Pete Brennan sent in this account of a few great trips made on the Irish national Tall Ship a couple of years ago.

Sounds like a wonderful experience! Pete told me he has several other experiences to share, I can't wait to post them!

Asgard II – 2006

The Asgard II is the national sail training vessel, and one of two national tall ships, of the Republic of Ireland. She is a two masted brigantine, built specifically as a sail training vessel in 1980-1981.

She is 84’ on deck, 106’ including the bowsprit. The foremast is square rigged, and the after mast is rigged fore and aft. She is owned by the Irish ministry of defense, and is a blast to sail.

Voyage 2006/16

21 October – Troon, Scotland, to Campbeltown, Scotland -45 Nautical miles

22 October – Campbeltown to Ballycastle, Northern Ireland – 35 Nautical miles

23 October – Ballycastle to Bangor, Northern Ireland – 47 Nautical miles

24 October – Bangor to Port St. Mary, Isle of Man – 59 Nautical miles

25 October – Port St Mary to Ardglass, Northern Ireland – 39 Nautical miles

26 October – Ardglass to Dublin, Ireland – 60 Nautical miles

Watch Leader Training

29 October – Dublin to Dun Laoghaire – 36 Nautical miles

30 October – Dun Laoghaire to Wicklow – 23 Nautical miles

31 October – Wicklow to Baginbun Bay – 64 Nautical miles

1 November – Baginbun Bay to Kilmore Quay – 18 Nautical miles

2 November – Kilmore Quay to Waterford – 31 Nautical miles

Note: distances listed are direct port-to-port. Actual distances sailed, including tacking, leeway, etc, will have been greater.

Note on the Troon to Dublin Voyage: The average age was much older than on the Howth to Kinsale voyage last year. There were three age groups:

1. 70 to 100 – John C., Andrew, Michael
2. 40 to 50 – John B, Arnie, Billy Crawly, Liam Quinn, myself, Pat, Hugh
3. 20 to 35- Gareth, Clare, Ros

copb

Friday, 20 October, 2006. Troon Scotland.

I got up early on Wednesday, worked from 6 am to 2 pm with no lunch to get in a full day. Mark Jackson drove me to the airport. I flew from Tampa to Glasgow by way of Philadelphia. Got to Glasgow about 8:30 am, took the train to Troon – about a half hour – and here I am. I spent the day yesterday exploring the town. It’s a nice little seaside town that gets beachgoers in the summer. There’s a ferry to Northern Ireland, but it’s closed for the season. I was watching about a dozen seals swimming and playing just by the shore; not in the harbor, on the other side of the “Ballast Bank”. (A big man made hill built by the Duke of Portland from 1840 to protect the harbor from southerly gales)

Saturday, 21 October, 2006. Somewhere in water.

Well, it has not been a boring day. I arrived at the dock at Troon Yacht Haven at 1:30 pm yesterday. Scheduled embarkation was at 2:00. A few of the trainee crew were on a flight from Dublin that was delayed, so we got a late start, but we got our bunk assignments and went over safety procedures. Then we had dinner and went out to the pub for a bit. I had harbor watch duty from 2:00 to 4:00 am, so I didn’t stay out late.

This morning after breakfast we did our first rigging climbing exercise, the “up and over”. Basically up one side of the forward mast and down the other, with the Bosun checking that we did it safely. Then we cleaned the ship real good, and put out to sea.

Within a short time, we’d seen dolphins and seals and a British Navy frigate. We all had a chance to get back in the rigging, setting most of the sails. No sooner did we have them all up than we got a radio call from the Scottish Coast Guard. They’d gotten a call about a windsurfer in distress. Since we were in the vicinity, they asked us to check it out. We struck all the sails, put two men in the RIB (rigid inflatable boat- a Zodiac with a 40 hp motor) and set them off. The RIB is a lot faster than the Asgard. Then we fired up the engine, changed our course 100 deg to the south (240 to 145), and set out after them. There were a couple of Coast Guard helicopters and a Navy helicopter involved in the search, too. After about an hour and a half, the Coast Guard came back on the radio and said they’d concluded that it was a hoax. So we picked up the RIB, changed course to 285 (west-northwest), and set the sails again. I was on the helm the whole time, which was very cool. (I think I made a good job of it, too.)

