Baltimore is high on the list of favourite spots for most Irish sailors, and for some foreign ones as well. Everyone can sail in Baltimore or go sail-boarding. You may be an excellent yachtsman taking advantage of our excellent harbour
facilities or you may like to see whether you would enjoy the sport and want to take a course of instruction. For those who like watching everyone else doing the hard work, a seat on the harbour will not go amiss! Sailing races are regularly held throughout the summer, culminating in the regatta in August.
Details of the races can be obtained at the Sailing Club, affiliated to the Irish Yachting Association. If you're in Baltimore and want to learn to sail, Dermot Kennedy runs the Baltimore Sailing
School and Glenans is a French organisation which holds residential courses throughout the summer.
Of all the attractions that Baltimore offers, sailing is possibly the best known, but sailing in Baltimore doesn't just mean expensive off-shore cruises, crewed by visiting yachtsmen from France and even the USA. At the core of the sport are the numerous dinghy sailors who find the bay and the islands an unbeatable source of relaxation and fun.
On a blustery August day you can sometimes, it is true, see an intrepid Fireball barrelling down the harbour, spinnaker set, crewman on the trapeze, surfing in front of a brisk Force 6. But Baltimore dinghy sailors are, in the main, less given to hairy, round-the-buoys stuff than they are to cheerfully individualistic ways of getting away from it all.
A boat in Baltimore is, in truth, almost more valuable than a car. Even with nothing more powerful to propel you than a sail, some places on the coast can actually be reached quicker by water than overland. And, if you have an iron mainsail in the shape of a trusty little Yamaha or Johnson outboard, all sorts of places are within your reach.
The true delight of a dinghy in Baltimore, however, is to sail it around - and to some of the many islands which dot the waters of Roaringwater Bay. The venturesome can take a dinghy all the way out to the Fastnet Rock and back. But for those with more modest ambitions, the possibilities are virtually endless.
One of the great things about having your own dinghy is that you are, in effect, an explorer. You can decide to tie up to an uncharted rock to gather a rich harvest of mussels; you can decide to picnic in one of the coves, between Baltimore and Schull; you can voyage to Cape Clear or (if you are very nervous) to Sherkin.
One of the most traditional expeditions is to take your dinghy on a fine day to Hare Island, where you can lie on the beach and watch a huge slice of West Cork shimmering in the summer haze. If the wind is favourable, you can bowl back into Baltimore Harbour at the end of a perfect day feeling like Brendan the Navigator.
The winds in this area are, of course, mostly onshore, so there is little if any danger of that fate most feared by dinghy sailors - being blown out to sea. Be warned, though: in some of the narrows the tide runs can be quite dramatic, and it pays to have your tide tables tucked into your boatlocker alongside the anchor, the mackerel line, the sun-tan oil, and the spare halyard.
If you are unsure about what this means, try beating your way back into Baltimore Harbour on a blowy afternoon, coming South through the Sound against both wind and
tide and trying to remember where the shallows are. At its most taxing, this experience can be likened to trying to learn how to sail a boat backwards!
If all else fails, remember that the Baltimore Lifeboat is one of the area's most valuable attractions. Most dinghy sailors, of course, will take the sort of precautions that will see them through most emergencies. But there are always unexpected bits of bad luck which will challenge even the most experienced boat
handler and in such circumstances, it is more than a comfort to know that such expertise and such experience are available literally at a moment's notice. But don't forget the anchor!
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