Displaying items by tag: Howth Coastguard

6th June 2013

Howth Coastguard Rescues Stranded Baby Porpoise at Portmarnock

Howth Coast Guard picked up a baby Porpoise stranded in shallow water off Portmarnock beach, Dublin yesterday and brought it one kilomretre back out to sea to safety.

Howth Coastguard was requested to assist the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) yesterday afternoon at Portmarnock beach in North Dublin as the youtube video above depicts.

A Coast Guard team from Howth station travelled by boat and jeep to the location and meet with the IWDG representative.

The decision was made to bring the baby mammal who was beached back to the sea in the hope it would swim away.

The boat team lead by coxswain Jaimie Blandford carefully placed the mammal on board and brought it a kilometre out into the open water.

Porpoises are very similar to dolphins but have shorter beaks and are seen in the Irish Sea with the same swimming patterns as dolphins.

The porpoise now named "Fungie Beag" was placed in the water, after some initial hesitation it successfully returned to the water and swam back into the Irish Sea, hopefully returning to its family.

Published in Marine Wildlife

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26th April 2011

Dublin Bay Mudflat Rescue Caught on Video

A Dubliner had a lucky escape after being stranded on mudflats between Baldoyle and Sutton Point, on Dublin Bay last week.
The man had sunk waist-deep in mud on a low tide and was unable to free himself. Dublin Fire Brigade was tasked to the scene along with the Howth Coast Guard unit. The Youtube clip of the entire incident is below.
Rescue helicopter 116, which was already on the ramp at Dublin Airport in preparation for a training exercise, was also tasked at 16.18pm according to a report on the the SAR Ireland blogspot.
After obtaining permission to cross the 'Live' runway at Dublin airport, R116 was on scene within minutes and quickly identified the man who was described as wearing 'dark clothing'. He was quickly winched to safety and returned to Dublin Airport at 16.36pm, where he availed of crew facilities to clean himself down and arrange transport home.

12th March 2011

Spending the Day with the Howth Coast Guard

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.

http://www.merrionstreet.ie/index.php/2011/03/a-look-at-the-irish-coast-guard

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.

Published in Coastguard

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14th July 2010

Howth Coastguard in Car Plunge Rescue

Howth Coast Guard were paged yesterday to a car that had crashed into Howth harbour. Ten members of the unit joined members of the RNLI Lifeboat, Gardai and Dublin Fire Brigade. Two people had been in the car when it had gone off the middle pier in Howth; one of the passengers luckily managed to escape. The body of the other person in the car was recovered from the water by a dive team along with the RNLI lifeboat and taken away by Fire Brigade Paramedics.

The Coast Guard boat "Grainne" was launched and booms were placed in the water to contain any pollution threat from the car. The middle pier is the smallest one of three and is mainly used by fishing vessels. More HERE.

Published in Coastguard

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Howth Coastguard

The Kingstown to Queenstown Yacht Race or 'K2Q', previously the Fastnet 450

The Organising Authority ("OA") are ISORA & SCORA in association with The National Yacht Club & The Royal Cork Yacht Club.

The Kingstown to Queenstown Race (K2Q Race) is a 260-mile offshore race that will start in Dun Laoghaire (formerly Kingstown), around the famous Fastnet Rock and finish in Cork Harbour at Cobh (formerly Queenstown).

The K2Q race follows from the successful inaugural 'Fastnet 450 Race' that ran in 2020 when Ireland was in the middle of the COVID Pandemic. It was run by the National Yacht Club, and the Royal cork Yacht Club were both celebrating significant anniversaries. The clubs combined forces to mark the 150th anniversary of the National Yacht Club and the 300th (Tricentenary) of the Royal Cork Yacht Club.

Of course, this race has some deeper roots. In 1860 the first-ever ocean yacht race on Irish Waters was held from Kingstown (now Dun Laoghaire) to Queenstown (now Cobh).

It is reported that the winner of the race was paid a prize of £15 at the time, and all competing boats got a bursary of 10/6 each. The first race winner was a Schooner Kingfisher owned by Cooper Penrose Esq. The race was held on July 14th 1860, and had sixteen boats racing.

In 2022, the winning boat will be awarded the first prize of a cheque for €15 mounted and framed and a Trophy provided by the Royal Cork Yacht Club, the oldest yacht club in the world.

The 2022 race will differ from the original course because it will be via the Fastnet Rock, so it is a c. 260m race, a race distance approved by the Royal Cornwall Yacht Club as an AZAB qualifier.

A link to an Afloat article written by WM Nixon for some history on this original race is here.

The aim is to develop the race similarly to the Dun Laoghaire–Dingle Race that runs in alternate years.

Fastnet 450 in 2020

The South Coast of Ireland Racing Association, in association with the National Yacht Club on Dublin Bay and the Royal Cork Yacht Club in Cork, staged the first edition of this race from Dun Laoghaire to Cork Harbour via the Fastnet Rock on August 22nd 2020.

The IRC race started in Dun Laoghaire on Saturday, August 22nd 2020. It passed the Muglin, Tuscar, Conningbeg and Fastnet Lighthouses to Starboard before returning to Cork Harbour and passing the Cork Buoy to Port, finishing when Roches's Point bears due East. The course was specifically designed to be of sufficient length to qualify skippers and crew for the RORC Fastnet Race 2021.