Displaying items by tag: Afloat Calendar Dates

2nd July 2015

Summer of Heritage: Dun Laoghaire Seafront Memorials Tour

#SeafrontTours- The Seafront Memorials Tour is a free guided tour that is part of Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council's annual Summer of Heritage programme.

The first tour begins this Sunday 5 July and will be held every Sunday throughout the summer until 6 September.

Meeting Point: Queen Victoria Fountain, Dún Laoghaire.
Wheelchair accessible.

This is an outdoor event.

Enjoy a tour of the coastal memorials in Dún Laoghaire including the Queen Victoria Fountain, George IV Memorial, the mailboat Leinster's anchor,Christ the King, the Crimean War Cannon and the 1895 Lifeboat Disaster.

Tour Time Start: 11.30am
One tour per day
One event per week

Tour duration: 60 mins
Maximum capacity: 20 people

For more information on other events download the Summer of Heritage brochure here

Published in Dun Laoghaire Harbour News

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3rd December 2014

Table Quiz & Wine Tasting Fundraiser for National Maritime Museum

#Wine&TableQuiz- Come along for a fun night combining a Table Quiz & Christmas Wine Tasting on Thursday 11 December (doors open 7.15pm) at the Eblana Club (off Marine Road) in Dun Laoghaire. The festive evening is to raise funds for the local National Maritime Museum of Ireland.

A selection of wines to match your Christmas feast will be available to taste.

Following this there will be the Table Quiz (8.30pm). The familiar mix of obvious and obscure questions are guaranteed to infuriate all who take part.

Tickets for the festive fundraiser event are €10.00 each and available from the door. In addition for more information on bookings made by email [email protected] or by contacting (01) 2143 964

Published in Boating Fixtures

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26th November 2014

Fun-Fundraiser: Christmas Table Quiz Night in Aid of RNLI

#TableQuiz - The Glenua and friends monthly winter lectures for 2014/15 resumed last month in the Poolbeg Yacht & Boat Club, Dublin and instead of a talk for December, a Christmas Table-Quiz in aid of the RNLI is organised for Thursday 4 December at 8pm.

During last year's lecture season, a total €837 was raised for the RNLI. Kieran Cotter, Coxwain of the RNLI Baltimore lifeboat was presented with the donation from Mick O'Meara, President of Glenua.

So on this occasion, the fundraising efforts continue with the Christmas Table Quiz, an event which welcomes everyone to take part either solo or with friend at the venue in Ringsend.

A table of four is €40 and all is in good cause for the life-saving rescue service.

Joe Varley well known for his lectures over the years, has volunteered his services as Quizmaster. For further details contact 087 2129614.

Published in Boating Fixtures

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13th November 2014

Lecture: The Asgard, from Launch to Gun Running to Conservation

#AsgardLecture - The History of Asgard, from Launch to Gun Running to Conservation is the title of a lecture by Pat Murphy which is to take place in the National Maritime Museum of Ireland, Dun Laoghaire.

The lecture is on Thursday November 20th (8pm). Tickets costing €10 will be made available at the door opening at 7.30pm.

Murphy will tell the life of this famous yacht in Irish history from her launch in 1905 to current conservation in Collin's Barracks Museum.

Asgard undertook a 23 day voyage that centred on the dangerous mission to collect guns and ammunition for the Irish Volunteers. The landing of the arms took place in Howth Harbour in July 1914 and this historical event is described in detail with unique photographs.

The lecture will also feature Conor O'Brien's Kelpie and the Kilcoole landing.

In this centenary year of the anniversary of the Howth gunning event, the lecture will also cover commemorative celebrations.

In addition to tickets payable at the door, bookings can be made in advance by email: [email protected] and by contacting the NMMI on (01) 2143 964

For more details about the Maritime Institute of Ireland's museum which has a gift shop and café, visit: www.mariner.ie

Published in Boating Fixtures

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2nd November 2013

Lecture: The Ketch Ilen - Ireland's Sole Surviving Sail Trader

#LectureILEN - "The Ketch Ilen-Ireland's Sole Surviving Sail Trader" will be the public lecture presented by Gary Mac Mahon next Thursday (7 November) in the Poolbeg Yacht and Boat Club, Ringsend.

The talk which forms the members of Les Glénans & friends 2013/2014 lecture series starts at 20.00hrs in the Dublin docklands venue noting an entry fee of €5 in aid of the RNLI.

