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Displaying items by tag: Belfast Boat Club

#Rowing: Irish crews added four more wins to their haul over the weekend at the World Masters Regatta at Lake Velence in Hungary. The wins came on Saturday. Denis Crowley featured in a composite eight, which beat strong British opposition, and in a four – bringing his personal tally to eight wins. Brendan Smyth and Patrick Fowler of Commercial won in the double and Milo and Pat Murray of Cappoquin won the in the pair. A mixed eight finished second on Sunday.

World Masters Regatta, Lake Velence, Hungary (Selected Results; Irish interest; Winners)

Saturday

Men

Eight  (E – avg 55 or more): Galway, Belfast BC, Neptune, Clonmel, Commercial, Shannon (G Murphy, A McCallion, K McDonald, D Crowley, F O’Toole, O McGrath, G O’Neill, C Hunter, M McGlynn) 3:04.90

Four (D – avg 50 or more): Commercial, Neptune (B Smyth, F O’Toole, G Murphy, D Crowley) 3:24.72.

Pair (F – avg 60 or more): Cappoquin (P Murray, M Murray) 6:12.10.

Sculling, Double (C – avg 43 or more): Commercial (B Smyth, F Fowler) 3:28.39.

Published in Rowing

#Rowing: One of the leading Irish boats at the World Masters Regatta in Bled in Slovenia clocked up a notable win today. The E eight made up of competitors from Belfast Boat Club, Commercial, Neptune and Waterford beat Dynamo of Russia, who have been their constant rivals of recent years. The margin was extremely tight – just .26 of a second.

World Masters Regatta, Bled, Slovenia, Day Four

Men

Eight ‘E’ (Avg 55 or more) – Heat Three: Waterford, Neptune, Commercial, Belfast BC (A Penkert, J Hudson, D Crowley, G Murphy, M Heavey, C Dickson, C Hunter, F O’Toole, D McGuinness) 3:07.88.

Published in Rowing

#Rowing: Irish composite crews had good wins on the first day of the World Masters Regatta in Bled in Slovenia. The Irish B eight (average age 36 or more), which is formed from six clubs won. Two fours in the E class (average age 55 or more) also won – the Galway/Neptune combination by just .26 of a second. The decision was initially given to their German opponents.

World Masters Regatta, Bled, Slovenia, Day One (Selected Results; Irish interest; all heats of 1,000 metres, winners only)

Men

Eight, B (avg 36 or more) – Heat Five: Galway, Commercial, Shandon, Clonmel, Neptune, Cork 3:05.51.

Four, E (avg 55 or more) – Heat One: Galway, Neptune 3:26.26.

Heat Four: Waterford, Neptune, Commercial, Belfast BC 3:28.1

Published in Rowing

#Rowing: The Irish eight which won at the World Masters Regatta at Lake Bagsvaerd, Denmark, have been chosen as the Afloat Rowers of the Month for September. There were a number of good results by Irish crews at the event, which is one of the biggest international events of the year. Among the competitors this year was Denmark legend Eskild Ebbesen. The Irish E eight (55 years or older), was drawn from five clubs (Commercial, Belfast Boat Club, Neptune, Old Collegians and Waterford Boat Club) and outpaced German and British rivals in a field of seven crews. They had also won last year at this level. The crew was: John Hudson, Denis Crowley, Gerry Murphy, Mick Heavey, Colin Dickson, Colin Hunter, Fran O’Toole, Donal Mc Guinness and cox Al Penkert.  

Rower of the Month awards: The judging panel is made up of Liam Gorman, rowing correspondent of The Irish Times, and David O'Brien, editor of Afloat magazine. Monthly awards for achievements during the year will appear on afloat.ie and the overall national award will be presented to the person or crew who, in the judges' opinion, achieved the most notable results in, or made the most significant contribution to rowing during 2016. Keep a monthly eye on progress and watch our 2016 champions list grow.

Published in Rowing

#Rowing: Irish crews were amongst the winners again at the World Masters Regatta in Denmark today. Denis Crowley of Commercial and Niall O’Brien of Carlow won in the men’s single sculls for competitors 50 years or more and the Belfast Boat Club women’s coxed four (average age 60 or more) also won.

World Masters Regatta, Copenhagen (Irish interest - Winners; 1,000m)

Men

Single Sculls - D (average age 50 years or more) - Heat Two: Carlow Rowing Club (N O’Brien) 3:58.63. Heat 10: Commercial (D Crowley) 4:08.63.

Women

Four, coxed - F (average age 60 years or more) - Heat One: Belfast Boat Club 4:42.79.

