Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

 

Displaying items by tag: New Route: DublinBristol

#NewRoute - Seatruck Ferries, the Irish Sea’s dedicated unaccompanied freight operator, has begun a weekend service connecting Dublin and Bristol.

The UK west coast port, Bristol is a major hub for car imports, and the connection allows car manufacturers to enter Ireland directly without the need for a UK trunk. The new service uses a Seatruck ro-ro vessel that would otherwise be idle at the weekend.

The operator which celebrates its 20th year has a network of three routes: Heysham – Warrenpoint (their first route) Dublin-Heysham and Dublin-Liverpool.

With the summer just gone, this is normally a quieter period, however, Seatruck Ferries have reported strong growth and new service offerings on its Irish Sea routes. During August alone, shipment of unaccompanied trailers was 24.9% increase compared with the previous year.

By operating to Heysham and Liverpool, this allows freight operators using unaccompanied trailer shipments to use their drivers and equipment more efficiently.

The English ports providing significant road mileage savings compared with the traditional transit by other operators through ports in Wales and Scotland.

Published in Ferry

Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Yacht Race Information

The biennial Dun Laoghaire to Dingle race is a 320-miles race down to the east coast of Ireland, across the south coast and into Dingle harbour in County Kerry.

The race is organised by the National Yacht Club.

It never fails to offer a full range of weather, wind and tide to the intrepid entrants, ranging from a 32ft cruiser to a 79ft all-out racer.

Three divisions are available to enter: cruiser (boats equipped with furlers), racing (the bulk of the fleet) and also two-handed.

D2D Course change overruled

In 2019, the organisers considered changing the course to allow boats to select routes close to shore by removing the requirement to go outside Islands and Lighthouses en route, but following input from regular participants, the National Yacht Club decided to stick with the tried and tested course route in order to be fair to large and smaller boats and to keep race records intact.

RORC Points Calendar

The 2019 race was the first edition to form part of the Royal Ocean Racing Club “RORC” calendar for the season. This is in addition to the race continuing as part of the ISORA programme. 

D2D Course record time

Mick Cotter’s 78ft Whisper established the 1 day and 48 minutes course record for the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race in 2009 and that time stood until 2019 when Cotter returned to beat his own record but only just, the Dun Laoghaire helmsman crossing the line in Kerry to shave just 20 seconds off his 2009 time.