About as soon as we got on our new course, we saw a nuclear submarine surface right near us. Then we ran through a squall, and saw a brilliant rainbow as we were coming out of it.

Later same day.

We made port at Campbeltown, on the Mull of Kintyre, like in the song by Paul McCartney and Wings. He still has a house there. It’s a nice little town to visit, but it’s very isolated. Me and John and Billy and Kevin the cook, and Rowan the first mate, and Rosamund (“Ros”) went to have a few pints at a local pub, but we didn’t stay late. Me and John had harbor watch from 2:00 to 4:00 am.

Monday, 23 October, 2006

On Sunday, we put out into the North Atlantic, between the Hebrides Islands and Northern Ireland. Finn, the Bosun, asked if anyone wanted to go swimming. She and Liam were going to go. It seemed kind of cold for swimming to me, but if someone was going to do it, I wasn’t going to say no. So I put on a pair of shorts and jumped over the side. The water was cold, and there were some very big jellyfish. But it was fun nonetheless.

The winds picked up after that, but they were out of the southwest, pretty much on our nose. We motored west across the main shipping channel, and then headed south and put out the fore-and-aft sails: the jib, the foretopmast staysail, the main staysail, the main topmast staysail, and the main gaff sail. But with all of that canvas out, we still had to run the engine to make headway. Without the engine, we’d be making more leeway than headway.

The Asgard is a brigantine, with the foremast square rigged and the aft mast rigged fore-and-aft. The jib and staysails are also rigged fore-and-aft. But even though nine sails are rigged fore-and-aft, and only three are square rigged, it’s still classified as a square rigged ship, and that’s because without the square sails, you can’t sail without the engine. And you can’t get the square sails working anything closer than 60 degrees to the wind, whereas a fore-and-aft rigged boat can sail 45 degrees to the wind.

Anyway, we made it to Ballycastle, Northern Ireland, by evening. It’s not a big town. It’s only about four miles from the Giant’s Causeway. Me and John and Billy and Hugh and Kevin the cook went out to the Harbour Bar. It’s not a fancy place. The place we went to in Troon was also called the Harbor Bar. I guess in little harbor towns, when maybe the other places are in downtown, and there’s one bar by the docks, it’s pretty common to call that one the Harbor Bar.

It was maybe twenty feet wide and sixty feet deep. No pool table or jukebox. No live band. Unlike Scotland and the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland still allows smoking in bars, and it was smoky. After a while one of the locals at the bar – Kevin said it was his old captain from when he was a commercial fisherman – sang a song about the life of a fishing captain. He wasn’t a singer, and I didn’t know the song, but I thought it was great. People who knew parts of it sang along with what they knew. There was one line, “the crew goes below to have a sleep”. It made me think of night passages; on the Asgard, and on the Mist of Avalon, but especially on Happy Times. When I was the only one awake, and the boat left a trail of phosphorescence in the water, and the balance was so perfect that the boat felt like part of my body. Then some of the other people at the bar sang songs. Some I knew, some I didn’t. I sang along with what I knew. At one point me and Kevin – the Americans – were asked to give a song. We sang “Friend of the Devil” by the Grateful Dead.

We had a 12 o’clock curfew, so we couldn’t stay very long, but I thought it was a very special evening. Me and John had watch from four to six am.

Today we sailed south along the coast of Northern Ireland to Bangor, just outside of Belfast. At one point we had the wind on our starboard beam. We set our square sails – the course, the topsail, and the t’gallant – as well as the jib, the foretopmast staysail, the main staysail, the main topmast staysail, and the main gaff sail (aka the mainsail). We made a good ten knots for a few hours. Then the wind swung to the starboard forward quarter, and we had to strike the square sails. We made the harbor in time for a late dinner. We got hot showers at the Yacht Club, a courtesy for the Asgard, and we went for a pint at Coyle’s Bar. Me and Hugh had harbor watch from 2 to 4 am.

