It's official - the Tall Ships Races will be coming to Dublin in August next year!

As the Evening Herald reports, the successful four-day festival in Waterford this past weekend will be repeated in the capital from 23-26 August 2012, with up to 100 tall ships expected to sail up the mouth of the Liffey.

As keen readers of afloat.ie will already know, news of the Dublin event was published here back in March.

The event is hoped to attract more than a million visitors to the city, topping the 500,000 spectators who thronged Waterford from last Thursday to Sunday.

Young sailing trainees from Dublin will also have the opportunity of a lifetime to work on board the vessels.

View Waterford's Parade of Sail Photo Gallery Here

A new documentary on Ireland's waterways is being filmed in Mullingar this week.

The series will follow naturalist and broadcaster Dick Warner as he explores the Royal Canal in time for the final reopening of the entire route.

Warner will be taking the Rambler, an original canal tug barsg, from Dublin through to Lough Ree for the first time since 1923.

Warner told the Westmeath Examiner that he's "enjoying the wildlife side of it the most, the kingfishers and herons, the wildflowers, that's what I've loved the most about this journey. We're making very good progress. We're in Ballymahon now and we hope to reach the Shannon by towards the end of this week."

Waterways - The Final Journey is set to come to our screens in August.

The Westmeath Examiner has more on the story HERE.

Top surfers are headed to Ireland's most unlikely surfing festival this weekend in Dublin.

The Evening Herald reports that landlocked suburb of Blanchardstown has been transformed into a South Pacific-style beach for the surf event, designed to promote Ireland's global surfing charms among the Irish themselves.

Pro surfers will compete on a wave machine for the 53 Degrees North Open Surf Championship, but the same waves will also be open to beginners and younger surfing wannabes.

Herald.ie has more in the story HERE.

A trio of French Naval mine-route survey craft are to sail upriver of the River Lee this Friday and are to berth in the Port of Cork at the North Custom House Quay, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The craft BRS Antarès (M 770), BRS Altaïr (M 771) and BRS Aldébaran (M 772) represent all of the three-ship Antarès-class which are based in the Breton naval base of Brest. At 28m long the rather stout-looking craft (photo) weigh some 250 tonnes displacement and have a crew of 23.

Leadship of the class BRS Antarès entered service in 1993 and was followed by the remaining pair which too were built by Chantier (Socarenam) in Boulogne-sur-Mer.

In March the BRS Altaïr accompanied the minehunter CMT Cassiopée (M642) to Dublin for a four-day visit during the St. Patrick's Day festival.

Pale bellied Brent Geese, Oystercatchers and pure yellow sand. Island life on one of Dublin's islands is described in detail in the Irish Indepdendent newspaper this weekend and its hard to believe that marine wildlife adventures such as this can be had in the heart of a capital city. Christoper Somerville describes a Dublin Bay walk on North Bull Island complete with a lovely illustration. Worth a read here.

Members of the public are invited to attend a major flood evacuation training exercise this Saturday at Broadmeadow Esturary in Swords, Co Dublin.

Rescue and boat rescue crews from the Irish Coast Guard are sceduled to join teams from the Dublin Fire Brigade, the Civil Defence Fire Service and Gardaí in the exercise, which will simulate the rescue of a group of people stranded after a flash flood.

The crews will test water rescue and river search procedures, with an emphasis on general water safety and providing assistance to other search and rescue agencies.

The excercise will begin at 11am on Saturday 16 April and will last for one hour. Members of the public are welcome to observe must must obey any instructions and must not interefere with the exercise.

For more information contact Bill Powderly, assistant chief Civil Defence officer with responsibility for the Fingal Area, at [email protected] or 086 380 5197.

The lifeboat and Coastguard search for two fishermen missing off the north Co Dublin coast has resumed this morning.

The Irish Times reports that the two men, believed to be in their 20s and 40s, were on a small open fishing boat that departed Skerries harbour around 11am yesterday (Friday 1 April). The alarm was raised at 6.30pm when they failed to return to port.

A Dublin Coast Guard spokesperson confirmed that items and debris believed to be from the missing boat were discovered during the initial search yesterday evening.

