NOVEMBER 2015 http://www.yachtingmonthly.com 47PILOTAGE
marinas, including the five-gold-anchors
one of the Royal Cork Yacht Club (RCYC).
The Club enters its fourth century in
2020, and is already preparing for the
big celebration. It hosts the biennial Cork
Week of racing, one of Europe’s most
prestigious events. Visitors to the RCYC
marina enjoy temporary membership of
the club for the duration of their stay.
The Owenboy is crowded with moorings
and, two miles upstream in a wooded bend
of the river, is Drake’s Pool, Ireland’s best
sheltered anchorage. Local legend has it
that Francis Drake hid his fleet here from
the Spanish Armada, but this is patently
implausible, because history records that
he actually sailed from Plymouth to meet
it (the alternative legend featuring a game
of bowls there). Drake’s Pool is a lovely
spot, even though there is little or no
room now to anchor in it.
North of the Owenboy and with
a little rise of tide it is easy to
Cork Harbour from the south-east:
Roche’s Point and the Cow and Calf Rocks,
foreground, and Spike Island in the distance
with Cobh on Great Island beyondCobh, with its magnificent
St Colman’s CathedralALL PHOTOS: GERALDINE HENNIGAN UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED