Displaying items by tag: Upper River Lee

27th December 2023

Sorry Status of Salmon in Upper River Lee Is ‘Environmental Catastrophe’

Writing to Afloat.ie, reader Joan Twomey bemoans the lack of attention on the sorry status of salmon on the upper River Lee

It is heartening to read about so much EU and Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) collaboration regarding Greenland salmon (Afloat.ie, 2 November 2023).

I wonder if they could do something about the environmental catastrophic actions of our own ESB semi-State body over the last 50-plus years on our Irish salmon on the upper Lee River catchment area.

Salmon are now practically extinct in this area — and in Lough Allua, the Bealaphadeen Stream and surrounding streams and rivers. Nothing is being said about this and very little is being done.

The number of salmon getting past the dams is dismal, if the real numbers were ever revealed — from being able to catch salmon in your hands there were so many, to locals not seeing a single salmon in decades.

Yours sincerely,
Joan Twomey
Ballingeary, Co Cork

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Esailing & Virtual Sailing information

The concept of e-sailing, or virtual sailing, is based on a computer game sailing challenge that has been around for more than a decade.

The research and development of software over this time means its popularity has taken off to the extent that it has now become a part of the sailing seascape and now allows people to take an 'active part' in some of the most famous regattas across the world such as the Vendée Globe, Route du Rhum, Sydney Hobart, Volvo Ocean Race, America’s Cup and some Olympic venues too, all from the comfort of their armchair.

The most popular model is the 'eSailing World Championship'. It is an annual esports competition, first held in 2018 and officially recognised by World Sailing, the sports governing body.

The eSailing World Championship is a yearly competition for virtual sailors competing on the Virtual Regatta Inshore game.

The contract to run the event was given to a private company, Virtual Regatta that had amassed tens of thousands of sailors playing offshore sailing routing game following major offshore races in real-time.

In April 2020, the company says on its website that it has 35,000 active players and 500,000 regattas sailed.

Virtual Regatta started in 2010 as a small team of passionate designers, engineers, and entrepreneurs gathered around the idea that virtual sailing sports games can mix with real races and real skippers.