Kinsale
Quentin Ryder
August 23, 2023
Kinsale: Five pages of notes has to be reduced to a few words!
There is more history connected with Kinsale than practically any other harbour in Ireland. From Norman times, then through every century, something significant happened in Kinsale. In 1601 the town witnessed the siege and battle of Kinsale, an engagement that led to the complete English conquest of Ireland. From 1647 up to 1812 it was the main base for the Royal Navy before the size of ships outgrew the river and they moved to Cork. When you enter the harbour from the sea, you understand why, it is nearly impregnable by weather or enemy forces. In the outer harbour, Lower Cove, 30 cutters used to compete with boats from Scilly and Bristol to supply pilots for ships arriving from an atlantic crossing.
Quentin Ryder is the lively HM here and he kindly took time out to tell me and Fiona about his incredible harbour. Appointed in 2018 - he succinctly described the job description of an HM as being "unlimited". He sees his main job of balancing the trilogy of commercial vessels, fishing boats and yachts - and with 700 of them based here that is quite a job. Like in many HM offices, they contain artefacts going back hundreds of years. Before we could pour the tea, Quentin had produced a chart of the harbour from 1845, the first year of the Great Famine.
Quentin's own maritime career started very early, in fact he can't remember when he was not on a boat. After the National Maritime College in Cork he worked for a number of companies but settled on work in the renewable energy industry including the three years spent building the Sheringham Shoal wind farm. He reckons the 88 turbines which supply power for 280,000 homes have a 50 year lifespan. He then moved to underwater turbine construction working in some of the most tidal areas of the world, Brest, Orkney and finally the Bay of Fundy in Canada where tidal streams run at 15 knots. Here he captained the ship lowering the 1,600t frame 30m underwater to contain a giant 16m turbine, shaped like a doughnut (see photo) to allow dolphins to swim through the centre unharmed. An ex NASA engineer working on the project said it had been a harder job than anything NASA had tried to do! That proved right and like so many tidal turbine projects, it failed.
One his stranger jobs as HM involved a real "Ghost Ship" the MV Alta. Adrift without a crew in the Atlantic for a staggering two years, this 90 metre cargo ship was originally abandoned in the caribbean but finally washed up on the Irish coast near Cork in 2023. Quentin was one of the first officials aboard, and oversaw the dangerous job of removing its diesel using barrels underslung in nets from a helicopter. Incredibly the owner has never been identified, so the wreck has been abandoned and a few days later I sailed past it and took a photo. A wreck always sends a chill down my spine.
I had to tear myself away from Quentin, an established yachtsman, and without doubt one of the most interesting HMs I had met - and that is saying something!
There is more history connected with Kinsale than practically any other harbour in Ireland. From Norman times, then through every century, something significant happened in Kinsale. In 1601 the town witnessed the siege and battle of Kinsale, an engagement that led to the complete English conquest of Ireland. From 1647 up to 1812 it was the main base for the Royal Navy before the size of ships outgrew the river and they moved to Cork. When you enter the harbour from the sea, you understand why, it is nearly impregnable by weather or enemy forces. In the outer harbour, Lower Cove, 30 cutters used to compete with boats from Scilly and Bristol to supply pilots for ships arriving from an atlantic crossing.
Quentin Ryder is the lively HM here and he kindly took time out to tell me and Fiona about his incredible harbour. Appointed in 2018 - he succinctly described the job description of an HM as being "unlimited". He sees his main job of balancing the trilogy of commercial vessels, fishing boats and yachts - and with 700 of them based here that is quite a job. Like in many HM offices, they contain artefacts going back hundreds of years. Before we could pour the tea, Quentin had produced a chart of the harbour from 1845, the first year of the Great Famine.
Quentin's own maritime career started very early, in fact he can't remember when he was not on a boat. After the National Maritime College in Cork he worked for a number of companies but settled on work in the renewable energy industry including the three years spent building the Sheringham Shoal wind farm. He reckons the 88 turbines which supply power for 280,000 homes have a 50 year lifespan. He then moved to underwater turbine construction working in some of the most tidal areas of the world, Brest, Orkney and finally the Bay of Fundy in Canada where tidal streams run at 15 knots. Here he captained the ship lowering the 1,600t frame 30m underwater to contain a giant 16m turbine, shaped like a doughnut (see photo) to allow dolphins to swim through the centre unharmed. An ex NASA engineer working on the project said it had been a harder job than anything NASA had tried to do! That proved right and like so many tidal turbine projects, it failed.
One his stranger jobs as HM involved a real "Ghost Ship" the MV Alta. Adrift without a crew in the Atlantic for a staggering two years, this 90 metre cargo ship was originally abandoned in the caribbean but finally washed up on the Irish coast near Cork in 2023. Quentin was one of the first officials aboard, and oversaw the dangerous job of removing its diesel using barrels underslung in nets from a helicopter. Incredibly the owner has never been identified, so the wreck has been abandoned and a few days later I sailed past it and took a photo. A wreck always sends a chill down my spine.
I had to tear myself away from Quentin, an established yachtsman, and without doubt one of the most interesting HMs I had met - and that is saying something!