Why Is It Called The Spinnaker? The Story Behind the Name

It's one of the most distinctive pub names on the Irish coast. But where does "spinnaker" actually come from — and why does it fit a harbour bar in Dunmore East so perfectly?

A sail with a mysterious origin

A spinnaker is a type of sail — the large, balloon-like, brightly coloured one you see billowing out in front of a yacht when the wind is behind it. Designed for sailing downwind, it's made from lightweight nylon and attached at only three points, which is why sailors say a spinnaker is flown rather than set.

But where does the word itself come from? That's where the story gets interesting.

The most widely cited origin traces the spinnaker to 1865, when a racing yacht called Sphinx first flew one on the Solent, off the southern coast of England. The word "spinnaker" appeared in print for the first time the following year — in the August 1866 edition of the Yachting Calendar and Review. Sphinx was reportedly mispronounced by sailors as "Spinx," and the new sail associated with her became "the Spinx-aker" — which quickly softened into spinnaker.

"Some dictionaries suggest that the origin of the word could be traced to the first boat to commonly fly a spinnaker, a yacht called Sphinx, mispronounced as Spinx." — Wikipedia, Spinnaker article, citing Yachting Calendar and Review, August 1866

The man they called "Spinnaker Gordon"

A second theory — and one with more character — involves a yachtsman named William Gordon, owner of the racing yacht Niobe. According to this account, Gordon was experimenting with a new, larger foresail to give his boat more speed. When the sail went up, a crewman reportedly remarked: "Now there's a sail to make her spin."

That phrase — "spin maker" — stuck, and over time it became spinnaker. Gordon was so associated with the sail that he became known in yachting circles as "Spinnaker Gordon".

Whatever the true origin — and Merriam-Webster's dictionary notes frankly that the etymology is simply unknown — the spinnaker became one of the most iconic pieces of kit in sailing. It's the sail that signals speed, freedom, and running before the wind with everything you've got.

Why the name fits Dunmore East

If you're going to name a harbour bar after any piece of sailing equipment, the spinnaker is the right choice. Not the anchor (too static), not the rudder (too technical), not even the mainsail. The spinnaker is the show-off sail — the one that fills with colour when the conditions are right and the boat is flying.

Dunmore East has been a working harbour since at least 1745, when Charles Smith noted it as a fishing port in his History of Waterford. By 1776 there was already a fleet of fifty fishing boats operating out of the village. The harbour as it stands today was built between 1818 and 1832 by the Scottish engineer Alexander Nimmo, who also built Limerick's Sarsfield Bridge — a project that eventually cost £108,000 (well over Nimmo's original £20,000 estimate).

The Waterford Harbour Sailing Club has been based in Dunmore East since 1934. With around 250 members, it regularly hosts dinghy events and welcomes visiting yachts to a designated pontoon. In summer, the harbour fills with boats — and the spinnakers fill with wind.

A pub called The Spinnaker, sitting above that harbour, isn't just a name. It's a statement about what this place is.

The spinnaker as a symbol

Sailors will tell you that flying a spinnaker requires commitment. You can't half-heartedly deploy one — once it's up, it's up, and the boat will fly or the sail will collapse in a heap. There's something in that which captures the spirit of a good harbour pub: all in, fully open, making the most of whatever the day brings.

The name also carries a visual quality that suits the setting. Spinnakers are almost always brilliantly coloured — reds, blues, yellows, stripes — precisely because they need to be visible at sea. Against the deep navy of Waterford Harbour and the grey-green of the Irish coast, a spinnaker is the thing you see first.

That visibility, that character, is what The Spinnaker Bar has always traded on. A landmark on the Dunmore East waterfront — the kind of place you orient yourself by when you're coming in from the sea, or driving down from Waterford city, or simply looking for a pint with a harbour view.

A name that earns its place

Pub names in Ireland rarely come from nowhere. The best ones are rooted in something real — the land, the trade, the history of the place. The Spinnaker earns its name every summer when the sailing club is active and the harbour is busy, and it holds onto it through the winter when the boats are out of the water and the bar is the warmest thing for miles.

Whether William Gordon's crewman coined the word in 1865, or whether it drifted from the hull of a yacht called Sphinx on the Solent, the spinnaker has been part of sailing culture for over 160 years. On the coast of Waterford, in a village that has lived by the sea since the Iron Age, the name feels exactly right.