Displaying items by tag: Alcatraz

13th October 2012

Irish Residents Among Rescued as Party Boat Hits Rocks in San Francisco

#RESCUE - An unconfirmed number of men from Ireland were among 22 people rescued from a sinking passenger boat in San Francisco Bay in the early hours of this morning.

KGO-TV News reports that the hull of The Neptune was punctured by a rock off Alcatraz around 9.15pm last night local time (5.15am this morning Irish time) and quickly began taking on water.

Matthew Rice was celebrating his bachelor party on the boat with 17 friends at the time - a number of whom has travelled from as far as Ireland - when "all of a sudden it was like boom, just the a big jolt and the next thing we knew the [US] Coast Guard boat came in and got us off," he recalls.

Crew member Rachel Smith, one of four crew on board the party boat, explained how the vessel had veered slightly off course due to a navigation error and hit an area known as 'Little Alcatraz', which resulted in two square-foot holes on either side of the rear hull.

All on board were taken to safety by the coastguard, and attempts were being made to bail the water out of the boat to allow its towing back to San Francisco overnight.

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Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Yacht Race Information

The biennial Dun Laoghaire to Dingle race is a 320-miles race down to the east coast of Ireland, across the south coast and into Dingle harbour in County Kerry.

The race is organised by the National Yacht Club.

It never fails to offer a full range of weather, wind and tide to the intrepid entrants, ranging from a 32ft cruiser to a 79ft all-out racer.

Three divisions are available to enter: cruiser (boats equipped with furlers), racing (the bulk of the fleet) and also two-handed.

D2D Course change overruled

In 2019, the organisers considered changing the course to allow boats to select routes close to shore by removing the requirement to go outside Islands and Lighthouses en route, but following input from regular participants, the National Yacht Club decided to stick with the tried and tested course route in order to be fair to large and smaller boats and to keep race records intact.

D2D Course record time

Mick Cotter’s 78ft Whisper established the 1 day and 48 minutes course record for the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race in 2009 and that time stood until 2019 when Cotter returned to beat his own record but only just, the Dun Laoghaire helmsman crossing the line in Kerry to shave just 20 seconds off his 2009 time.