Bangor is a bigger town than Ballycastle. It’s more cosmopolitan and more Unionist. It’s very near Belfast. In Ballycastle, they were singing “Fields of Athenry” and “Danny Boy” in the pub. You wouldn’t sing those songs in Bangor. In fact, there’s a story in Bangor. A fellow was traveling through with his wife. His wife started feeling unwell. She got worse. The fellow stopped a stranger and asked,” Can you tell me how I can get to the nearest hospital?”  “Sure,” answered the stranger, “Just walk into that pub, and start singing ‘Danny Boy’”.

Wednesday, 25 October, 2006

Yesterday was a great day for the sailing. We had 25 to 30 knots of wind pretty steady all day. It was on the forward starboard quarter, but more than 60 degrees off the bow, so we could fly the square sails. Going out on the yardarm to set the sails in that weather, with the ship pitching and rolling on the waves, is a lot more exhilarating than going up while tied to a dock to tidy up the sails.

We left Bangor bound for the Isle of Man. I was on galley duty for lunch and dinner. The weather was rough enough that a lot people didn’t eat. We reached Port St. Mary, on the Isle of Man, at about 8:30 pm, and tied up to the harbor wall. The tide was so low that the course yardarm just cleared the top of the wall, and we had to climb a long steel ladder to go ashore. It’s a beautiful town, but it’s tiny.

There were two pubs, one smaller than the next. It didn’t look like there was even any place to buy a postcard or a souvenir, although there was a length of the main street with a gorgeous view of the harbor and of the Asgard II. I figured if I got shore liberty in the morning, I’d take some pictures, and look in the pharmacy for souvenirs, but we didn’t get shore liberty in the morning.

I had galley duty again this morning. By the time I had everything cleared away and washed up we were ready to put to sea. Today is another good windy day, but it’s grey and cold and after lunch it started raining cats and dogs.

In the afternoon it got very rough. We were planning to make Carlingford, but came into Ardglass instead. It’s a tiny little harbor, and the one big open space on the wall was off limits for tying up to. (It was the ice dock, where fishing boats load up on ice to keep their catch from spoiling). So we had to do a lot of maneuvering a relatively large vessel in a very small space. Captain McAllister did a great job, but there was an amount of nervous running about with mooring lines and fenders.

There’s dozens of seals in the harbor, and they stuck their heads out of the water, eating fish and watching us with idle curiosity. I know that seals don’t have hands, but they bring the fish to their mouth with their flipper the way that a person would be eating a turkey drumstick. And the way that they chomp away on their fish while watching us is very comical.

It was a good day because we covered a lot of distance, at a good clip, entirely by wind power.

Thursday, 26 October. 2006

It was very windy today. We pulled out of Ardglass harbor right into force 8 (40 knot) gales. The entire way to Dublin, the winds continued at force 8 (40 knots), force 9 (45 knots) and force 10 (50 knots). I have done a fair amount of sailing over the years, but it is safe to say that I have never before been in wind and sea conditions quite like today. We confined ourselves to the fore-and-aft sails, because climbing up into the rigging and out onto the yardarms to deploy the square sails would have been dangerous. The way that the ship pitched and rolled would be hard to describe. It didn’t rain, but everyone on deck was constantly covered with sea water from waves breaking over the gunwales. That said, we weren’t in a dangerous situation by a long shot.

The ship is designed and built and maintained to be safe in 100 knot winds. Those of us not on watch could go below and sleep in safety. The Captain, Mate, Bosun, and Engineer kept the Asgard on course and perfectly under control every minute. And Kevin the cook made turkey pie with philo dough crust, mashed potatoes and vegetables for lunch, and delicious haddock, chips, and turnips for dinner, with the most amazing couscous I’ve ever tasted: with sun-dried tomatoes, raisins, and dried cranberries.

They’re a great bunch, the full time crew, and they never lose their sense of humor. We all got our turns at the helm, and it was like the old documentary “Victory at Sea”. Liam took over when it was blowing force 10. To say Liam is an enthusiastic sailor is an understatement. To say that Liam is a fanatical sailor is also an understatement. When he had got control of the ship he got a disturbing gleam in his eye. Kenny the engineer described it best, when he said, “Ahab on acid”.

We came into Dublin Harbor as it was getting dark, and tied up at Sir John Rogerson Quay by about 8:30 pm.

