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Displaying items by tag: Lightweight

#ROWING: The Afloat Rowers of the Month for May are Paul and Gary O’Donovan. The brothers from Skibbereen formed the Ireland lightweight double which finished fifth at the European Rowing Championships in Poznan in Poland. They produced a very good performance in their semi-final to take third and so qualify for the A Final. In that race, they won a battle for fifth with Turkey. The winning crew, France, produced a European best time. The lightweight double is an extremely competitive event, but the new Ireland crew has hit the ground running.

Rower of the Month awards: The judging panel is made up of Liam Gorman, rowing correspondent of The Irish Times and David O'Brien, Editor of Afloat magazine. Monthly awards for achievements during the year will appear on afloat.ie and the overall national award will be presented to the person or crew who, in the judges' opinion, achieved the most notable results in, or made the most significant contribution to rowing during 2015. Keep a monthly eye on progress and watch our 2015 champions list grow.

Published in Rowing

# RowerOfTheYear: Paul O’Donovan is the Afloat Rower of the Year for 2013. The scholarship student at UCD raced to a bronze medal in the lightweight single sculls the World Under-23 Championships at Linz-Ottensheim in Austria in July. The previous month the 19-year-old had made his mark as a senior international when the reached the A Final at the World Cup Regatta at Dorney Lake, the Olympic venue, finishing sixth.

For these feats the Skibbereen man won the Afloat Rower of the Month Awards for June and July. He is a worthy recipient of the Afloat Rower of the Year Award for 2013.

Rower of the Year: The judging panel is made up of Liam Gorman, rowing correspondent of The Irish Times and David O'Brien, Editor of Afloat magazine.

Published in Rower of the Year

Ireland’s lightweight double scull of Siobhan McCrohan and Claire Lambe finished fifth in their heat at the World Rowing Championships in Bled in Slovenia today. Britain won the race and took the direct route to the A/B semi-final, while Ireland move on to a repechage.

The Ireland lightweight quadruple scull of Niall Kenny, Michael Maher, Justin Ryan and Mark O’Donovan finished second in their heat. Germany took the one qualification place on offer.

World Rowing Championships, Bled, Slovenia – Day Two (Irish interest)

Men – Lightweight Quadruple Scull – Heat One (First Directly to A Final: rest to Repechage); 1 Germany 5:59.98, 2 Ireland (N Kenny, M Maher, J Ryan, M O’Donovan) 6:03.05, 3 United States 6:08.81, 4 Armenia 7:03.70

Women – Lightweight Double Scull – Heat Three (First Directly to A/B Semi-Final): 1 Britain 7:02.03; 2 New Zealand 7:02.88, 3 Netherlands 7:07.47, 4 Sweden 7:10.96, 5 Ireland (S McCrohan, C Lambe) 7:16.14, 6 Czech Republic 7:39.70.

Adaptive – Legs, Trunk and Arms Mixed Coxed Four – Heat One (First Two Directly to A/B Semi-Final): 1 Britain 3:28.27, 2 Ireland (A-M McDaid, S Caffrey, S Ryan, K du Toit; cox: H Arbuthnot) 3:35.33; 3 Brazil 3:43.52, 4 Poland 3:49.13, 5 South Africa 4:03.41, 6 Belarus 4:24.31.

Published in Rowing

Marine Institute Research Vessel Tom Crean

Ireland’s new marine research vessel will be named the RV Tom Crean after the renowned County Kerry seaman and explorer who undertook three major groundbreaking expeditions to the Antarctic in the early years of the 20th Century which sought to increase scientific knowledge and to explore unreached areas of the world, at that time.

Ireland's new multi-purpose marine research vessel RV Tom Crean, was delivered in July 2022 and will be used by the Marine Institute and other State agencies and universities to undertake fisheries research, oceanographic and environmental research, seabed mapping surveys; as well as maintaining and deploying weather buoys, observational infrastructure and Remotely Operated Vehicles.

The RV Tom Crean will also enable the Marine Institute to continue to lead and support high-quality scientific surveys that contribute to Ireland's position as a leader in marine science. The research vessel is a modern, multipurpose, silent vessel (designed to meet the stringent criteria of the ICES 209 noise standard for fisheries research), capable of operating in the Irish Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The Tom Crean is able to go to sea for at least 21 days at a time and is designed to operate in harsh sea conditions.

RV Tom Crean Specification Overview

  • Length Overall: 52.8 m
  • Beam 14m
  • Draft 5.2M 

Power

  • Main Propulsion Motor 2000 kw
  • Bow Thruster 780 kw
  • Tunnel thruster 400 kw

Other

  • Endurance  21 Days
  • Range of 8,000 nautical miles
  • DP1 Dynamic Positioning
  • Capacity for 3 x 20ft Containers

Irish Marine Research activities

The new state-of-the-art multi-purpose marine research vessel will carry out a wide range of marine research activities, including vital fisheries, climate change-related research, seabed mapping and oceanography.

The new 52.8-metre modern research vessel, which will replace the 31-metre RV Celtic Voyager, has been commissioned with funding provided by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine approved by the Government of Ireland.

According to Aodhán FitzGerald, Research Vessel Manager of the MI, the RV Tom Crean will feature an articulated boom crane aft (6t@ 10m, 3T@ 15m), located on the aft-gantry. This will be largely used for loading science equipment and net and equipment handling offshore.

Mounted at the stern is a 10T A-frame aft which can articulate through 170 degrees which are for deploying and recovering large science equipment such as a remotely operated vehicle (ROV’s), towed sleds and for fishing operations.

In addition the fitting of an 8 Ton starboard side T Frame for deploying grabs and corers to 4000m which is the same depth applicable to when the vessel is heaving but is compensated by a CTD system consisting of a winch and frame during such operations.

The vessel will have the regulation MOB boat on a dedicated davit and the facility to carry a 6.5m Rigid Inflatable tender on the port side.

Also at the aft deck is where the 'Holland 1' Work class ROV and the University of Limericks 'Etain' sub-Atlantic ROV will be positioned. In addition up to 3 x 20’ (TEU) containers can be carried.

The newbuild has been engineered to endure increasing harsher conditions and the punishing weather systems encountered in the North-East Atlantic where deployments of RV Tom Crean on surveys spent up to 21 days duration.

In addition, RV Tom Crean will be able to operate in an ultra silent-mode, which is crucial to meet the stringent criteria of the ICES 209 noise standard for fisheries research purposes.

The classification of the newbuild as been appointed to Lloyds and below is a list of the main capabilities and duties to be tasked by RV Tom Crean:

  • Oceanographic surveys, incl. CTD water sampling
  • Fishery research operations
  • Acoustic research operations
  • Environmental research and sampling operation incl. coring
  • ROV and AUV/ASV Surveys
  • Buoy/Mooring operations