Carina (yacht)

''This is not the 1955 and 1957 Fastnet Race winning yacht Carina II.''

''Carina'' was a successful racing sailing yacht which disappeared off the Dublin coast in 1944 with two crew aboard and is referenced in the Liam MacGabhann poem ''Sailing Down the Bay''.''Carina'' sailed off scratch and regularly won or placed at Skerries Sailing Club races, and won the 1943 East Coast Championship of Ireland.

The boat was 21 feet long and bermuda-rigged and owned by commercial traveller John 'Jack' McConnell, of Rathgar, the 1942-43 captain of Old Wesley Rugby Football Club.

Disappearance

''Carina'' sailed on a falling tide from Skerries about 1pm on Monday, October 2, 1944.

McConnell, 26, and crew Kenneth Martin, 23, were sailing her about 20 nautical miles south to lay her up for the Winter at Clontarf.

It was expected the journey by sail could be completed within the day as the crew only carried sandwiches for sustenance.

The yacht was seen sailing by the Baily Lighthouse principal keeper in 'heavy weather' about 7.30pm, 'trying to beat against a west-southwest wind which broke out of Dublin Bay'.

But that night the ''Carina'' had also been seen about three miles off Howth Head sailing north, the opposite direction to expected.

Theories

As the tide had turned northward by that point, it was suggested that rounding Howth Head and the Bailey would have created an unfavourable sea state, and Jack may have attempted a downwind return to Skerries.

It's unknown why they were so far off Howth Head and why they didn't sail for nearby protected Howth Harbour.

Delays

There were fatal delays in raising the alarm.

In Skerries, McConnell's parents believed Jack and Kenneth had gone to the home of crewman and Jack's brother-in-law Jack Bolton.

But the sailors failed to arrive at Bolton's home, so Bolton concluded the boat had not yet sailed.

It was not until Tuesday night when both parties realised Jack, Kenneth, and ''Carina'' were missing from Skerries. At this point, the sailors were probably already lost.

The Air Corps were only notified at 11am on Wednesday.

Agonisingly, Kenneth Martin was a marine radio operator by trade, but it would be unlikely a boat so small would have carried radio equipment.

Search abandoned

The air and sea search was reported abandoned by first press Thursday, November 6, 1944, after the Air Corps, Aer Lingus, and Howth Lifeboat failed to find any evidence of the boat.

Lifeboat stations and ships were put on watch after that.

Impact

Jack was the second son John and Sarah McConnell lost at sea that year. Jack's younger brother Cecil Frank McConnell was also a well-known sailor aboard ''Carina'', and was lost when the working schooner Cymric disappeared at sea in February.

The lost ''Carina'' sailors are remembered on plaques on the Skerries and Loughshinny Sea Pole Memorial on Red Island, Skerries.

Kenneth Martin is remembered on his parent's headstone in Mount Jerome Cemetery.

Legacy

A poem written by journalist and Skerries Sailing Club committee member Liam MacGabhann a year later, after VE Day, lamented the loss of local recreational sailors aboard ships during World War II. The second-last verse is dedicated to the ''Carina'' and her crew.

''And so we still set spinnakers, and make the runners fast,''

''And keep the good craft sailing still, though she be first or last''

''Yet scarce an evening passes but someone's sure to say.''

''"Ah, but to see'' Carina ''now, come sailing down the Bay".''

References

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Sailing yachts
People lost at sea
Lost sailing vessels
Missing ships
Shipwrecks in the Irish Sea
Irish Sea