History
Kathleen & May was built at Connah's Quay on the Dee estuary in North Wales. She was built as the Lizzie May for a local firm, Coppack Brothers & Co., at a cost of £2,700 (the equivalent of £200,000 at mid 1990's prices). Weighing 136 tonnes gross and measuring just under 100 feet long, she could carry about 250 tons of cargo. Typical cargoes were china clay, cement, bricks, fertilisers and grain, carried between many ports in the British Isles.
In 1908 Lizzie May was sold to Martin J. Fleming of Youghal in the Irish
Republic and registered in Cork as the Kathleen & May. She sailed from
Youghal for twenty-three years.
In 1931 she was sold again to Captain Tommy Jewell and his father William of Appledore in North Devon. Now fitted with a semi-diesel engine, she continued sailing in the Irish/English trade throughout the war. At a later stage, her hatches were enlarged, her masts poled off, and a new engine fitted, to become a handsome sail-assisted motor vessel. Eventually, in 1960 the Kathleen & May was retired from active service.
In the mid 60's HRH the Duke of Edinburgh started the Maritime Trust, having come across the Kathleen & May laid up in the River Torridge. The Trust subsequently purchased her, using her as their initial exhibit. In the 70's, the "Fairy Godmother" of The Kathleen & May was the remarkable Mr. Yua-Kong Pao, an international banker and shipowner, who donated £100,000 to the trust, for the restoration and maintenance of the schooner. Today, she is owned by Steve Clarke of Bideford, Devon in England, who has undertaken a total restoration programme, now nearing completion.
Restoration
"It started off when I was walking round Gloucester docks sometime in March 1998, and saw this sad-looking black hull with a dirty canvas tent over the top. As I walked on, I then turned to look back and my eye was taken by the name of Bideford. I made enquiries and four months later I was the proud owner of the Kathleen & May".
So began Steve Clarke's relationship with the Kathleen & May. What started as a £50, 000, project to restore her to a static exhibition condition to attract visitors into Bideford, has grown over the past three years into a full-scale structural renovation. The culmination of this extraordinary project will be in July 2002 when the Kathleen & May will travel at full sail from Bideford to her old port of Youghal in Cork, Ireland. The intention is then to use the schooner as a heritage focus in Bideford and Youghal, and thus exploit the vast tourist potential created by restoring her to a fully seaworthy state.
Mr. Clarke himself is privately funding the project. During the restoration
a total of over 50,000 labour hours have been clocked up, not to mention the extensive list of materials used in replacing the structural beams and the deck and hull planking, most of which has been carried out in oak and larch.
The fully restored schooner will be on view to the public in Bideford and
this summer 2002 in Youghal Ireland.
Maiden Voyage
"What would you do if you saw the Kathleen & May sailing into the
harbour?....
I'd say it would be a ghost, I don't believe I'll ever see her come around
again...
Last August, we brought the Kathleen & May home to Youghal, but not at full sail. The reception she got was overwhelming, in due recognition of the
labour of love that Steve Clarke and his team of restoration workers have
put into bringing this boat, the last of the three-masted wooden schooners; back to a fully seaworthy state. The event also received extensive media coverage and featured in the national press and television news.
This year, in 2002, we will be sailing her from Bideford to Youghal in all
her former glory, fully restored, where she will be the main focus of the
Yougal Maritime Festival from the 17-19 July. We will leave Bideford on the
14 July, following her old trading route via Milford Haven, Waterford and
round the coast to arrive in Youghal on the 16th July. The restoration crew
and the film crew will be on board.
Ireland at the moment is full of replicas, and none of them can sail. Only
one took on the fight and won, she'll be the one to sail
back home, the Kathleen & May. The people of Youghal's Kathleen & May, just for a while anyway, and so we held our breaths as time stood still...
Film
Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Brendan Ahern, grandson of Captain Joe Ahern who sailed the Lizzie May to Ireland in 1908 where she was renamed Kathleen & May.
"I'm a young fella looking down at the water,
the blue water, tibbling up and splashing around
and I remember the father came along and put his arm
around me shoulder and he says
"take good care of it, it can be your best friend
and be your biggest enemy".
Wasn't he right."
At my father's funeral I met an elderly relative of mine who introduced
himself: "My name is Pa Aherne, I sailed with your grandfather, Captain Joe, 70 years ago". This introduction had such an impact on me that I decided I had to know more about this man, his stories of the sea, the old port of Youghal and the boat he had sailed on "The Kathleen & May"
The Continuing Story of the Kathleen and May is a film about just that - the boat, the sea, the crew, the life, the stories, the history. But there's
more than that. Yes. Something else. There's the passion - of the crew, of
the captains, of the seafaring way of life, of the people who are restoring
her today, of Steve Clarke who rescued her from decay at a Gloucester dock. And who was Captain Joe, my grandfather? Of my own fascination with the sea, water, just the water and the tales it has to tell.
"As a kid I never really saw the sea, didn't have to see it, it was always
there ...just didn't see it at the time. It was there at the top of the
hill".
The passion, however it bites, when it bites, that's it, you're hooked.
Photography and still images: Bert Oosterveld, Amsterdam and Earl de Beun, Landsmeer, Holland.
