#TALL SHIPS - A 15-year-old boy was rescued from the water at Dublin's Grand Canal Dock yesterday after getting into difficulty while swimming.
According to RTÉ News, the teenager from Blanchardstown was swimming with a number of friends at Hanover Quay amid preparations for the Tall Ships Races Festival when he went missing around lunchtime yesterday.
Fire officers reportedly retrieved the boy from the water and gave him CPR on the quayside before he was transferred to St Vincent's Hospital in Merrion.
The Irish Times reports that the teen was in the area to volunteer with the Kings of Concrete urban sports display group as part of the Tall Ships Races events.
Organisers later confirmed that the boy was not preparing for his volunteer work at the time of the incident, which underlines the importance of water safety for all volunteers and visitors at the Docklands festival starting tomorrow.
Safety is also paramount aboard the tall ships fleet as they make their way to the capital, with damage inflicted on nearly all the more than 40 vessels in stormy conditions in the Bay of Biscay, according to the Irish Independent.
Ecuadorian naval ship the Guayas suffered eight ripped sails in the storm, but the worst damage was sustained by the Polish schooner Captain Borchardt, which arrived in Dublin with a broken mast.
However, master of the skip Janus Zbierajewski jokingly described the experience as "absolutely perfect weather".
The bad weather was enough to force at least once ship to abandon the final race leg, with Sail Training Association flagship STS Pogoria arriving in Dublin Port some days ahead of schedule.