Ilen is a 56-ft sailing ketch that was built in 1926 in the Baltimore Fishery School Boatyard for the Falkland Islands Company. She was designed and sailed to the Falkland Islands by Conor O'Brien who in 1925 was the first Irishman to complete a circumnavigation of the world in the 42-ft ketch, Saoirse, also built in Baltimore.

The Ilen served seventy years as a trading vessel in the tempestuous seas of the South Atlantic before being brought back to Ireland in 1998.

Now being restored, she is the focal point for a remarkable maritime project embracing the A.K. Ilen School for wooden boatbuilding in Limerick and Hegarty's boatyard in Oldcourt.

Gary McMahon, in his illustrated presentation, will provide the background to the return of the Ilen to Ireland and the founding of the A.K. Ilen Company with Anthony Keane OSB.

It is an Irish-registered charity dedicated to education through the medium of sailing, very much in the spirit of the original aims of Glénans

Gary is a keen offshore sailor who publishes maritime books through the A.K. Ilen Company and will include Conor O'Brien and his exploits on Saoirse in his lecture.

For further details on this lecture contact: 087 2129614 and details for the Poolbeg Yacht, Boat Club & Marina visit: www.poolbegmarina.ie

Published in Ilen

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14th August 2013

Lockout Lectures: Dun Laoghaire & The Marine

#LockoutLectures – The 1913 Lockout –Dun Laoghaire & The Marine is the theme to a series of lectures to be held on Sunday 25 August in the Dun Laoghaire Club, 3 Eblana Avenue which is off Marine Road.

The afternoon event (donation request) is to be hosted by the Maritime Museum of Ireland which runs the nearby National Maritime Museum of Ireland and to where as previously reported this venue is run an exhibition on the 1913 Lockout.

The lecture programme in the Dun Laoghaire Club, is listed as follows:

12noon "Kingstown-Portrait of an Edwardian Seaport Town" – Peter Pearson

1pm "The 1913 Lockout –International Context" – Colin Whitson

2pm "Women in the 1913 Lockout" – Mary Muldowney

3pm "Dublin Dock Communities and the Legacy of 1913" – Joe Mooney

3.45pm "Dun Laoghaire in 1913 –Stronghold of Unionism or Frontier of New Unionism?" – Padraig Yeates

4.30pm "Patrick Moran: Trade Unionist, Sportsman and Patriot" – May Moran

5.15pm "Edward Lee –The 'Model Employer' – Mike Lee

If visiting the National Maritime Museum which is open every day 11am-5pm, noting admission fees, there is a gift shop and café in addition to wheelchair accessibility, though some areas have restricted access. For mor details visit:www.mariner.ie

Location, the museum is in the former Mariners Church on Haigh Terrace, which can be reached from Lower Georges Street or from the coast road, noting pedestrian access over the DART railway line (opposite the East Pier), or by strolling along The Metals.

Published in Dun Laoghaire Harbour News

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27th May 2013

Baroque Concert in Old Mariners Church

#BaroqueConcert – Dublin-based early music ensemble Respicio are to perform in the National Maritime Museum of Ireland (NMMI), Dun Laoghaire this Friday 31 May.

Come along to the hear music by Teleman, Bach & Graupner, starting at 8pm (tickets cost €10) in the unique surroundings of the maritime museum. The restored former Mariners Church, was awarded earlier this year the Best Museum / Restored Site at the 2012 Industrial Heritage Association of Ireland Awards.

The museum is (mostly) wheelchair accessible and during normal opening hours, 11am-5pm every day, there is a Museum Café serving hot snacks throughout. There is also a WiFi hotspot. For further information about the museum run by the Maritime Institute of Ireland visit: www.mariner.ie

Published in Boating Fixtures

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9th April 2013

Lecture: MSC Napoli – The Inside Story

#Lecture – The inside story of MSC Napoli, the containership which became the UK's largest, most complicated and most expensive shipwreck and salvage operation and will be the topic of a lecture held on Tuesday 23 April.

Robin Middleton CBE, former Secretary of State Representative of the United Kingdom, who took all the pivotal decisions during the disaster, will present the lecture in the National Maritime Museum of Ireland (NMMI) in Dun Laoghaire.

Lecture begins at 8:00 pm noting an admission fee of € 10. For bookings contact the maritime museum Tel: (01) 2143965, by email: [email protected]
For more information about the Maritime Institute of Ireland's maritime museum visit: www.mariner.ie

Published in Boating Fixtures

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21st March 2013

Concert: Chamber Choir from US to Sing in Maritime Museum

#ChoirConcert - A varied and exciting programme of accessible music from one of America's leading high school choirs, the Hood Valley River High School Choir is to be held in the Maritime Museum in Dun Laoghaire.

