The flagship boat for a €150,000-a-year Youthreach project has been locked in a boatyard since 2007, writes Investigative Correspondent Conor Ryan
A SAILING boat that is supposed to be anchoring an Asgard-type training programme for Youthreach students in Cork has spent the last four-and-a-half years out of the water.
The eye-catching Omar B schooner had been the headline vessel in a sail training operation run out of Bantry for unemployed early school leavers.
However, since 2007, the flagship for the €150,000-a-year project has been locked away in a boatyard in Baltimore. This is incurring storage costs for County Cork VEC and the vessel is deteriorating through lack of routine maintenance.
In addition, five smaller two-man dinghies spent almost all of last year in storage despite the sailing programme notionally still running.
CCVEC has now put the entire programme under review and indicated it does not know what to do with the unique 75ft, three-mast schooner which it has at its disposal. In the absence of the sailing vessels, the programme has focused on more basic water sports.
In Jan 2011, the VEC entered into a licence with the ESB to allow Bantry Youthreach use the Inniscarra reservoir for kayaking and canoeing.
There was a number of canoeing and kayaking events last year but it is believed that the dinghies bought with grant money were only taken onto the water for two days in 2011.
Throughout last year the Youthreach programme also drove students and boats to Youghal for kayaking trips and brought a class from another Youthreach project on a chartered sailing trip from Bantry.
Late last year, the members of the Bantry Youthreach’s board of management passed a resolution which expressed concern at the ongoing storage and maintenance costs associated with the vessel.
It had always been run as a standalone project reporting directly to CCVEC with staff and resources budget equivalent to half a Youthreach centre.
It is not clear what has become of its budget or if the staff still attached to Omar B programme have been reassigned within Bantry or other Youthreach programmes.
Subsequently members of CCVEC were told by chief executive, Joan Russell, that the owner of the vessel did not want the boat back and that an action plan for the boat will be prepared.
Last July, a review of the project was launched by CCVEC after consideration was given to refloating the vessel, four years after the boat had last been in the water, but the plan was stopped at the last minute.
Its owner, Don Attig, has said he was glad the boat was able to provide a very good educational outlet for Youthreach students in Cork and was satisfied a lot of good has come out of the project.
He said the boat, and the schemes it partnered with, were of immense benefit to pupils who would not otherwise be in education.
The Omar B scheme received money from the AIB Better Ireland Programme, Cork County Council and numerous local donors.
When it was donated in 2003 and kitted out for use by children, it benefited from a generous voluntary effort to fund it and have it ship shape to meet passenger licence requirements.
Subsequently the training programme was accredited by FETAC. The last time the Omar B had a valid passenger licence was in June 2007 but it was not renewed.
The licence recognised the moorings it had available, in Bantry and Glengarriff, and it was registered to carry students up and down the Cork coast. It also had anchoring spots available to it in Crosshaven and Kinsale. It is not clear what became of these.
At one point, since 2007, the Department of the Marine offered space at its dock in Castletownbere for the Omar B. This was not taken up.
In January 2009, the Omar B sailing programme was awarded a grant of €10,000 by Cork County Council to buy five two-man sail training boats.
These are also not in use but are available if required.
The former coordinator of the project, Danny Crowley, took a career break in 2005 and he was replaced by Frank Crowley, who ran a sea kayaking school out of Castletownbere.
Board of management member Mary Hegarty said she felt the sail training programme was no longer something CCVEC could afford and the board had acted proactively in voting on the resolution before it was raised elsewhere.
She said she was not aware of the position of the staff who were attached to the Omar project and if its closure would affect the resources available to Bantry Youthreach.
The project was initially run under a steering committee which included Mr Attig, Mr Crowley, the now marine minister Simon Coveney, and marine journalist Tom McSweeney.
Shipped to shore
The Omar B was built in the 1970s by the Irish American ship builder, Don Attig.
Measuring 75ft, it is easily distinguishable because of its three masts and double-fronted feature which was designed to mimic pirate ships of yesteryear.
After sailing around the world, the ship played a unique role in the Northern Ireland peace process as a neutral and secret venue for preliminary meetings of paramilitary organisations discussing potential ceasefires.
In 2003, it was taken from its mooring at Drakes Pool, Crosshaven, Co Cork, where it featured in local tourism images.
It was brought to Cobh where youthreach students, led by a steering committee of prominent public figures, undertook an extensive renovation to meet licensing standards.
The Omar B project was accredited with FETAC but the passenger licence was not renewed in 2007.
It has been credited with providing an outlet and a training base for a number of pupils who would otherwise not have connected with the state schooling system.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Tuesday, February 07, 2012