Published in Rowing

#ROWING: The men’s junior coxed four was the standout race of the morning session at the Irish Rowing Championships at the National Rowing Centre in Cork today. It took a photo finish to confirm Cork Boat Club’s win over Presentation, with Portora also disputing the lead right to the last 50 metres.

Cork Boat Club also took the women’s junior single sculls title through Oisin Forde, who won a fine battle with Jasmine English of Belfast Boat Club. Forde is from Torrevieja in Spain and with her sister Dervla, who was third, will represent Ireland at the Coupe de la Jeunesse next month.

The men’s senior pair final gave Mark O’Donovan and Niall Kenny of UCD a chance to show why they are in the frame to represent Ireland at the World Championships this year, while a former international Fiola Foley partnered a current one, Monika Dukarska to win the women’s intermediate doubles title.

Irish Rowing Championships, National Rowing Centre, Cork (Selected Results; Finals)

 

Men

 

Eight – Intermediate: 1 Trinity 5:46.25, 2 NUIG 5:50.28, 3 UCD 5:56.96.

 

Four, coxed – Junior: 1 Cork BC 6:35.99, 2 Presentation 6:36.22, 3 Portora 6:38.08.

 

Pair – Senior: 1 UCD (M O’Donovan, N Kenny) 6:46.05, 2 NUIG 6:49.95, 3 Commercial B 7:00.16.

 

Sculling

 

Single: Lee (D O’Sullivan) 7:31.80, 2 St Michael’s (P O’Connor) 7:36.24, 3 Belfast BC (A Murray) 7:39.44.

 

 

 

Women

 

Eight – Novice: 1 Queen’s 7:19.74, 2 Trinity 7:55.75.

 

Sculling, Double – Intermediate: 1 Killorglin (F Foley, M Dukarska) 7:17.17, 2 Commercial 7:20.83, 3 Skibbereen 7:39.99.

 

Single – Junior: 1 Cork BC (O Forde) 8:06.14, 2 Belfast BC (J English) 8:07.11, 3 Commercial B 7:00.16.

   

Published in Rowing

#RowingHenley: Belfast Boat Club led early on in their race against Union Boat Club in the Britannia Cup at Henley Royal Regatta, but the heavier crew from America came through to win well at the end. Union BC were the selected (seeded) crew.

Henley Royal Regatta, Day Two (Irish interest)

Temple Cup (Eights, Student): St Petersburg University, Russia bt University College, Dublin 2 ½ l 6:51

Visitors’ Cup (Four, Intermediate): Harvard A bt University College, Dublin 2l, 6:56.

Prince Albert (Coxed Fours, Student): Isis Boat Club bt Trinity College, Dublin 1 ¼ l, 7:27

Britannia (Coxed Fours, Club): Union Boat Club, United States bt Belfast Boat Club 3l, 7:29

Prince of Wales: Commercial, Dublin bt Poplar Blackwall and District Rowing Club and Anglia Ruskin Boat Club 1 ¾ l, 7:20

Published in Rowing

# ROWING HENLEY QUALIFIERS: The qualifying races for Henley Royal Regatta last evening did not bring joy for Galway Rowing Club. Two crews competed in the Junior Women’s Quadruple, but failed to qualify for the regatta, which begins on Wednesday.

Belfast Boat Club pulled off a fine result in qualifying for the Britannia, a club coxed fours event. They were one of just three of eight crews to qualify.

However, the Queen’s University eight did not make it through the qualifiers to the draw of the Temple Cup.

Published in Rowing

# ROWING: The Rowing Ireland talent identification programme run by Nathan Adams in Belfast provided the fastest female and male single scullers at the Lagan Scullers’ Head of the River on Saturday. Up-and-coming talents Gareth McKillen and Bridget Jacques topped the rankings. A Belfast Boat Club/RBAI composite coxed quadruple scull was the fastest crew of the day.

Lagan Sculler’s Head of the River, Belfast, Saturday (Selected Results)

Race One: 1 Bann women’s senior quadruple sculls 12:39.8, 2 Belfast BC women sen quad 12:41.8, 3 RBAI junior single sculls (G McKillen) 13:03.1, 4 BBC/Portora masters double sculls 13:03.8, 5 BBC senior single (Wray) 13:05.9, 6 Lagan sen single (Darby) 13:06.3; 9 Portadown nov single (McKeown) 13:34.1; 15 Bann wom nov coxed quad 14:02.6.

