Forty years ago, when Alistair Rumball started the Irish National Sailing & Powerboat School the fleet comprised of four Darragh 14 sailing dinghies, one 21ft Sherrif Day Sailor and a 15ft O’Sullivan “Crash Boat” with a 9.9hp engine.
The school was based on Dun Laoghaire's Lower George’s street in a small building and had a small yard out the back, large enough to fit one or two of the fleet into it at a time. A look back at those early days is contained in WM Nixon's profile of Alistair here.
Fast forward 40 years, and the small introductory programmes have expanded to include a busy marine services division for film and television, with titles such as “Saving Private Ryan”, “Robin Hood”, “PS I Love You” and “The Guard” part of the show reel.
The largest, and currently on-going project, is the TV series “Vikings” filmed in Ireland at locations including Lugala, Loch Dan and off Wicklow head. Alistair head’s the Irish National Sailing & Powerboat School’s Marine Services Division which, not only provides marine co-ordination for up to 200 cast and crew on the water, but also organises all the logistics of getting countless craft, including 50ft Viking Ships, onto location.
Check out a few of the videos for a flavour of this work…
Delivery of Viking Longboat to Wood Quay (during Friday evening rush hour)
Launching a Fleet in the Wicklow Mountains!
Viking Battle in Dun Laoghaire Harbour
Test Sailing a Small Longboat
As Afloat.ie previously reported, Alistair will be reliving 40 years of teaching, both students and Vikings, on Wednesday the 18th of April at 8pm at the INSS Clubhouse on the West Pier in Dun Laoghaire. The talk is titled “A Life in the Irish National Sailing School”. All are very welcome to attend.