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Displaying items by tag: Strangford Ferry

Plans to increase fares for passengers on the Strangford Ferry by as much as 32 per cent have provoked a strong reaction, as Belfast Live reports.

The RORO ferry operated by Northern Ireland’s Department for Infrastructure provides a crucial link across the Strangford Narrows between the village of Strangford and the town of Portaferry in Co Down.

But Stormont plans to raise fares across single and multi-journey tickets could see regular users of the ferry link paying an extra £400 a year.

The move has prompted a letter of objection from Ards and North Down Borough Council, with the increase described as “shocking” by one councillor.

Another councillor — the SDLP’s Joe Boyle, who forwarded the motion — argues that any price rise should be based on the prevailing rate of inflation, which in the UK is 3.9 per cent.

“Whilst it is accepted there has not been an increase in some years, for many of those years it has been seen as quite expensive. But a 30 to 32 percent increase, while many are still finding things difficult, is unacceptable,” Boyle says.

Belfast Live has more on the story HERE.

Published in Ferry

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)