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4th November 2011

Marine Minister Showcases Galway at Volvo Race Start

#VOLVO OCEAN RACE – As the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-2012 kicks off tomorrow (5 November) from Alicante in Spain, Minister for Agriculture, Marine and Food Simon Coveney TD joined Tourism Ireland today, at a reception for key Spanish and international media contacts. As previously reported by Afloat.ie this week the event, which took place in the Volvo Ocean Race Village in Alicante, was an excellent opportunity to showcase Galway and Ireland as a fantastic holiday destination, kicking off Tourism Ireland's publicity drive around the world during the nine-month race to reach a huge audience of potential holidaymakers.

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Mike Sanderson, skipper of Team Sanya, the Chinese/Irish boat; Simon Coveney TD, Minister for Agriculture, Marine and Food; Knut Frostad, CEO of the Volvo Ocean Race; and Barbara Wood, Tourism Ireland's manager in Spain, at the Tourism Ireland reception in Alicante, prior to the departure of the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12 tomorrow

The Volvo Ocean Race attracts huge publicity around the world – with billions of people around the globe seeing it on TV, reading about it and tuning in to hear about it on the radio. Over the coming months, Tourism Ireland will be working in key markets where the race stops, to ensure that Galway and Ireland are in the spotlight.

Niall Gibbons said: "The Volvo Ocean Race attracts huge publicity around the world and with Galway due to host the grand finale, there's an ideal opportunity to showcase Galway and the west, and the many attractions that the island of Ireland has to offer as a holiday destination. The event is a great 'hook' for Tourism Ireland to reach a huge audience of potential holidaymakers."

Galway will host the final stopover of the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-2012 in July of next year. The 2009 stopover of the Volvo Ocean Race in Galway brought 40,500 international visitors to the city, as well as 269 journalists from around the world.

Published in Ocean Race

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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