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Displaying items by tag: Leinster

It was a clean sweep for Royal Cork Yacht Club junior sailors at the Optimist Leinster Dinghy Championships at the National Yacht Club last weekend. 

Justin Lucas won the Merrion Private sponsored event where 139–sailors registered including 29 from the host club.

Lucas's clubmates Harry Twomey and Harry Pritchard finished second and third respectively.

There were very challenging windy conditions, as Afloat.ie reported here, over the entire weekend and despite this five races took place over both days.

Race Officer for the main fleet was Con Murphy and Paddy Judge officiated for the regatta fleet.

Results are here

Published in Optimist
Tagged under

#Rowing: Breanna Larsen of Garda Boat Club set a fine personal best time of seven minutes 7.9 seconds at the Leinster Indoor Rowing competition at Garda Rowing Club on Saturday. Oblivious to the wind and rain outside, the women rowers from Garda, UCD and Trinity competed and set some good times. Trinity won the award for best female club, but Aileen Crowley of UCD took the under-23 title, clocking an impressive 7:13.30.  

Leinster Indoor Competition, Garda Boat Club, Saturday (Selected Results, 2,000m unless stated) Full Results Attached

Men

Open: 1 D Kelly 6:17.8, 2 C McShane 6:54.8, 3 P Murphy 7:12.4. Novice (1,000): C Harrington 3:11.7. Jun 18: 1 N Beggan 6:51.8, 2 J Phelan 6:53.3, 3 A Lennon 6:56.0. Jun 16: R Quinn 6:54.9. 

Masters 30+: D Quinn 6:31.40. Non-Rower (1,000m); 2:59.8.

Women

Open: 1 B Larsen 7:07.90 (PB), M Moore 7:20.10, 3 S O’Brien 7:23.6. Under-23:  A Crowley 7:13.30. Junior 18: E Lambe 7:18.90, 2 C Feerick 7:29.6, 3 J Coleman 7:48.7. Jun 16: S Maxwell 7:49.6. Lightweight: G Crowe 7:33.90.

Novice (1,000m): B O’Brien 3:29.8. 

Published in Rowing

#WEATHER - Met Éireann is warning that more gale force winds will affect many parts of Ireland and the Irish Sea today (28 December).

According to the forecaster, stormy conditions over Connacht, Ulster and parts of north Leinster will see gale force westerly winds with gusts of between 100 and 130 km/h.

The worst winds are expected in exposed coastal and hilly areas of Ulster and Connacht. There is also an increased risk of flooding as a result of high astronomical tides combined with very high seas.

Published in Weather

Cruising off the east coast of Leinster this evening is the veteran cruiseship Marco Polo which is bound for the Scilly Isles off Land's End, writes Jehan Ashmore.

For those with an appreciation for the more traditional tiered deck profile compared to the bulky new giant cruiseships, the 22,080 tonnes vessel built as the Aleksandr Puskin at the Mathias-Thesen-Werft, East Germany, certainly represents a different era. 

The liner entered service in 1966 with the Baltic Shipping Company on their regular trans-Atlantic Montreal-Leningrad service. In 1975 she was converted for her new role as a full-time cruiseship. For a cut-away deck profile and description of facilities click here.

Presenting a distinctive profile with a pronounced flared bow and cruiser stern, she boasts the classic lines of a vessel nearing 50 years ship. Such ships are increasingly becoming a rare sight on the ocean waves.

She can take 850 passengers accommodated in 450 cabins. Her main dimensions reflect her ocean-going design noting her draft is 8.2m (26.9ft) with a length of 176.3m (578.4ft) and a beam of 23.6m (77.4ft). Crewing is divided between senior officers (international) and cruise staff and entertainers are both British and comprising of other nationalities.

In recent years Marco Polo served the German market but she now is run by Cruise & Maritime Voyages (CMV) on cruises from the UK.  The company also operate the Ocean Countess which first started out her days as Cunard Countess.

Published in Cruise Liners

Galway Port & Harbour

Galway Bay is a large bay on the west coast of Ireland, between County Galway in the province of Connacht to the north and the Burren in County Clare in the province of Munster to the south. Galway city and port is located on the northeast side of the bay. The bay is about 50 kilometres (31 miles) long and from 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) to 30 kilometres (19 miles) in breadth.

The Aran Islands are to the west across the entrance and there are numerous small islands within the bay.

Galway Port FAQs

Galway was founded in the 13th century by the de Burgo family, and became an important seaport with sailing ships bearing wine imports and exports of fish, hides and wool.

Not as old as previously thought. Galway bay was once a series of lagoons, known as Loch Lurgan, plied by people in log canoes. Ancient tree stumps exposed by storms in 2010 have been dated back about 7,500 years.

It is about 660,000 tonnes as it is a tidal port.

Capt Brian Sheridan, who succeeded his late father, Capt Frank Sheridan

The dock gates open approximately two hours before high water and close at high water subject to ship movements on each tide.

The typical ship sizes are in the region of 4,000 to 6,000 tonnes

Turbines for about 14 wind projects have been imported in recent years, but the tonnage of these cargoes is light. A European industry report calculates that each turbine generates €10 million in locally generated revenue during construction and logistics/transport.

Yes, Iceland has selected Galway as European landing location for international telecommunications cables. Farice, a company wholly owned by the Icelandic Government, currently owns and operates two submarine cables linking Iceland to Northern Europe.

It is "very much a live project", Harbourmaster Capt Sheridan says, and the Port of Galway board is "awaiting the outcome of a Bord Pleanála determination", he says.

90% of the scrap steel is exported to Spain with the balance being shipped to Portugal. Since the pandemic, scrap steel is shipped to the Liverpool where it is either transhipped to larger ships bound for China.

It might look like silage, but in fact, its bales domestic and municipal waste, exported to Denmark where the waste is incinerated, and the heat is used in district heating of homes and schools. It is called RDF or Refuse Derived Fuel and has been exported out of Galway since 2013.

The new ferry is arriving at Galway Bay onboard the cargo ship SVENJA. The vessel is currently on passage to Belem, Brazil before making her way across the Atlantic to Galway.

Two Volvo round world races have selected Galway for the prestigious yacht race route. Some 10,000 people welcomed the boats in during its first stopover in 2009, when a festival was marked by stunning weather. It was also selected for the race finish in 2012. The Volvo has changed its name and is now known as the "Ocean Race". Capt Sheridan says that once port expansion and the re-urbanisation of the docklands is complete, the port will welcome the "ocean race, Clipper race, Tall Ships race, Small Ships Regatta and maybe the America's Cup right into the city centre...".

The pandemic was the reason why Seafest did not go ahead in Cork in 2020. Galway will welcome Seafest back after it calls to Waterford and Limerick, thus having been to all the Port cities.

© Afloat 2020