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Displaying items by tag: Bumper season

It will be a bumper season in Killybegs Harbour as an unprecedented 28 cruise ships are scheduled to visit Co. Donegal, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The record total of cruise ships including 11 maiden calls will bring 50,000 visitors to the town and surrounding attractions in the north-west. With this level of visitors, the cruise season easily surpasses that of last year when 23 cruise ships arrived with 20,000 passengers.

In total the combined length of this year's cruise ships will be more than 6000m and 19 of them will each be more than 200m long. Handling these callers will be Killybegs based Sinbad Marine which will be acting as agents for the cruiseships. 

At 326m, the longest cruise ship will be Norwegian Getaway which has a gross tonnage of 145,655 and a capacity for 3,963 passengers 1,646 crew. The giant cruise ship operated by Norwegian Cruise Line is due to call much later in the season in September.

A fleetmate the 294m Norwegian Star is however to open this year's season on 16th May. The same ship as Afloat reported is to close out the season off Dun Laoghaire Harbour in October.

Norwegian Star will be the most frequent caller to Killybegs with four visits stretching beyond that of Norwegian Getaway's once off aforementioned call in the Autumn.

Amongst the other cruise callers to Killybegs will be Ambience of UK based operator Ambassador Cruise Line which as Afloat reported was launched last year. The 70,235 gross tonnage ship then had made debut calls to Belfast and Cobh in Cork Harbour.

The 1,400 passenger capacity cruise ship recently returned to the southern port, marking the first caller of the season.

Published in Cruise Liners

The GP14 is a popular sailing dinghy, with well over 14,000 boats built.

The class is active in the UK, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, Sri Lanka and parts of north-eastern USA, and the GP14 can be used for both racing and cruising. 

Designed by Jack Holt in 1949, with the assistance of the Dovey Yacht Club in Aberdyfi. The idea behind the design was to build a General Purpose (GP) 14-foot dinghy which could be sailed or rowed, capable of also being powered effectively by a small outboard motor, able to be towed behind a small family car and able to be launched and recovered reasonably easily, and stable enough to be able to lie to moorings or anchor when required. Racing soon followed, initially with some degree of opposition from Yachting World, who had commissioned the design, and the boat soon turned out to be an outstanding racing design also.

The boat was initially designed with a main and small jib as a comfortable family dinghy. In a design philosophy that is both practical and highly redolent of social attitudes of the day the intention was that she should accommodate a family comprising parents plus two children, and specifically that the jib should be modest enough for "Mum" or older children to handle, while she should perform well enough to give "Dad" some excitement when not taking the family out. While this rig is still available, and can be useful when using the boat to teach sailing, or for family sailing, and has some popularity for cruising, the boat is more commonly seen with the full modern rig of a mainsail, genoa and spinnaker. Australian boats also routinely use trapezes.

GP14 Ireland Event Dates 2023

  • O'Tiarnaigh (Apr 22-23) Blessington Sailing Club
  • Ulsters (May 20-21) East Antrim Boat Club
  • Munsters (Jun 17-18) Tralee Bay Sailing Club
  • Leinsters (Jul 7-9) Dun Laoghaire Regatta
  • SOYC (Aug 19-20) Rush Sailing Club
  • Nationals (Sep 1-3) Sutton Dinghy Club
  • Hot Toddy (Sep 30-Oct 1) Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club

 

At A Glance – GP14 Dinghy Specifications

Crew 2
Draft 1,200 mm (47 in)
Hull weight 132.9 kg
LOA 4.27 m (14 ft)
Beam 1.54 m
Spinnaker area 8.4 m2
Upwind sail area 12.85 m2

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