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Displaying items by tag: Kathy Sullivan

The first person to experience travel to both outer space and the deepest part of the sea will be the subject of an exclusive Irish interview with Pat Kenny tomorrow, Thursday 23 July.

As previously reported on Afloat.ie, oceanographer and former Nasa astronaut Kathy Sullivan already made history as the first woman spacewalker in 1984.

But she doubled that achievement last month when she became the first woman to reach Challenger Deep — the deepest-known part of the world’s oceans at 35,810 feet below the surface.

As opposite as these two missions may seem, however, they both come from Sullivan’s passion to understand the world around her as much as possible.

Sullivan — who was also interviewed by Lorna Siggins for the Sunday Times this past weekend — will talk making history, exploring the frontiers of our world and more with Pat Kenny tomorrow, Thursday 23 July, as part of the Marine Institute’s Oceans of Learnings series.

The interview will be streamed live on the Marine Institute’s channels on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube from 2pm Irish time (or 9am EST in the US).

Published in Marine Science

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.

RORC Points Calendar

The 2019 race was the first edition to form part of the Royal Ocean Racing Club “RORC” calendar for the season. This is in addition to the race continuing as part of the ISORA programme. 

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.