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Displaying items by tag: missing

#Missing - TheJournal.ie reports that the body of a man who went missing last weekend has been found in a Cavan river.

Donal Greene, 22, was last seen around 5am last Saturday morning (28 February) near Ballyconnell, Co Cavan, close to the Fermanagh border, and his disappearance prompted a wide-ranging search operation.

But yesterday afternoon (Saturday 7 March) it was confirmed that his body was round at Derrycassan Lough on the course of the Woodford River.

TheJournal.ie has more on the story HERE.

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#LoughErne - Police have recovered a body in Lough Erne believed to be that of a Monaghan man missing since December.

As previously reported on Afloat.ie, Kieran McAree was thought to have entered the lough after abandoning his car in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh on 17 December.

By early January search teams were focused on recovering the body, but the local community continued to rally by joining the search in their hundreds to cover a wide area of the lough.

Now the Belfast Telegraph reports that a body believed to be that of the 23-year-old was found yesterday lunchtime (18 February) at the Round O jetty on the River Erne.

Published in News Update

#Missing - BBC News reports that two bodies have been recovered from the sea in the search for four fishermen whose trawler went missing in the English channel this week.

Lifeboat crews from Dungeness, Dover and Hastings RNLI stations yesterday (29 January) resumed their part in a major search for the Belgian fishing boat, which vanished from radio contact on Wednesday (28 January) some 10 miles south of Dungeness.

They joined search and rescue helicopters, vessels from the French authorities, a Trinity House boat and several other fishing trawlers in what was expected to be "a long, protracted search of the channel", according to RNLI divisional operations manager Allen Head.

At 3pm yesterday debris was identified 20 miles southeast of Dungeness, in French territorial waters, and the lifeboats continued to search the area until they were recalled by the coastguard.

However later in the evening two bodies were discovered in the sea off Boulogne in northern France, some 30 miles across the channel from Dungeness. BBC News has more on the story HERE.

Published in News Update

#Missing - On New Year's Day emergency teams entered the third day of a search and rescue operation on the north Down coast for a woman missing from her Bangor home since Monday 29 December.

According to the Belfast Telegraph, a member of the public reported that the woman – in her early 30s, and believed to have experienced a recent bereavement – had swum out into open water, leaving a bag of clothes at a pier in the town on the southern shore of Belfast Lough.

A major search operation was launched with the coastguard and RNLI lifeboats joined by Lagan Search and Rescue, a fishery patrol and a PSNI helicopter, but this was scaled back on Wednesday to two search boats and a team of coastguard volunteers searching on land.

Elsewhere in Northern Ireland, the search for a missing Monaghan man in Enniskillen entered its 17th day yesterday (2 January), with the Belfast Telegraph highlighting the "extraordinary" level of community support behind the volunteer effort.

Kieran McAree is thought to have entered Lough Erne after abandoning his car in the Fermanagh town in the early hours of 17 December, and now the search is focused on recovering his body.

But even as recently as last weekend more than 300 people joined in the search in their own boats and kayaks to cover a wide area of the lough, with PSNI Constable Gavin Huey telling the Impartial Reporter: "This is the biggest search I have ever witnessed on Lough Erne."

Published in News Update
11th November 2014

Body Recovered Off Howth Pier

#Howth - BreakingNews.ie reports that a body has been found near Howth Pier earlier today (Tuesday 11 November).

Though the identity has not yet been confirmed, gardaí said they have since stood down their search in tandem with Howth Coast Guard for missing 38-year-old Catherine O'Reilly.

The Clontarf woman was last seen on Thursday (6 November), and her car was found at the pier yesterday afternoon.

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#Missing - Search and rescue teams have been combing the coastline around Brighton for a missing yachtsman after his yacht was found drifting in the southern English town's marina late last night.

According to Yachting & Boating World, fears for the missing man's safety grew after an RNLI crew member who boarded the 70ft Sunseeker found no sign of life, despite the instruments being on and the engine still being warm.

The search has spread out from Brighton Marina and environs to some miles offshore into the English Channel in what were described as "challenging conditions" overnight for lifeboat volunteers, with the search suspended before lunchtime today.

As the Eastbourne Herald reports, the missing yachtsman is believed to be Leonard George King from Alfriston in East Sussex, who failed to return home from a planned trip yesterday.

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#Missing - Gardaí have said they are satisfied that a body recovered from the River Boyne yesterday afternoon (Saturday 23 August) is that of missing Meath man John Ryan, as The Irish Times reports.

The remains of the 20-year-old – who had been missing from Mornington in Co Meath since last Tuesday – were removed from the Boyne by Drogheda River Rescue during a search, and are expected to be positively identified today.

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#Surfing - The family of an Irish surfer in Australia who went missing after he and two friends were pulled out to sea by a rip current have expressed their hope that he will be returned to them.

As previously reported on Afloat.ie, the incident prompted a major search and rescue effort in treacherous conditions off Tallow Beach on Byron Bay, south of the Gold Coast in New South Wales last Saturday morning (19 July).

The missing man has since been named by Independent.ie as 20-year-old Stuart Butler from Santry, who had joined two friends, Levi Fahrenholtz (25) from the US and Mike Fuller (19) from England to go boarding at the popular surfing spot.

Fuller managed to reach nearby rocks when the rip current pulled them away from the beach, and Fahrenholz was later rescued after he was swept around Cape Byron, but all trace of Butler's whereabouts was lost.

The North Dubliner is officially listed as a missing person, though it's been confirmed that the search effort is "now a body recovery operation".

Independent.ie has more on the story HERE.

Published in Surfing

#Surfing - The Irish Times reports that the search for an Irish surfer missing since Saturday morning (19 July) off Cape Byron in Australia was suspended earlier today in fading light and treacherous conditions.

The 19-year-old was surfing with two friends when they got caught in a rip current near Tallow Beach, south of the Gold Coast in New South Wales.

One of the two rescued, aged 26, was helped from the water unharmed, while the other, aged 20, was found on nearby rocks with minor injuries.

Local surf clubs have joined in the search and rescue operation attended by helicopters and jet ski crews. The Irish Times has more on the story HERE.

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#Diving - Search teams have found the body of a diver who went missing off West Cork early yesterday (2 July) after an incident that lead to the death of another diver.

As previously reported on Afloat.ie, a major search and rescue operation was launched after the accident at a wreck site off the Baltimore area.

According to Independent.ie, the two deceased men were in their 60s and understood to be experienced diving enthusiasts, who had been exploring the wreck of a German U-Boat that sank off Castlehaven in 1945.

Both men, from England, were described as regular visitors to the Baltimore area since the late 1970s.

Independent.ie has more on the story HERE.

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Page 8 of 13

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Up to 500 boats regularly compete.

Up to 70 different yacht clubs are represented.

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

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.

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.

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

©Afloat 2020