The old nautical/drinking term "three sheets to the wind"* may get a new lease of life this morning when a ship called the Kathleen May docks at Dublin's Custom House Quay, after a six-day journey from Brest, writes Frank McNally
The three-masted wooden schooner will be carrying 23 tonnes - about 30,000 bottles - of French wine, destined for the Irish market, in what the haulage company involved claims is the first instance of such a cargo being imported under sail since the 1800s.
For the man behind the initiative, Frédéric Albert, this represents the future, as well as the past.
At current oil prices, he can transport wine by sailing ship at about the same price as conventional means, and without a carbon footprint. Such is his confidence in the business model that, as well as hiring old vessels like the Kathleen May, his company is now building a new one, capable of carrying 250 tonnes.
In the meantime, he has helped write another chapter in the 108-year-old history** of the schooner, the only ship of its kind still sailing.
As its name hints, the Kathleen May is no stranger to Ireland. For more than 20 years in the early 1900s, it was owned by a Captain Martin Fleming from Youghal; who, like the previous owner (it had been the Lizzie May until then), called it after his daughters.
Joining Fleming's fleet of coal ships, it traded between the Bristol Channel ports and Youghal and was a familiar sight in Youghal Harbour for over 20 years, until sold to a man in north Devon in 1931. The journey there was, until recently, its last under sail alone. On arrival, the topmasts were shortened, the topsails removed, and an engine fitted.
During the war, it carried gunpowder for the British Ministry of Defence. Presumably the three open fire-places on board were used carefully, if at all, during the period. But by the 1960s it had fallen into disuse and bad repair; whereupon the British Maritime Trust rescued it.
Unfortunately, Britain was creaking under the weight of vessels from the glory days of sailing. Money for conservation was scarcer than ever after the raising of the Mary Rose in 1982. By the 1990s, the Kathleen and May was a luxury it couldn't afford.
Not even the ship's rating as one of the 60 most important sailing vessels - placing it among Britain's core collection, alongside the Cutty Sark and Victory - was sufficient to command the £2 million sterling Lottery grant needed to maintain it as a static exhibit. According to the current owner, Steve Clarke, it was destined for the chainsaws until he intervened to buy it for an undisclosed sum in 1998.
Clarke was a president of a chamber of commerce in Bideford, Devon, where the schooner was docked. Its restoration was first mooted as a chamber initiative. But he ended up doing it himself, and spending rather more than the estimated £2 million in the process.
He received an OBE from Queen Elizabeth last Christmas for his efforts. But his health is no longer up to the strain of keeping the ship afloat. Despite its latest revival, the Kathleen May is again up for sale. It will cost potential buyers "a lot of money, but we'll negotiate," Clarke says.
Albert is a former French radio journalist who came to Ireland to learn English and worked for a drink sales company before leaving to "do something for the planet". His Compagnie de Transport Maritime à la Voile (CTMV) started out as an ecological project, allowing producers to use labels saying their goods had been transported in an environmentally friendly way.
In ideal wind conditions, the Kathleen May travels at only half the speed of conventional shipping, but produces no emissions (provided its 400 horse-power engine remains switched off).
This was the main selling point of CTMV, until the price of oil began to spiral. Now, the project has an extra edge. When his new ship comes on line - construction starts in Mauritius in September and should be finished a year later - Albert thinks he can offer a cheaper service than oil-based transport, while also appealing to his clients' environmental conscience.
The Kathleen May will have at least one more drink-related voyage: helping the trade balance between these islands and France. In September, it returns to the continent with a cargo of Irish and Scotch whiskey.
In the meantime, the schooner will remain in Dublin this weekend, open to the public. In return for a €10 donation to the vessel's upkeep, visitors will be able to see the ship, sample the wine, and - supplies allowing - bring one of the specially labelled bottles home.
*The term "three sheets to the wind" refers to the ropes - or "sheets" - attached to a ship's sail. If the sheets are loose, the sails flap freely: something that lent itself as a description for the movements of a drunk. Like many expressions, this one has undergone some inflation over the years, as witnessed by Tom Waits's ballad, Tom Traubert's Blues, subtitled "Four sheets to the wind in Copenhagen."
**There is an actual written history of the ship: The Story of the Kathleen May. Its author, Drogheda-born Richard Scott, died earlier this year.