R33 - Arc

Owner

Robbie & Conor English

Provenance

R33 was originally built by David Rankin in the mid 1970s for the Hennessy Family from Currabinny for sailing and exploring the Owenabue river. It was sold to Dick Gibson in the late 2000s who carried out an extensive restoration in Crosshaven. It was then owned briefly by Coleman Garvey who subsequently sold it to the English Family, Crosshaven in 2012 (after the English’s sold their previous Rankin Dinghy to Martin O’ Treasaigh). With funding by the Heritage Council, The Marine Institute and individuals including Hal Sisk under the ‘Traditional Boats of Ireland Project’, R33 was point cloud laser scanned by Pat Tanner as a record for the Rankin Dinghy. tradboats.ie 🔗)

In 2019 Robbie & Conor English sailing R33, won the Rankin World Cup held during Cork Dinghy fest at the Royal Cork YC and were also the Cork Dinghy Fest overall Champions. In 2021 the boat was the mixed dinghy champion at the RCYC 300 Tricentenary at home regatta. Apart from sailing, the English’s use R33 as a punt/tender in Crosshaven and in Schull, exploring the harbours and islands of West Cork.

A Family Tradiion

The English Family have a proud tradition with the Rankin boats. The English siblings used to spend a lot of time in the Rankin brothers’ yard growing up in the 1960s/70s. Mary English commissioned a Rankin (R28) in the 1970s, in which John Paul English spent time learning to sail and was brought down to West Cork on Summer holidays. This boat is now owned by Anthony O’Leary & Family. Many students learned to sail on the several Rankin boats working hard at Eddie English’s sailing school based in Cobh, including several custom made boats by David Rankin. Joe English, as a sailmaker and with his knowledge of the boat, tweaked and perfected the sail area and shape of the sail, particularly the jib design, that has now become the standard in the class.