The evening will Include the Aurora Group, consisting of around 20 girls from the HRV choir will sing more modern and secular music next Thursday 28 March starting 8pm.
Tickets cost €10 per person and for a group rate of €7 pp (based on groups of 10 or more)

For further information and to book call: (01) 2143964 Email [email protected]

Published in Boating Fixtures

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7th March 2013

Lecture: ‘The Log of the Molly B' Sailing Around the World

#Lecture – Dubliner Pete Hogan, a well-known artist specialising in painting boats is to present a lecture titled "The Log of the Molly B - Building and sailing a gaff-rigged ketch around the World".

The lecture takes place next Wednesday 13 March at 20:00 in Poolbeg Yacht and Boat Club, Ringsend, in the heart of Dublin Port.

Pete has been sailing all his life usually out of Dun Laoghaire but also in the Clew Bay area of Mayo. He worked as a commercial fisherman, as a deck hand on yachts and in the office of a paper company. In 1975 he emigrated to Vancouver, Canada.

Three years later he said 'To hell with this. I'm going to build a boat... ' He built a 30 foot double ended gaff rigged ketch and sailed it through the Panama Canal and back to Ireland without motor or electronics.

He then sailed Molly B around the World by way of the infamous Cape Horn. Embarking on a third voyage, Molly B sank in a storm in the Mediterranean and he was lucky to survive.

Pete recently published an illustrated book about his adventures with Molly B and this forms the basis of his talk and slide show.

The talk is part of the les Glénans Irish Sector Winter Lecture Series. All are welcome. Entry fee of €5 in aid of the RNLI. For further details contact: 087 2129614

Published in Boating Fixtures

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Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta

From the Baily lighthouse to Dalkey island, the bay accommodates six separate courses for 21 different classes racing every two years for the Dun Laoghaire Regatta.

In assembling its record-breaking armada, Volvo Dun Laoghaire regatta (VDLR) became, at its second staging, not only the country's biggest sailing event, with 3,500 sailors competing, but also one of Ireland's largest participant sporting events.

One of the reasons for this, ironically, is that competitors across Europe have become jaded by well-worn venue claims attempting to replicate Cowes and Cork Week.'Never mind the quality, feel the width' has been a criticism of modern-day regattas where organisers mistakenly focus on being the biggest to be the best. Dun Laoghaire, with its local fleet of 300 boats, never set out to be the biggest. Its priority focussed instead on quality racing even after it got off to a spectacularly wrong start when the event was becalmed for four days at its first attempt.

The idea to rekindle a combined Dublin bay event resurfaced after an absence of almost 40 years, mostly because of the persistence of a passionate race officer Brian Craig who believed that Dun Laoghaire could become the Cowes of the Irish Sea if the town and the local clubs worked together. Although fickle winds conspired against him in 2005, the support of all four Dun Laoghaire waterfront yacht clubs since then (made up of Dun Laoghaire Motor YC, National YC, Royal Irish YC and Royal St GYC), in association with the two racing clubs of Dublin Bay SC and Royal Alfred YC, gave him the momentum to carry on.

There is no doubt that sailors have also responded with their support from all four coasts. Running for four days, the regatta is (after the large mini-marathons) the single most significant participant sports event in the country, requiring the services of 280 volunteers on and off the water, as well as top international race officers and an international jury, to resolve racing disputes representing five countries. A flotilla of 25 boats regularly races from the Royal Dee near Liverpool to Dublin for the Lyver Trophy to coincide with the event. The race also doubles as a RORC qualifying race for the Fastnet.

Sailors from the Ribble, Mersey, the Menai Straits, Anglesey, Cardigan Bay and the Isle of Man have to travel three times the distance to the Solent as they do to Dublin Bay. This, claims Craig, is one of the major selling points of the Irish event and explains the range of entries from marinas as far away as Yorkshire's Whitby YC and the Isle of Wight.

No other regatta in the Irish Sea area can claim to have such a reach. Dublin Bay Weeks such as this petered out in the 1960s, and it has taken almost four decades for the waterfront clubs to come together to produce a spectacle on and off the water to rival Cowes."The fact that we are getting such numbers means it is inevitable that it is compared with Cowes," said Craig. However, there the comparison ends."We're doing our own thing here. Dun Laoghaire is unique, and we are making an extraordinary effort to welcome visitors from abroad," he added. The busiest shipping lane in the country – across the bay to Dublin port – closes temporarily to facilitate the regatta and the placing of six separate courses each day.