Race Two: BBC/RBAI men sen quad 11:04.5, 2 Lagan Scullers’ men sen quad 11:46.9, 3 Methodist College jun 18A double sculls 12:38.9, 4 Lagan Scullers’ Masters single (Darby) 13:03.7, 5 RBAI jun 16 coxed quad 13:04.7, 6 Coleraine AI double sculls 13:08.1; 8 Portadown inter single (McKeown) 13:30.4; 9 Bann women’s sen double 13:36.0, 15 Bann women’s jun 16 coxed quad 14:16.7.

Race Three: 1 Methodist College jun 18A quad 11:53.8, 2 Coleraine AI jun 18B coxed quad 12:32.8, 3 Methody quad (time only) 12:42.1, 4 BBC/Lagan Scullers’ quad (mixed, time only) 12:54.5, 5 Methody women’s jun 18A quad 13:29.4, 6 Belfast BC women’s sen single (B Jacques) 13:49.6; 8 Bann women’s jun 16 double 14:13.8; 16 BBC women’s nov single (Turner) 14:50.5; 17 Portadown women’s jun 18A quad 14:57.6.

Published in Rowing

Howth 17 information

The oldest one-design keelboat racing class in the world is still competing today to its original 1897 design exclusively at Howth Yacht club.

Howth 17 FAQs

The Howth 17 is a type of keelboat. It is a 3-man single-design keelboat designed to race in the waters off Howth and Dublin Bay.

The Howth Seventeen is just 22ft 6ins in hull length.

The Howth 17 class is raced and maintained by the Association members preserving the unique heritage of the boats. Association Members maintain the vibrancy of the Class by racing and cruising together as a class and also encourage new participants to the Class in order to maintain succession. This philosophy is taken account of and explained when the boats are sold.

The boat is the oldest one-design keelboat racing class in the world and it is still racing today to its original design exclusively at Howth Yacht club. It has important historical and heritage value keep alive by a vibrant class of members who race and cruise the boats.

Although 21 boats are in existence, a full fleet rarely sails buy turnouts for the annual championships are regularly in the high teens.

The plans of the Howth 17 were originally drawn by Walter Herbert Boyd in 1897 for Howth Sailing Club. The boat was launched in Ireland in 1898.

They were originally built by John Hilditch at Carrickfergus, County Down. Initially, five boats were constructed by him and sailed the 90-mile passage to Howth in the spring of 1898. The latest Number 21 was built in France in 2017.

The Howth 17s were designed to combat local conditions in Howth that many of the keel-less boats of that era such as the 'Half-Rater' would have found difficult.

The original fleet of five, Rita, Leila, Silver Moon, Aura and Hera, was increased in 1900 with the addition of Pauline, Zaida and Anita. By 1913 the class had increased to fourteen boats. The extra nine were commissioned by Dublin Bay Sailing Club for racing from Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire) - Echo, Sylvia, Mimosa, Deilginis, Rosemary, Gladys, Bobolink, Eileen and Nautilus. Gradually the boats found their way to Howth from various places, including the Solent and by the latter part of the 20th century they were all based there. The class, however, was reduced to 15 due to mishaps and storm damage for a few short years but in May 1988 Isobel and Erica were launched at Howth Yacht Club, the boats having been built in a shed at Howth Castle - the first of the class actually built in Howth.

The basic wooden Howth 17 specification was for a stem and keel of oak and elm, deadwood and frames of oak, planking of yellow pine above the waterline and red pine below, a shelf of pitch pine and a topstrake of teak, larch deck-beams and yellow pine planking and Baltic spruce spars with a keel of lead. Other than the inclusion of teak, the boats were designed to be built of materials which at that time were readily available. However today yellow pine and pitch pine are scarce, their properties of endurance and longevity much appreciated and very much in evidence on the original five boats.

 

It is always a busy 60-race season of regular midweek evening and Saturday afternoon contests plus regattas and the Howth Autumn League.

In 2017, a new Howth 17 Orla, No 21, was built for Ian Malcolm. The construction of Orla began in September 2016 at Skol ar Mor, the boat-building school run by American Mike Newmeyer and his dedicated team of instructor-craftsmen at Mesquer in southern Brittany. In 2018, Storm Emma wrought extensive destruction through the seven Howth Seventeens stored in their much-damaged shed on Howth’s East Pier at the beginning of March 2018, it was feared that several of the boats – which since 1898 have been the very heart of Howth sailing – would be written off. But in the end only one – David O’Connell’s Anita built in 1900 by James Clancy of Dun Laoghaire – was assessed as needing a complete re-build. Anita was rebuilt by Paul Robert and his team at Les Ateliers de l’Enfer in Douarnenez in Brittany in 2019 and Brought home to Howth.

The Howth 17 has a gaff rig.

The total sail area is 305 sq ft (28.3 m2).

©Afloat 2020