The search, involving three coastguard units, three lifeboats and a number of local vessels, was scheduled to resume at 7am this morning.

RTÉ News has more on the story - including video - HERE.

Dubin's Lord Mayor opened a Tall Ship and Youth Sail Training Workshop with an agenda to seek a solution to the current Irish Sail Training impasse caused by the loss of sailing's Asgard II and Lord Rank.

Over 70 delegtes including many of the 'top brass' of the Irish Tall Ship commuunity attended the meeting held at the offices of Dublin Port Company on Saturday (26th March). The meeting inlcuded members of Coiste an Asgard, port companies, education, tourism and other sailing interests.

The meeting was formally opened by Dublin Lord Mayor and Port Admiral, Gerry Breen who introduced the chairman Lord Glentoran and the Facilitator Michael Counahan.

From (Left to right)  Seamus McLoughlin, Dublin Port Head of Operations,  Enda Connellan, Chairman Tall Ships Dublin 2012, Des Whelan, Chair Tall Ships Waterford 2011,  Lord Glentoran (Robin Dixon) Chair Tall Ships Belfast 1992,  Dr. Gerard O'Hare, Chair Tall Ships Belfast 2009,  Ted Crosbie, Tall Ships Cork and  Enda O'Coineen, LetsdoitGlobal.

Des Whelan gave an excellent talk and presentation on Tall Ships Waterford which was followed by a discussion on the massive economic benefits of bringing Tall Ships Festivals To Dublin, Cork and Belfast. Chairman of Tall Ships Dublin 2012 Enda Connellan and Ted Crosbie of Tall Ships Cork and Dr. Gerard O' Hare of Tall Ships Belfast discussed the incredible success stories from their respective ports festivals.
Several presentations and discussions followed regarding the role of Tall Ships in Sail Training, the connection between a vessel for Ireland and running events here. The question of who are the stakeholders and how can benefits be quantified was also discussed.
The meeting was hosted by Dublin Port Company who provided a warm welcome, excellent facilities, refreshments and a wonderful lunch with senior management attending to everyone's needs.
After lunch there were further discussions on what is the most suitable vessel, who should run the organisation and what would work best for Ireland.

Jimmy Tyrrell gave a short, eloquent and emotional account of Asgard II and the realisation of his father's dream which was fulfilled beyond all expectation by that legendary vessel and those who were privileged to sail on her. He affirmed his own belief that the way forward was with an All-Ireland Tall Ship and even suggested that she be called Spirit of Ireland. There were other suggestions for a name inlcuding 'Ireland's Call'.

A view was also expressed that politics and religion have no place in Sail Trail Training and the future lay in an All-Ireland Commercial/Charitable Trust Venture.

The prohibitive nature of current legislation and the total lack of awareness of the maritime sector by the Government was mentioned several times.

Ocean Youth Club NI provided four young sail trainees to address the gathering on the benefits of Sail Training from their perspective and representatives from education, tourism Tall Ships International and "Association Of Tall Ships Organisations" also contributed.

The general consensus was the need to develop and promote, as a matter of urgency, a plan for a Tall Ship For Ireland linking Youth, Maritime Education, Business and Tourism.

Another workshop will be held in Belfast in April and the collective input of both meetings will be considered going forward.

A Tall Order for Ireland? HERE

Regular updates on Irish Tall Ship sailing news HERE

More on Asgard II HERE

Should Ireland be represented at the Tall Ships Races at Waterford 2011 and Dublin 2012? We want your vote on our Facebook Poll HERE.

Looking for further reading on Tall Ships in Ireland? Click the links below:

Click this link to read all our Tall Ships Stories on one handy page

Previewing Ireland's Tall Ships 2011 Season

Can Ireland Get a New Tall Ship?

The Government news service MerrionStreet.ie recently paid a visit to the Howth Coast Guard unit to see some of its 24 volunteers train on the water and cliffs.

Cliff rescue forms a major part of the work done by the Howth unit, so regular searches of the coves around the coast on Howth Head and training of new volunteers are are a must.

Their work is co-ordinated by staff at the new National Coast Guard Centre at the Department of Transport, which manages nearly 1,000 volunteers across 54 units nationwide.

MerrionStreet.ie has more on the story HERE.