1949 Schneider Cup Racer
Luck O' The Irish
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Background
It's known that: Ireland's aeronautical prowess goes back to the '30s
as host of PanAm's early trans-Atlantic Clipper flying boats.
Ireland acquired 18 Hawker Hurricane fighter planes during WWII, which
defended its neutrality and served until 1947.
 A
wartime study of converting a Hurricane to a seaplane fighter, using Blackburn
'Roc' or 'Shark' floats, was started but not completed or flown.
Many Blackburn Shark torpedo bombers, including 95 made by Boeing of
Canada, had removable floats.
My library research fizzled out at this point, but I managed to find
relatives who knew all about how this Schneider '49 entry came to be,
just after Ireland proclaimed itself a republic in 1949, independent of
even the limited Crown influence over the Commonwealth of Nations:
. . . Sean's uncle, the Minister of Finance, got the project off the
ground with a little "creative bookkeeping".
. . . Keirstin's aunt, reporter/editor for the newspaper in Cork, wrote
the stirring articles that kept public money coming in.
. . . Emmaline's uncle "liberated" some 'Shark' floats from their storage
under all too "casual" security at a Royal Navy base.
. . . Coner's and Monika's parents, engineering students at the University
in Cork, designed the ventral fin that enabled Hurricane to turn tightly
at sea level, even on floats.
. . . Ryan's uncle, a welder, did much of the conversion, using files
his aunt Molly brought back about the unfinished Hurricane, and later
Supermarine Spitfire float conversions (which were finished).
. . . Lynsey's and Bernadette's uncles leased their big Dublin garage
for the work, and their aunt Kelly devised the racer's paint scheme in
classic Irish national colors: green for Catholics and the Irish landscape,
orange for the House of Orange Protestants, and white as the symbol of
hope for peace.
. . . Aoife's uncle used his PanAm seaplane base experience to lay
out a practice course and train the race pilots,
. . . Who were Roy's uncles, that flew Hurricanes for the RAF all during
the war, and were eager to pilot the racer for the glory of Ireland.
. . . A little get-together at Kevin's uncle's and aunt's pub in Killarney
persuaded the "Schneider 49" Board of Directors to release number ' 32':
the count of all the Irish counties, 26 in Eire and 6 "northern".
And all this I learned at the very first Irish pub I ever went to,
just this last summer when I went to see my #3 stepdaughter get married
to an Irishman. And all it cost me was a few 'rounds'! (Well, actually,
it might have been more than a few, although my memory seems a bit hazy!)
See: I really did stumble into "the luck of the Irish"!) Ireland's Schneider
'49 Entry: float-equipped 'Hawker Hurricane'
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