred Yacht Club, later the Dublin Bay Sailing Club, in 1938, and, according to most news accounts, eight were built, mostly at Mylne’s Bute Slip Dock Co. on the Firth of Clyde. Partly completed when World War II broke out, the boats were hidden on the Isle of Bute to keep their keels from being requisitioned for the war effort, Espey said. They were finally delivered in 1947 and raced in Dublin Bay until 2004, when maintenance and insurance became an issue for the handful of boats still in use. 

At some point after that, a half-dozen of the remaining boats were shipped to France for restoration. Zephra’s hull joined the group a bit later. She had been spirited away from the fleet years earlier by a disgruntled owner who apparently took the vessel to his home in Mayo, according to a story by Winky Nixon in the online magazine Afloat. Nixon wrote that he found the boat covered in weeds while walking his dog behind a castle-hotel in Mayo in 2007. 

At some point, Espey came up with a plan to have each of the aging hulls restored by a different boatbuilding school. One of the first rebuilds took place at Skol ar Mor, a school in south Brittany run by Mike Newmeyer. That boat, Periwinkle, was restored for Espey, who now sails it on Dublin Bay near his home in Dun Laoghaire. “Whenever I sail it, I hear from admirers on a regular basis,” he said.

A former director at the Apprenticeshop, Newmeyer was influential in having the Rockland school chosen as the rebuilding site for Zephra. The rest of the fleet is still in a yard in the north of France, outdoors and under cover, and likely beyond restoration, Espey said.

“I probably will not restore the others,” he said. “Someone else can if they want to.”

Rebuild is really a misnomer. The only original parts salvaged for the Apprenticeshop’s Zephra build were the ballast keel and parts of the rudder, according to the Rockland school’s shop director, Kevin Carney. 

Owner David Espey, at the helm of his new vessel, holds the Dublin Bay’s original tiller, one of the few remnants of the original boat.

Once they received those parts, apprentices at the shop, under the direction of instructors Daniel Creisher and Owen Page, with advice from long-time boatbuilder John England, spent five years years building Zephra, starting in 2018. The project was delayed by shutdowns during COVID. But finally last summer a large crowd of apprentices, boatshop supporters, and wooden boat aficionados gathered for a joyous launching event. After a handful of speeches, and a ceremonial pouring of champagne, Zephra slipped into Rockland Harbor and motored to the Apprenticeshop’s dock where proud owner Espey glowed as he sat in the cockpit holding the long tiller, one of those few remnants of the original boat.

“The boat is like a 6-meter with a proper draft and a proper beam,” he said. “It really is a beauty.”

Much of Zephra’s planking, laminated frames, and backbone are sipo mahogany. The deck is plywood with a teak overlay, Carney said. The classic white interior includes a small galley, with a sink, stove, fridge, and portable head. Zephra is powered by a 14-hp Yanmar diesel.

A group of apprentices and an instructor sailed Zephra in a couple of classic yacht regattas last summer—the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta and its feeder race. The boat “sails very well,” he said. “It doesn’t take much wind to move her. She is pretty slippery.”

The newly-built Water Wag is rigged and ready for action.

As for the Water Wag, that is a far smaller boat—just 13 feet long, with a plumb bow, a beam of just under 5 feet 3 inches, and draft of 1 foot, 8 inches, with the centerboard down. The bulk of work on that boat was finished a few years ago, but apprentices were still working on the rigging last summer. 

Water Wags have been raced in Ireland since 1887. Ironically, the other contender for the world’s oldest one-design title is the North Haven Dinghy. Sailors in the Fox Island Thorofare, just across Penobscot Bay from Rockland and the Apprenticeshop, have been racing the North Haven catboats also since 1887. 

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Dublin Bay 24 & Water Wag

Dublin Bay 24:
LOA: 37' 11"
LWL: 24'
Beam: 8'
Draft: 5' 4"

Water Wag:
LOA: 13'
Beam: 4' 10"
Draft: 1' 8"
First built: 1887

Restoration:
The Apprenticeshop
Rockland, ME
207-594-1800
apprenticeshop.org

Polly Saltonstall is MBH&H’s editor at large.