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Displaying items by tag: A Class tallships

At nearly 100 years old, Norway's oldest tallship, the sail training three-masted steel barque Statsraad Lehmkuhl is to call to Dublin Port next week, writes Jehan Ashmore.
Built in 1914, the 321" long vessel is also the largest, compared to the Nordic state's other A-class tallships, the 216" Sørlandet (1927) and the 205" Christian Radich (1937) which took part in the Waterford Tall Ships Race.

STV Statsraad Lehmkuhl is scheduled to arrive in Dublin Bay on Thursday afternoon where she will enter through the port's East-Link lift toll-bridge and berth at Sir John Rogerson's Quay. She departed Bergen last Thursday and is currently heading for Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis.

She was originally christened Grossherzog Fridrich August when completed at the J.C. Tecklenborgwerft yard in Bremerhaven as a sail training ship for the German merchant navy.

In 1923 she changed hands and began a career with the Norwegian Shipowners Association on the initiative of the state Kritoffer Lehmkuhl. The vessel was renamed in his honour due to Lehmkuhl's dedication to the cause of cadetship programmes and his contribution in creating an independent Norwegian government in 1905.

She was transferred to the Bergen Schoolship Association in 1924. After many years serving the association the vessel was donated in 1978 to the Statsraad Lehmkuhl Foundation, an organisation also based in the country's second largest city.

Published in Tall Ships

Tom Dolan, Solo Offshore Sailor

Even when County Meath solo sailor Tom Dolan had been down the numbers in the early stages of the four-stage 2,000 mile 2020 Figaro Race, Dolan and his boat were soon eating their way up through the fleet in any situation which demanded difficult tactical decisions.

His fifth overall at the finish – the highest-placed non-French sailor and winner of the Vivi Cup – had him right among the international elite in one of 2020's few major events.

The 33-year-old who has lived in Concarneau, Brittany since 2009 but grew up on a farm in rural County Meath came into the gruelling four-stage race aiming to get into the top half of the fleet and to underline his potential to Irish sailing administrators considering the selection process for the 2024 Olympic Mixed Double Offshore category which comes in for the Paris games.