The Glove man

In Cork, we speak to top Irish owner Colm Barrington about his new Ker 39 Flying Glove and his Commodores' Cup plans

One of the pillars of the Irish yacht racing community is 'Gloves' owner, Dublin-based Colm Barrington (above). In Crosshaven harbour thedailysail caught up with Barrington relaxing in the cockpit of his motor yacht support vessel with fellow crewmembers including young blade Rob Greenhalgh and less young blade Eddie Warden-Owen who are sailing at Cork Week on Barrington's new Ker 39, Flying Glove.

As we settle down with the cold beverages cracked open, the talk remains heated about Tuesday's chaotic day on the water where due to the length of the course and the lack of breeze, it had taken Flying Glove 3.5 hours to complete two rounds of a windward-leeward course.

"The whole event is being run for the big boats and they don’t give a *** about anyone else," says Barrington echoing a feeling expressed widely among the big boat sailors here. "We suggested a Super Zero class, but they [the race organisers] refused to do it. When they [the maxZ86s] finished, we still had an hour and a half to go. If we’d finished in an hour and 10 minutes, we’d have beat them. It’s ridiculous."

After a lengthy career in dinghy and yacht racing that in recent years has included owning the Corby 32 Velvet Gloves, then the Corby 38 Gloves Off Barrington's latest acquisition is the new Jason Ker design, Flying Glove.

So why the incessant 'Glove' theme? "I liked 'Velvet Glove', the idea of the iron fist in the velvet glove," says Barrington. "Then we had the next one and we decided to take the velvet gloves off. Now Flying Glove was in the Beatles Film 'Yellow Submarine', it goes around poking people and killing bad 'meanies' and basically being an irritant…"

Barrington says that the new boat came about because although Gloves Off was a "super boat", he felt that technology had moved on. "To stay competitive I had to get something new. The problem is in Ireland first of all you can’t go too big otherwise there is no one to race against. And secondly you can only race under IRC because we don’t do IRM or IMS. So if you want to race at home at all then IRC is the only thing to do. I travel a lot on business and so I don’t fancy getting on a plane every weekend going to go off sailing as well."

Like the Ker 55 Aera, Flying Glove was built by Acheson Rossa Custom Yachts in South Africa, where designer Jason Ker is now based due to his involvement as Principle Designer of the South Africa America's Cup team.

The boat was launched in the UK the day before RORC's MeesPierson Yachting IRC Championship and promptly finished second in class Super Zero/Zero behind Bear of Britain.

The new boat is definitely designed for IRC. "She’s only 7 inches longer [than Gloves Off] but she looks a lot bigger," says Barrington. "And there is much more freeboard and it looks narrower. It’s also a lot drier - much more of a cruising boat. And we’ve got a full interior. It helps as I get a little older and I want to go cruising. We’ve got hot water and an oven and an enclosed head/shower..."

The hull appears narrow and quite slad-sided with a large transom and a stern overhang. Jason Ker says that: "In principle the shape is not very different from the Aera/ Voodoo Chile shape, however we had to create a bit more volume for a cruiser-racer, both in beam and height and having a slightly higher CG than the racers means that the waterline beam has to get wider."

Most control lines disappear below decks below making for an uncluttered deck. This includes the lines running aft from the mast to the central jammer bank on the cabintop, the genoa car adjuster, the two part mainsheet running forward along the boom and back to two cockpit winches and even the traveller. In line with this being an IRC boat there are no runners or checkstays and the fixed backstay disappears into the cockpit where it attaches to a hydraulic ram.

Below, as Barrington says, there are all mod cons - a chart table to starboard, galley to port. Forward of the saloon area there is a head to starboard with a doorway through to the forward V-berth cabin to port.

In terms of its handling compared to his previous Corbys Barrington says: "It’s a super boat. It is very twitchy. The keel is very very narrow and you can stall it out very very easily, which seems to be a Ker characteristic. I think the 11.3s stall out quite a lot. But it seems to go well.

"I’m not used to a wheel because we wanted to get the proper interior we had to move everything further back and then the tiller didn’t work. But I am going to get more used to it as time goes on."

At Cork their IRC rating of 1.121 is the lowest allowed under IRC 0. "We could have lost a point and gone into Class 1 but then we would have lost Eddie as well. And as we want to get practised up for the Commodores' Cup we thought it would be better to stay in Class 0. And at the moment we are joint leaders…"

Following Cork Week, Flying Glove will be delivered to Cowes for to take part in the Rolex Commdores' Cup as part of the highly rated Irish team alongside the new DK46 Fidessa Fastwave and Voodoo Chile. "They { Fidessa Fastwave] had a bit of bad luck breaking their steering system in the Round Ireland Race, but they were doing well," says Barrington of his team mates. "They were leader or joint leader when that happened. And Erivale [the other DK46] is doing well here. And then there’s us and the other little Ker, Voodoo Chile, which got second in the British Nationals and won the Round Ireland on corrected time. So we have a decent team. But we’ve got to deal with the Solent and the Channel Race..."

Otherwise Barrington is looking forward to the event. "It should be good. It was very good two years ago. It's shaping up to be better than the Admiral’s Cup. I’m not sure I’m in favour of the offshore race counting four times. That can be a total lottery and the whole event can hinge on it."

On board they sail with 10, with Barrington at the helm and Warden-Owen calling tactics.

After the Commodore’s Cup Flying Glove will finally make it to her homeport, Dublin, where she will take part in the Irish Sea Championships at the end of August.

Finally what will he do if there is a change to the rules? "If a new rule comes out - we’ll just fill the fridge and go cruising..."

More photos on the following pages...