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Displaying items by tag: Irish National Sailing & Powerboat School

With the good weather finally starting to kick in, the team at the Irish National Sailing & Powerboat School are launching a series of special offers for the month of February across adult powerboating and yachting courses.

National Powerboat Certificate – February Bank Holiday Weekend Offer

To celebrate the new February Bank Holiday weekend, the school have a significant price reduction for anyone booking the National Powerboat Certificate course on Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th of February. You can save €100 with the course reduced to €250 per person. The course takes place in various powerboats, from tiller-steered boats, through the school fleet of 40hp and 50hp RIBs and their large 6.5m and 7.5m 150hp RIBs. More Information here

Intermediate Powerboat Course

The February Intermediate Powerboat Course is also discounted. Running on Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th of February, 9.30 am-5 pm each day, participants can avail of a reduced rate of €299, reduced from €370.

This offer is aimed at those needing a little extra encouragement to get back afloat this year. The course takes place in the larger RIB fleet and would call at Poolbeg, Howth, Malahide or Greystones. More Information here

An Irish National Sailing & Powerboat School Advanced Powerboat Course is running from Friday 10th February (6-9pm), Saturday 11th February (9.30am-9pm) and Sunday 12th February (12-5pm).An Irish National Sailing & Powerboat School Advanced Powerboat Course is running from Friday 10th February (6-9pm), Saturday 11th February (9.30am-9pm) and Sunday 12th February (12-5pm).

Advanced Powerboat Course

The final deal for powerboat training is for the upcoming Advanced Powerboat Course running Friday 10th February (6-9 pm), Saturday 11th February (9.30 am-9 pm) and Sunday 12th February (12-5 pm). This course is on sale for €325, reduced from €400. More details here 

Yachtmaster Theory Course

Always wanted to do your Yachtmaster Theory? Well, here’s a little nudge – with €75 off the course fees!

This course technically isn’t in February, but the team wanted to encourage sailors who’ve put off the training over the pandemic years. The course runs on Saturdays 9.30 am-5 pm, Tuesday evenings 6-9.30 pm and Thursdays 6-9.30 pm in March:

Thursday 2nd, Saturday 4th, Tuesday 7th, Thursday 9th, Saturday 11th, Tuesday 14th, Thursday 16th, Saturday 18th, Tuesday 21st, Thursday 23rd. The assessment will take place on Saturday, 25th March.

Bookings are now open at the reduced price of €450 here

The full schedule of teaching is now underway and the team are looking forward to welcoming new and returning sailors and powerboaters in 2023. The office is also open Monday to Saturday and all are welcome to call up or drop in if they've any questions about any training.

Published in INSS

This past Monday (30 March), the Irish National Sailing & Powerboat School launched Sailing School from Home — a series of free short theory lecture videos on topics ranging from kids’ sailing to powerboating, yachting and shore-based programmes.

“We hope that those missing the water can get something from what we’ve got in store, and that they’ll help everyone once we’re all back afloat,” the Dun Laoghaire-based school said in its Facebook post introducing the initiative.

The first in the series, released on Monday, is an introduction to electronic navigation delivered by chief instructor Kenneth Rumball. This was followed yesterday (Wednesday 1 April) by dinghy instructor Fiona Hederman explaining the coming alongside manoeuvre.

Kenneth Rumball has also shared a wide range of his favourite sailing videos to tide you over until the next lesson.

And before the week’s end, the INSS intends to launch a full resource pack on INSS.ie mainly for Junior Club Saturday sailors, detailing the entire theory syllabus of the junior sailing scheme.

Published in INSS

#INSS - Owing to a late cancellation, the Irish National Sailing & Powerboat School is overing a discounted rate for two remaining places on its Competent Crew course setting sail next Monday 19 February.

Normally priced at €699, the last two spots are available for only €499 for the five-fay course along the East Coast, paired with the parallel Coastal Skipper Course.

More details on the course can be found HERE, including how to book. But act fast as they won’t be available for long!

Published in INSS

The Irish National Sailing & Powerboat School will run a series of yachting programmes on a trial basis from Malahide in County Dublin this year. The schedule will include the introductory RYA Start Yachting Course, the 5-day RYA Competent Crew Course and the RYA Day Skipper, for aspiring skippers. Course will run from Malahide Marina, where we are also running a schedule of Irish Sailing Powerboat Programmes.

The expansion from Dun Laoghaire has been facilitated by the recent addition of the Elan 36, Dreamcatcher to the yacht training fleet and builds upon a significant increase in demand for this type of training.

Speaking about the new Malahide base, Alistair Rumball, originally from the area, having started his sailing on the estuary says “It’s a lifetime’s ambition realised. In my teaching opinion, Broad Meadows, the Estuary and the coastal area are most wonderful sailing areas and I’m delighted to be back!”

