Displaying items by tag: apex predator

30th September 2011

Bottlenose Dolphins Living On Ireland's East Coast

The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) has said that evidence suggests a pod of three bottlenose dolphins is living on the east coast of Ireland.

According to RTÉ News, the organisation as validated close to 200 sightings of the dolphins - one of whom was spotted off Co Down in October 2010 - along the Dublin and Wicklow coastline in the last year.

The IWDG's Páraig Whooley says that further analysis of theor movements show that they rarely travel north beyond Dalkey Island or south of Wicklow town, ind

icating a core range of 21 miles (33km).

http://www.iwdg.ie/article.asp?id=2492

"Remarkably, they seem to split their time evenly between their Dublin and Wicklow hotspots, thus making them extremely easy to locate, observe and photograph," he adds.

"In fact... the best way to find them other than checking this site, is probably to jump on a DART train in Dun Laoghaire bound for Greystones (or visa versa), making sure to look out the correct window."

While well known for being "boisterous, interactive and gregarious", bottlenose dolphins are also "indescriminate killers of porpoises and other dolphin species, with well-documented cases of infanticide".

Neither are they to be taken lightly by swimmers, with "a case load in Ireland of attacks on swimmers leading to serious injury, and at least one overseas case of [a bottlenose] killing a swimmer.

"It's nice to be able to boast of an apex predator lurking so close to the capital," adds Whooley.

RTÉ News has images of the dolphins in action off the south Dublin coastline HERE.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0930/dolphins.html

The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) has said that evidence suggests a pod of three bottlenose dolphins is living on the east coast of Ireland.

The IWDG's Pádraig Whooley says that further analysis of theor movements show that they rarely travel north beyond Dalkey Island or south of Wicklow town, indicating a core range of 21 miles (33km).

"Remarkably, they seem to split their time evenly between their Dublin and Wicklow hotspots, thus making them extremely easy to locate, observe and photograph," he adds.

Neither are they to be taken lightly by swimmers, with "a case load in Ireland of attacks on swimmers leading to serious injury, and at least one overseas case of [a bottlenose] killing a swimmer.

"It's nice to be able to boast of an apex predator lurking so close to the capital," says Whooley.

RTÉ News has images of the dolphins in action off the south Dublin coastline HERE.

Published in Marine Wildlife

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About the 29er Skiff Dinghy

The 29er is a one-design double-handed, single trapeze skiff for youth sailors.

There is an active class in Ireland, just one of the 38-countries from across all continents now racing the high-performance skiff.

The 29er is one of the latest dinghy classes to arrive in Ireland and has a 50/50 split between boys and girls.

The class like to describe the boat as "The most popular skiff for sailors who want to go fast!".

Derived from the Olympic class 49er class and designed by Julian Bethwaite the 29er was first produced in 1998.

Two sailors sail the 29er, one on trapeze.

The 6.25-metre high rig features a fractional asymmetrical spinnaker; a self-tacking jib decreases the workload of the crew, making manoeuvres more efficient and freeing the crew to take the mainsheet upwind and on two-sail reaches.

The 15.00 m2 spinnaker rigging set-up challenges crews to be fit and coordinated, and manoeuvres in the boat require athleticism due to its lack of inherent stability and the high speed with which the fully battened mainsail and jib power up.

The 74kg weight hull is constructed of fibreglass-reinforced polyester in a foam sandwich layout.

The fully battened mainsail and jib are made from a transparent Mylar laminate with orange or red Dacron trimming, while the spinnaker is manufactured from ripstop Nylon.

The mast is in three parts - an aluminium bottom and middle section, with a polyester-fibreglass composite tip to increase mast bend and decrease both overall weights, and the capsizing moment a heavy mast tip can generate. Foils are aluminium or fibreglass.

About the ILCA/Laser Dinghy

The ILCA, formerly known as the Laser, is the most produced boat in the world, with 220,000 units built since 1971.

It's easy to see why the single-handed dinghy has won the title of the most widely distributed boat of all time.

The Laser is a one-design dinghy, the hulls being identical but three rigs that can be used according to the size and weight of the sailor.

The class is international, with sailors from 120 countries. The boat has also been an Olympic class since 1996, being both the men's and women's singlehanded dinghy.

Three rigs are recognised by the International Laser Class Association (ILCA):

ILCA 4: sail of 4.70m2

ILCA 6: sail of 5.76 m2

ILCA 7: sail of 7.06 m2