A fleet total of this size represents something of an unknown quantity on the bay as it is more than double the size of any other regatta ever held there.

Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta FAQs

What is Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

Dun Laoghaire Regatta is Ireland's biggest sailing event. It is held every second Summer at Dun Laoghaire Harbour on Dublin Bay.

When is Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

Dun Laoghaire Regatta is held every two years, typically in the first weekend of July.

Where is Dun Laoghaire Regatta held?

As its name suggests, the event is based at Dun Laoghaire Harbour. Racing is held on Dublin Bay over as many as six different courses with a coastal route that extends out into the Irish Sea. Ashore, the festivities are held across the town but mostly in the four organising yacht clubs.

How big is Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

Dun Laoghaire Regatta is the largest sailing regatta in Ireland and on the Irish Sea and the second largest in the British Isles. It has a fleet of 500 competing boats and up to 3,000 sailors. Scotland's biggest regatta on the Clyde is less than half the size of the Dun Laoghaire event. After the Dublin city marathon, the regatta is one of the most significant single participant sporting events in the country in terms of Irish sporting events.

How old is Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

The modern Dublin Bay Regatta began in 2005, but it owes its roots to earlier combined Dublin Bay Regattas of the 1960s.

How many boats compete at Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

Up to 500 boats regularly compete.

How many yacht clubs are represented at Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

Up to 70 different yacht clubs are represented.

Where do the yachts come from to compete at Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

The Channel Islands, Isle of Man, England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Ireland countrywide, and Dublin clubs.

How many boats are visiting boats at Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

Nearly half the sailors, over 1,000, travel to participate from outside of Dun Laoghaire and from overseas to race and socialise in Dun Laoghaire.

What type of yachts race in Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

21 different classes are competing at Dun Laoghaire Regatta. As well as four IRC Divisions from 50-footers down to 20-foot day boats and White Sails, there are also extensive one-design keelboat and dinghy fleets to include all the fleets that regularly race on the Bay such as Beneteau 31.7s, Ruffian 23s, Sigma 33s as well as Flying Fifteens, Laser SB20s plus some visiting fleets such as the RS Elites from Belfast Lough to name by one.

What famous sailors race in Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

Some sailing household names are regular competitors at the biennial Dun Laoghaire event including Dun Laoghaire Olympic silver medalist, Annalise Murphy. International sailing stars are competing too such as Mike McIntyre, a British Olympic Gold medalist and a raft of World and European class champions.

How much does it cost to enter Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

There are different entry fees for different size boats. A 40-foot yacht will pay up to €550, but a 14-foot dinghy such as Laser will pay €95. Full entry fee details are contained in the Regatta Notice of Race document.

Where can spectators view Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

Spectators can see the boats racing on six courses from any vantage point on the southern shore of Dublin Bay. As well as from the Harbour walls itself, it is also possible to see the boats from Sandycove, Dalkey and Killiney, especially when the boats compete over inshore coastal courses or have in-harbour finishes.

How does Dun Laoghaire regatta compare to international regattas?

Very favourably. It is often compared to Cowes, Britain's biggest regatta on the Isle of Wight that has 1,000 entries. However, sailors based in the north of England have to travel three times the distance to get to Cowes as they do to Dun Laoghaire.

Why is Dun Laoghaire Regatta so unique?

Dun Laoghaire Regatta is unique because of its compact site offering four different yacht clubs within the harbour and the race tracks' proximity, just a five-minute sail from shore. International sailors also speak of its international travel connections and being so close to Dublin city. The regatta also prides itself on balancing excellent competition with good fun ashore.

Who organises Dun Laoghaire Regatta?

The Organising Authority (OA) of Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta is Dublin Bay Regattas Ltd, a not-for-profit company, beneficially owned by Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club (DMYC), National Yacht Club (NYC), Royal Irish Yacht Club (RIYC) and Royal St George Yacht Club (RSGYC).

What does Dun Laoghaire Regatta contribute to the local economy?

The Irish Marine Federation launched a case study on the 2009 Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta's socio-economic significance. Over four days, the study (carried out by Irish Sea Marine Leisure Knowledge Network) found the event was worth nearly €3million to the local economy over the four days of the event. Typically the Royal Marine Hotel and Haddington Hotel and other local providers are fully booked for the event.