Johnny Bailey: Johnny Bailey, who died aged 72 last weekend after a long illness, was the last trading skipper of a Galway hooker to have continued to sail the classic boat in Irish waters.
The "máistir báid mhóir", as he described himself, served as an inspiration and guiding light for those involved in the revival of Galway hookers and introduced many budding sailors to the sea. His own bád mór, An Capall, was sailed by his father before him and has been worked by six generations of his family.
Born in Doirín Glas, Leitir Mór, in 1932, Bailey was one of a large family and was only a teenager when he took over as skipper of An Capall on the death of his father, Peterín.
At the time, the boat was transporting turf, seaweed and porter to the Aran Islands and isolated parts of Connemara , and income was also supplemented by fishing.
The vessel with its distinctive "tumblehome" hull, based on a Dutch design, had been built in the 1860s near Leitir Mór by Michael Reaney. Bailey inherited the skill of sailmaking and was adept at stitching calico canvas and treating the material.
As he recalled in a recent documentary of his life, The Islandman, made by Éamon and Cian de Buitléar, it took 70 yards of cotton to fill the spars, and it could take a fortnight to make three sails. The sails were then coated in bark tannin from the cashew tree, and butter was added to the heated tar mix to keep it supple.
Speed was of the essence when the trading vessels transported supplies to the islands, as the first skipper out to Cill Rónan in Inis Mór fetched the highest prices. Butter was often coated on the hulls of "na báid mhóra" during low tide for this purpose, and Bailey recalled one trip he made with his father in Casla Bay,when he spotted a large shadow under the rudder. It was a basking shark, which appeared to be licking the butter off the vessel. The young Johnny roared to his father who was making tea below that "there was a big fish eating the boat!".
When "cosey gas", as Kosangas was nicknamed, arrived on the market, it was soon being shipped to the islands and fortunes changed for the professional hooker skippers. Johnny Bailey turned to fishing full-time like many of his colleagues, including Pat Jennings and John William Joyce.
He purchased a trawler in 1959, while maintaining An Capall. No one knew what money was at that time, he remarked in the de Buitléar documentary: "If you had half a crown, you thought you were a millionaire."
Bailey and his wife, Barbara, and family moved to Galway city with the trawler, Naomh Cáilean. The couple had 10 children - nine sons and one daughter - and the youngest son was named after the vessel. "He called the boat after Saint Cillian, and Cáilean after the boat," his daughter, Mary, remembered.
Everyone was taught to sail, everyone was encouraged to take the helm, and Bailey and crew were regular participants at every hooker regatta.
He once quipped that the one advantage of having a big family was having no shortage of crew - and in the de Buitléar documentary he chuckled when he couldn't remember all of his sons' names.
With pipe in his mouth and a sack often draped over his shoulders, fastened with a nail, Bailey did not fit the typical "yachtie" image. A deeply religious man, he was generous to a fault in terms of his knowledge and skills, and was actively fishing up to last year. He was receiving treatment in hospital during this year's Cruinniú na mBád festival in Kinvara, Co Galway, when word came that he had insisted that An Capall should participate.
Ironically, his last race hadn't been in his own boat, but in a gleoiteog at Annach Mheáin, near Leitir Mór, earlier this year.
Johnny Bailey, máistir báid mhóir, is survived by his wife, Barbara, sons Pádraic, Peadar, Danny, John, Micheál, Séamus, Dara, Thomas, Cáilean, daughter Mary and grandchildren.
Johnny Bailey: born March 25th, 1932; died September 26th, 2004