Friday, 27 October, 2006

We dressed the sails for harbor, and I went out on the topsail yardarm for the first time. (Before that, I’d always worked on the course yardarms.)

After everything was just so, most of the trainees signed off and went home. Liam and I did not sign off, because we are also on the next voyage. After we had our chores all done, we did the Dublin tourist thing. We walked down to the Collins Barracks/National Museum and saw the two exhibitions currently on display. The one was called “Soldiers and Chiefs”. It was about Irish fighting men from 1550 to the present. Red Hugh O’Neill and the Spanish and the battle of Kinsale in1601. The Cromwell campaigns of the 1640’s, James II, William III, and the battle of the Boyne in 1690, the Wild Geese, Irish expatriates fighting for France, Spain, and Russia in the 1700s; the rebellion of 1798, Irish units in the British Army in the Napoleonic wars, Crimea, India, the Boer war; Irish units in the US civil war (including the 69^th New York Volunteer Regiment – the Fighting 69^th), the Fenian Rising of 1867, the Irish Volunteers, the Citizen Army, the Easter Rising of 1916, Michael Collins and the IRA 1916-1922, the Free State vs. Republican Civil War 1922-1923, the merchant navy in World War II, and peacekeeping forces deployed throughout the world up to the present day. The other exhibit was exclusively about the Easter Rising of 1916.

In the evening, Kevin the cook and I went to the Ha’penny Bridge Inn. They had a trio playing on the second floor – a guitarist, a fiddler, and a melodeon player. They played traditional music – Go, Lassie, Go; Whiskey in the Jar, that sort of thing, and they were quite good.

SECOND VOYAGE – WATCH LEADER TRAINING

Saturday, 28 September & Sunday, 29 September, 2006

Being as we didn’t have to report for duty until 2:00 pm on Saturday, Liam and I decided to get in a good long walk. We walked from the Asgard, tied up in the docklands, to Phoenix Park, around the perimeter of the park, and then back. It doesn’t sound like much, but the docklands is on the eastern edge of the city, and Phoenix Park is on the western edge, and Phoenix Park is the largest city park in Europe. The whole thing took us nearly five hours.

When we got back to the Asgard, most of our shipmates for the coming cruise had arrived. We got our bunk assignments and were divided into watches. We went though safety procedures and had orientation and some words from the captain.

This is not a regular voyage. It’s supposed to be less about getting from place to place and sightseeing, and more about learning how to lead a watch. I’ve mentioned watches before, but I haven’t yet explained the concept, so I’ll give it a try. The “trainees” on the Asgard II are divided into three watches; port, starboard, and middle, with specific responsibilities assigned to each. I can use the sails as an example.

The jib is the responsibility of the starboard watch. To raise the jib, someone climbs out on the bowsprit and unties the gaskets (in America, we call them sail ties), and attaches the sheets to clew. Someone else eases the downhaul and the tack downhaul. Someone else raises the sail by hauling the halyard. Then all those lines are made up, and the sail is trimmed by easing one sheet and hauling in on the other.

The foretopmast staysail is the responsibility of the port watch. It’s pretty much the same drill as the jib, but the downhauls and halyard are on the port side of the ship, whereas on the jib, they’re on the starboard side.

The forestaysail is the responsibility of the middle watch. Same drill as the others, but the downhaul and halyard are on the center line of the ship. There’s a pattern here. There’s only one sheet (self tending) and there’s no tack downhaul.

The genoa would be set in lieu of the jib, foretopmast staysail and fore staysail. It’s set by whichever watch is on duty at the time.

The course, topsail, and t’gallant are the square sails – the primary driving force of the ship. The middle watch handles the course, the starboard watch handles the topsail, and the port watch does the t’gallant. Before these sails can be set, watch members have to climb out on the respective yardarms and untie the gaskets. Then each of them is set and controlled by means of two sheets, two braces, two clews, two buntlines (four on the course) and a yardarm halyard.

The main staysail is middle watch’s responsibility, and it’s one of the major sails. It has a boom, which means it has a topping lift (to lift the end of the boom). It also has a halyard and a downhaul, and a sheet. When this sail is set, a preventer line is set, to prevent an accidental jibe.

