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Displaying items by tag: Alex Von Humboldt II

As if to signal the start of summertime this Sunday, a magnificent three-masted Tall Ship arrived on Dublin Bay this morning, and with her spring arrival, the promise - perhaps - of a bumper 2023 Irish boating season ahead.

The German-flagged Alex Von Humboldt II sailed into the capital's waters overnight after a 12-day sail from Ponta Delgada in Portugal. 

Built in 2011, as Afloat reported here, the 65-metre-long ship anchored in the south of the Bay.

The ship is a civilian square-rigger offering tall ship voyages, regardless of previous experience, from her home port of Bremerhaven.

With rigging resembling a wind jammer of 150 years ago, Alex II has been built with a traditional barque rig. That means the fore and main mast carry square sails while the sternmost, the mizzen mast, carries gaff sails. 

At 0900 hrs on March 23rd, her traditional barque rig was identifiable on this Dublin Bay ship anchorage webcam here before she weighed anchor and moved up into Dublin Port under engine, arriving at the mouth of the River Liffey at 10 am. 

Alex II is driven by 24 sails with a sail area of 1.360 m2. In favourable wind conditions, she runs up to 14 knots. 

The Alex Von Humboldt II will compete in this summer's Tall Ships Races 2023.  The international fleet of Tall Ships and Small Ships will return to Den Helder, Hartlepool, Fredrikstad, Lerwick and Arendal from 29 June to 6 August.

Published in Tall Ships

The Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) Information

The creation of the Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) began in a very low key way in the autumn of 2002 with an exploratory meeting between Denis Kiely, Jim Donegan and Fintan Cairns in the Granville Hotel in Waterford, and the first conference was held in February 2003 in Kilkenny.

While numbers of cruiser-racers were large, their specific locations were widespread, but there was simply no denying the numerical strength and majority power of the Cork-Dublin axis. To get what was then a very novel concept up and running, this strength of numbers had to be acknowledged, and the first National Championship in 2003 reflected this, as it was staged in Howth.

ICRA was run by a dedicated group of volunteers each of whom brought their special talents to the organisation. Jim Donegan, the elder statesman, was so much more interested in the wellbeing of the new organisation than in personal advancement that he insisted on Fintan Cairns being the first Commodore, while the distinguished Cork sailor was more than content to be Vice Commodore.

ICRA National Championships

Initially, the highlight of the ICRA season was the National Championship, which is essentially self-limiting, as it is restricted to boats which have or would be eligible for an IRC Rating. Boats not actually rated but eligible were catered for by ICRA’s ace number-cruncher Denis Kiely, who took Ireland’s long-established native rating system ECHO to new heights, thereby providing for extra entries which brought fleet numbers at most annual national championships to comfortably above the hundred mark, particularly at the height of the boom years. 

ICRA Boat of the Year (Winners 2004-2019)