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Displaying items by tag: Capt Tom McCarthy

Captain Tom McCarthy paid a visit to New Ross, Co. Wexford, to admire the newly refurbished tallship which he had previously sailed on its voyage to Pembroke, south Wales. 

The visit as The New Ross Standard reports, was an opportunity to meet old friends, among them Frances Ryan, John F. Kennedy Trust Chairperson, Sean Connick CEO, and former harbourmaster Luke Foley.

Holding the unique distinction of being the only person to captain all of Ireland’s tall ships – the Dunbrody, the Jeanie Johnston and the Asgard II – the Corkman previously sailed the 'Jeanie' to North America during its tour there in the early 2000s.

The tallship's return follows an extensive break at (the nearby New Ross Boatyard) where it received a complete renovation, and now the Dunbrody is welcoming visitors once more, much to Seán’s delight.

‘We had our first tour bus arrive yesterday since March 2020, Trafalgar tours, and we’re due to have a couple more tomorrow,’ he said. ‘It’s a good sign, it’s wonderful to see it, but obviously because of restrictions we’re operating at reduced capacity and can only do outdoor tours at the moment'.

He added 'Currently we’re at 25-30 per cent of capacity but it’s a step back towards normality. At the moment we’re really looking forward to 2022 and preparing for a full tourist season.’

Published in Tall Ships

Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) is one of Europe's biggest yacht racing clubs. It has almost sixteen hundred elected members. It presents more than 100 perpetual trophies each season some dating back to 1884. It provides weekly racing for upwards of 360 yachts, ranging from ocean-going forty footers to small dinghies for juniors.

Undaunted by austerity and encircling gloom, Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC), supported by an institutional memory of one hundred and twenty-nine years of racing and having survived two world wars, a civil war and not to mention the nineteen-thirties depression, it continues to present its racing programme year after year as a cherished Dublin sporting institution.

The DBSC formula that, over the years, has worked very well for Dun Laoghaire sailors. As ever DBSC start racing at the end of April and finish at the end of September. The current commodore is Eddie Totterdell of the National Yacht Club.

The character of racing remains broadly the same in recent times, with starts and finishes at Club's two committee boats, one of them DBSC's new flagship, the Freebird. The latter will also service dinghy racing on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Having more in the way of creature comfort than the John T. Biggs, it has enabled the dinghy sub-committee to attract a regular team to manage its races, very much as happened in the case of MacLir and more recently with the Spirit of the Irish. The expectation is that this will raise the quality of dinghy race management, which, operating as it did on a class quota system, had tended to suffer from a lack of continuity.