Lough Erne Yacht Club

News > Fairy Revival at Lough Erne Yacht Club

Created: 10/22/2009 8:39:14 AM, Updated: 10/22/2009 11:53:50 AM

From Paul Louden-Brown - After a few years in the doldrums, LEYC’s Fairy Fleet has once again been in action. Three yachts have been racing this their 103rd season


Doreen with past owner, Peter Scott. Sold and sailing again, makes three and a Fairy fleet. Photo Shaun Sowden

They are Storm, helmed by co-owner Joey Kelly, Michael Whaley in Maeve, and Paul Louden-Brown, her new joint owner with Terry Archer, in Doreen, and crewed by Fred Ternan and Conor Louden-Brown, one of LEYC’s junior sailors in our Topper fleet.

Restoration and rebuilding of the rest of the LEYC fleet continues with Zephyr, sail number 2, owned by John Suitor, ready for racing next season after a lengthy and complicated restoration in his Ballygawley workshop. Rapidly nearing completion of the heavy restoration and rebuilding phases are Petrel, sail number 12, owned by Paul & Elizabeth Louden-Brown and Cygnet, sail number 10, owned by Fred Ternan.

Cygnet is a complete recreation of a Fairy, requiring the lines and measurements to be taken from the rest of the fleet in order for this exact replica to be built by Fred, George and Michael Ternan.

Using Cygnet’s original iron ballast keel as a foundation, the project has taken several years of hard work to reach the latest stage, where her new deck beams, carlines and small ribs have been fitted. Over the winter the deck will be laid and the work of fairing the hull in preparation for paint begun.

Work on Petrel over the last eleven months, since her purchase from Joey Kelly, has involved the replacement of all twenty-four frames, stem, stern frame, horn timber and big knee. The keelson was also rotten and a replacement is being made. Petrel will be lifted off her ballast keel shortly and the new keelson fitted. 95% of her yellow and pitch pine planking has been retained, including almost all of her deck beams and beam shelf.

As with Cygnet the aim of both owners is to have these yachts in the water and racing in the 2010 season - Storm and Maeve joined by Petrel, Cygnet, Zephyr and more?.

Fairy Restoration Photographs – go to Downloads
Paul also sent several most interesting workshop photographs, with notes of the work on Cygnet and Petrel. Back afloat they seem sure to match Storm and Maeve in elegance and craftsmanship. Too large for news pages, Paul’s 8.46MB document is available in Downloads, home page, left menu.