Alistair Rumball INSSAlistair Rumball of the INSS is back in Malahide Photo: Afloat.ie

INSS Malahide Sailing Course Information:

  • Start Yachting Course
  • Competent Crew Course
  • Day Skipper Course
  • Powerboat Courses

The Irish National Sailing & Powerboat School is Ireland’s largest sailing and powerboat training provider and has operated out of Dun Laoghaire Harbour for 40 years. RYA Cruising Courses, including Start Yachting, Competent Crew, Day Skipper, Coastal Skipper and Yachtmaster are conducted on board the school fleet of training yachts.
In addition to this training, the school runs a busy programme of adult introductory dinghy, yacht and powerboat courses, as well as children’s sailing course throughout school holidays and at weekends during the school year.

For more information: Irish National Sailing & Powerboat School Glyn Williams Ph: 01 2844195 [email protected]

Published in INSS

Sharks in Irish waters

Irish waters are home to 71 species of shark, skates and rays, 58 of which have been studied in detail and listed on the Ireland Red List of Cartilaginous fish. Irish sharks range from small Sleeper sharks, Dogfish and Catsharks, to larger species like Frilled, Mackerel and Cow sharks, all the way to the second largest shark in the world, the Basking shark. 

Irish waters provide a refuge for an array of shark species. Tralee Bay, Co. Kerry provides a habitat for several rare and endangered sharks and their relatives, including the migratory tope shark, angel shark and undulate ray. This area is also the last European refuge for the extremely rare white skate. Through a European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) project, Marine Institute scientists have been working with fishermen to assess the distribution, diversity, and monthly relative abundance of skates and rays in Tralee, Brandon and Dingle Bays.

“These areas off the southwest coast of Ireland are important internationally as they hold some of the last remaining refuges for angel shark and white skate,” said Dr Maurice Clarke of the Marine Institute. “This EMFF project has provided data confirming the critically endangered status of some species and provides up-to-date information for the development of fishery measures to eliminate by-catch.” 

Irish waters are also home to the Black Mouthed Catshark, Galeus melastomus, one of Ireland’s smallest shark species which can be found in the deep sea along the continental shelf. In 2018, Irish scientists discovered a very rare shark-nursery 200 nautical miles off the west coast by the Marine Institute’s ROV Holland 1 on a shelf sloping to 750 metres deep. 

There are two ways that sharks are born, either as live young or from egg casings. In the ‘case’ of Black Mouthed Catsharks, the nursery discovered in 2018, was notable by the abundance of egg casings or ‘mermaid’s purses’. Many sharks, rays and skate lay eggs, the cases of which often wash ashore. If you find an egg casing along the seashore, take a photo for Purse Search Ireland, a citizen science project focusing on monitoring the shark, ray and skate species around Ireland.

Another species also found by Irish scientists using the ROV Holland 1 in 2018 was a very rare type of dogfish, the Sail Fin Rough Shark, Oxynotus paradoxus. These sharks are named after their long fins which resemble the trailing sails of a boat, and live in the deep sea in waters up to 750m deep. Like all sharks, skates and rays, they have no bones. Their skeleton is composed of cartilage, much like what our noses and ears are made from! This material is much more flexible and lighter than bone which is perfect for these animals living without the weight of gravity.

Throughout history sharks have been portrayed as the monsters of the sea, a concept that science is continuously debunking. Basking sharks were named in 1765 as Cetorhinus maximus, roughly translated to the ‘big-nosed sea monster’. Basking sharks are filter feeders, often swimming with their mouths agape, they filter plankton from the water.

They are very slow moving and like to bask in the sun in shallow water and are often seen in Irish waters around Spring and early Summer. To help understand the migration of these animals to be better able to understand and conserve these species, the Irish Basking Shark Group have tagged and mapped their travels.

Remarkably, many sharks like the Angel Shark, Squatina squatina have the ability to sense electricity. They do this via small pores in their skin called the ‘Ampullae of Lorenzini’ which are able to detect the tiny electrical impulses of a fish breathing, moving or even its heartbeat from distances of over a kilometre! Angel sharks, often referred to as Monkfish have a distinctively angelic shape, with flattened, large fins appearing like the wings of an angel. They live on the seafloor in the coastal waters of Ireland and much like a cat are nocturnal, primarily active at night.

The intricate complexity of shark adaptations is particularly noticeable in the texture of their skin. Composed of miniscule, perfectly shaped overlapping scales, the skin of shark provides them with protection. Often shark scales have been compared to teeth due to their hard enamel structure. They are strong, but also due to their intricate shape, these scales reduce drag and allow water to glide past them so that the shark can swim more effortlessly and silently. This natural flawless design has been used as inspiration for new neoprene fabric designs to help swimmers glide through the water. Although all sharks have this feature, the Leafscale Gulper Shark, Centrophorus squamosus, found in Ireland are specifically named due to the ornate leaf-shape of their scales.