The main topmast staysail is handled by the port watch. The t’gallant staysail is done by the starboard watch. These sails are set and controlled by a halyard, a downhaul, and two sheets each.

The main gaff sail, also called the mainsail, is set by all the watches working together. The gaff has a throat halyard and a peak halyard. The gaff is controlled when being raised and lowered by two vang lines. The boom has a topping lift. The topping lift, the halyards, and the sheet, each require the efforts of several strong people to haul.

There’s also a gaff topsail and a storm trysail. The gaff topsail and the storm trysail are set by the duty watch (whichever watch is on duty at the time). The gaff topsail is set above the mainsail, by means of a halyard, a downhaul, a tack downhaul, and a sheet. The storm trysail is set instead of the mainsail when the conditions are too severe to set the mainsail, even reefed. You’d never have the storm trysail and the gaff topsail set at the same time. Actually, if you’re flying the storm trysail, you’d only have one or two staysails set at the same time, most probably the fore staysail and maybe the main staysail.

So that’s what the three watches do while setting the sails, tacking, jibing, or trimming sail. As a watch leader, you’re expected to know all of the responsibilities of all of the watches, to assign a watch member to each task, and to ensure that each task is done properly. To help us get to that level of competence, we spent the entire day Sunday setting and striking sails, tacking, bracing yards, etcetera. We also did a man overboard drill. As a result, we only got as far as Dun Laoghaire that day.

It was a great day. On the way into Dun Laoghaire, we passed through Dalkey strait, between Dalkey peninsula and Dalkey Island. Dalkey peninsula is a fashionable suburb of Dublin, with great views of the sea. Bono has a house there. As we passed along, so close in to the shore, people came out of their houses and waved to us. Finn the Bosun got a signal cannon and fired off a few shots. The roar echoed off of the hillside and off of Dalkey Island. We passed by the Martello tower that James Joyce lived in in1904, from where Stephen Dedalus pondered the snot green and scrotum tightening sea.

Monday, 30 October, 2006

There were porpoises playing in Dun Laoghaire harbor this morning. The wind was going great gales, but we set sail for Wicklow, and made it into the harbor by mid afternoon. When we were made fast to the harbor wall, with all sails stowed we were divided up by watch. The port watch were taken out in the RIB (rigid inflatable boat) by Rowan the mate, in groups of three. We got some practice starting the motor and maneuvering it around the harbor. It’s massively overpowered. When I chartered a sailboat in the Caribbean with my family, we got an Avon of almost the same size; one time with a five horsepower outboard, and one time with a fifteen. The fifteen hp outboard was crazy fast. When riding in it alone I had to be careful not to flip it. The RIB on the Asgard II has a forty horsepower outboard. We each took it for a couple of man overboard drills. While I was doing mine, a seal came up about 30’ away, and watched the whole thing.

Finn showed the starboard watch the workings of the windlass and anchors, and Captain McAllister showed the middle watch a lot of stuff about sail trim theory, especially as pertains to square rigged ships. He also went over charts, plotting a course, triangulation, dead reckoning, and, all sorts of navigation. Then we switched off, so everybody could get all three sets of instruction.

Tuesday, October 31, and Wednesday November 1, 2006

There were gales and stormy weather early Tuesday, and low tide about midday, and there were ten people who still had to do their RIB instruction. So we didn’t put out until early afternoon.

When I was aloft setting sails, I had a bit of a rough time. The seas were about ten feet, so we were pitching and rolling pretty good. There was a good wind blowing, too. We wear a belt with a rope tether and a clip. When we go aloft, we clip onto something for safety. The rope tether is about six feet long, and when aloft, we coil it to make it shorter, so it’s not such a long drop if you slip. But when you coil the tether, you have three loops of rope through the clip, which makes it hard to open. Well, I clipped onto the rail on the yardarm that the sail is tied onto. There are eye-bolts about every three feet along the rail. So, as you walk out along the yardarm, you have to un-clip and re-clip at every eye-bolt. I clipped on, and when I got to the first eye-bolt, I couldn’t get the clip to open. Obviously, I didn’t fall to a bloody and painful death, or I wouldn’t be writing this. But the thought that I might did cross my mind, if only for a second. After a few minutes, using both hands and not holding onto anything, I got the clip open by force of will, pulled one of the rope loops out of it, and finished setting the sail.

