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Displaying items by tag: Berth 4

#portsandshipping – Dredging at the breakwater of Rosslare Europort of sand which built up in the storms of January and February this year is to begin during week commencing 30th November.

The movement of sand which took place along the breakwater over two weeks of severe storms in late January and early February 2014 was estimated up to 100,000 m3, unprecedented given the typical annual average levels of 11,000m3. As a result, Berth 4 has been out of use since then, and there have also been some navigation restrictions.

Iarnród Éireann, the Port Authority for Rosslare Europort, applied for and has now received a foreshore licence and a dredging licence to proceed with the dredging works to restore the Europort to normal working conditions.

The sand removed from the Europort by its contractor will be placed just outside low water at Rosslare Strand, and it is expected to be carried up onto the beach there to replenish it. This is a repetition of the strategy successfully followed at the last dredging in 2011, and follows consultation with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Environment and licence approval.

Iarnród Éireann has allocated funding of €1.4m for this project, and the dredging work is expected to take approximately three weeks. Normal port operations will continue throughout these works.

Published in Rosslare Europort

The Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) Information

The creation of the Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) began in a very low key way in the autumn of 2002 with an exploratory meeting between Denis Kiely, Jim Donegan and Fintan Cairns in the Granville Hotel in Waterford, and the first conference was held in February 2003 in Kilkenny.

While numbers of cruiser-racers were large, their specific locations were widespread, but there was simply no denying the numerical strength and majority power of the Cork-Dublin axis. To get what was then a very novel concept up and running, this strength of numbers had to be acknowledged, and the first National Championship in 2003 reflected this, as it was staged in Howth.

ICRA was run by a dedicated group of volunteers each of whom brought their special talents to the organisation. Jim Donegan, the elder statesman, was so much more interested in the wellbeing of the new organisation than in personal advancement that he insisted on Fintan Cairns being the first Commodore, while the distinguished Cork sailor was more than content to be Vice Commodore.

ICRA National Championships

Initially, the highlight of the ICRA season was the National Championship, which is essentially self-limiting, as it is restricted to boats which have or would be eligible for an IRC Rating. Boats not actually rated but eligible were catered for by ICRA’s ace number-cruncher Denis Kiely, who took Ireland’s long-established native rating system ECHO to new heights, thereby providing for extra entries which brought fleet numbers at most annual national championships to comfortably above the hundred mark, particularly at the height of the boom years. 

ICRA Boat of the Year (Winners 2004-2019)