We had good, strong wind, right behind us for a change. We set the foretopmast staysail, the course, topsail and t’gallant, and the storm trysail, and we flew before the wind, surfing down the following seas.

During the day all watches were on deck, but at 8:00 pm the middle and starboard watches went below for a sleep. It was the only night sailing watch of the voyage, and I was the watch leader. Almost immediately, the captain decided to change course and fly some more sail. We had to brace the square sails, set the jib, strike the storm trysail, and set the mainsail. Then the five members of port watch took her sailing through the night.

The moon was three quarters full and shining brightly on the water. I saw my favorite constellation, Orion. Liam pointed out a dozen others. Some I could pick out, some I knew of and some were completely new to me. I smiled and nodded.

I set up a rotation where each of us took 20 minutes at the helm, 20 at port lookout, 20 at starboard lookout, and 40 minutes break, and we went through the whole rotation three times. The square sails glowed in the moonlight. We passed Tusker Light and Carnsore Point, rounded the south corner of Ireland, and headed west. The moon showed between the topsail and the course. The waves picked us up and pushed us forward. I don’t imagine there could be anything more wonderful in the world.

Our watch was 8:00 pm until midnight. At midnight we were just passing between Great Saltee and little Saltee Islands. The next watch came up, but we stayed on deck to help strike the sails.  At this point we had just about all of them flying; the jib, the foretopmast staysail, the course, topsail, and t’gallant, the main t’gallant staysail, the main topmast staysail, the main staysail and the mainsail. By the time we had all the canvas down, we were in Baginbun Bay, where we anchored for the night at around 1:30 am.

Before going aloft to tie up the square sails, I checked my climbing belt and tether and clip, so as not to have a repeat of my earlier troubles.

After breakfast, the last few watch leader trainees got their RIB exercises, and we all got more instruction on safety procedures. A big part of being a watch leader is, when things get bad, you have to account for all the members of your watch. You have to get them to their designated mustering area on deck. If necessary, you have to get them all into immersion suits, launch the life rafts, get everyone into the life rafts, right the rafts if they blow over, make sure the rafts have EPIRBS, radios, and survival gear, and all that sort of thing. So a big part of watch leader training is safety training.

After all that, we got all watches on deck, weighed anchor, set all sails, and had a nice leisurely sail in bright sunshine and moderate breezes to the tiny fishing village of Kilmore Quay. We tied up to the quay wall in early afternoon, watched by the usual crowd of harbor seals.

There’s a place in town where I guess the commercial fisherman get hot showers. The regular charge is three Euros, but they waive that for the Asgard crew. It felt good to get a hot shower after a few days without one.

After another dinner that couldn’t be beat, we tidied up the ship and got shore leave. We all went to a lovely pub up the hill called Kehoe’s, where they had a turf fire burning in the fireplace.

Thursday, 2 November, 2006

Our last day for sailing. The captain gave us two choices. A) Motor to the Saltees, go ashore and explore the uninhabited islands, have a swim, then motor to Waterford. Or B) skip the Saltees, and sail to Waterford Bay, then motor up the to the quay in the center of the city. We took a vote, and plan b won out. I guess it was because it was our last day for sailing and, as the other Liam said, “It is a sailing ship.” It was a crisp clear day, the countryside rolling hills ending in rocky cliffs along the shore. It was getting dark when we struck the sails, started the engine, and motored up the river.

We tied up along the quay, just above Reginald’s tower, in the center of Waterford. That’s about all there is to tell. Liam and I had harbor watch from midnight until 2:00 am. It turned very cold, with the temperature going below freezing. There are stories about a crazy “naked swimmer” who swims the river every night, and sure enough, we saw a head bobbing in the water about 100’ off the bow, just after midnight. It was so cold, and the current so strong, I was amazed that someone could be swimming out in the middle of the river and not die.

Friday, 3 November, 2006

After breakfast we cleaned up everything, packed our gear, took our final exams, got our certificates, and signed off. I got a bus back to Dublin – a three hour ride – to catch my flight back to the States.