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Displaying items by tag: Rowing Championships

#Rowing: Skibbereen took two of the three senior titles on offer in the evening session of the second day of the Irish Rowing Championships at the National Rowing Centre. The women's pair of Denise Walsh and Aoife Casey beat UCC, while the men's quadruple held off a late charge by a Queen's/Portadown composite.

 Monika Dukarska of Killorglin won the women's senior single. She was dominant all the way, with only Siobhan McCrohan of Tribesmen testing her to any degree.

 The junior women's eight gave Cork Boat Club a chance to impress. They led for most of the race, and while Bann held an overlap through the middle of the course, Cork were clear winners.

 Trinity were extraordinarily dominant in the men's novice eight - their win by 11 seconds was cheered lustily by their fans.

 Shandon fought through the opposition offered by Carlow to win the junior men's quadruple, and Roisin Maguire of Queen's was the best club single sculler.

 The man of the day was, arguably, the Clonmel competitor Daire Lynch. The teenager added the men's intermediate single scull to the club title he had won earlier in the day. He passed Declan O'Connor of St Michael's in the middle stages of the race and won well.

Irish Rowing Championships, National Rowing Centre, Cork

 Day Two (Selected results)

Men

Eight - Intermediate: Commercial 5:43.182. Novice: Trinity 6:00.157.

Four - Junior, coxed: 1 Cork A 6:29.20, 2 Portora 6:35.341, 3 Clonmel 6:40.716.

Pair - Senior: 1 Skibbereen 6:30.311, 2 UCD 6:33.546, 3 Portora 6:44.968.

Sculling, Quadruple - Senior: 1 Skibbereen 5:59.102, 2 Queen's/Portadown 5:59.790, 3 Shandon A 6:08.509. Junior: 1 Shandon 6:07.970, 2 Carlow B 6:13.361, 3 Three Castles 6:13.799.

Single - Inter: Clonmel (D Lynch) 7:04.573. Club: Clonmel (D Lynch) 7:15.463.

Women

Eight - Novice: Trinity 7:09.594. Junior: 1 Cork 1 Cork 6:39.271, 2 Bann 6:44.193, 3 Portora 6:49.287.

Pair - Senior: 1 Skibbereen 7:23.775, 2 UCC 7:29.369, 3 Trinity 7:46.166.

Sculling, Double - Inter: Lee 7:22.252.

Single - Senior: 1 Killorglin (M Dukarska) 7:35.069, 2 Tribesmen (S McCrohan) 7:50.320, 3 Skibbereen (O Hayes) 7:57.742. Club: Queen's (R Maguire) 8:15.155. Junior: 1 Skibbereen (E Hegarty) 8:05.674, 2 Neptune (C Feerick) 8:13.065, 3 Castleconnell (J Vascotto) 8:15.002.

 

Published in Rowing

#Rowing: The University Championships of Ireland at the National Rowing Centre tomorrow, Friday, are set to go ahead. The organisers may alter the schedule to concentrate on the bigger boats, depending on the weather on the day. There has been strong interest in the event, with 140 entries made.

Published in Rowing

This Friday the premier event of the domestic rowing season, the Irish Rowing Championship, takes place at the National Rowing Centre in Cork.  Over 1200 rowers will compete over two days of racing, the highlight being the Senior Eight or ‘Big Pot’, race on Saturday afternoon.

This year the Championships are split into two events in July and September.   The July championships features the big boats, the eights and fours while the singles, doubles and quads will be held in September.

“This is the first year of the new format and it is designed to allow crews to focus on two events.  It will also encourage rowing in smaller boats over the summer months which should help raise standards”, claimed Rowing Ireland CEO, Martin Corcoran.  He added, “The events for this weekend are eights and fours for men and women in junior, novice, intermediate and senior. There are also sculling and quad events for the under 14, 15 and 16 rowers”.

But it is the premier trophy event, the Senior Eight or Big Pot which the top clubs vie for.  This year’s Senior Eight form clubs are NUIG, Queen’s Belfast, Muckross, Killarney, St. Michaels, Limerick and a UCD/Commercial composite crew.  The composite crew will include the UCD four who won at Henley together with Olympian Sean Jacob along with Commercial’s, Colm Dowling, Dan Murphy and Frank Folan.

Last year’s race produced  a close finish with reigning champions NUIG, whose crew this year includes Beijing Olympian Cormac Folan along with Alan Martin and James Wall, winning by a mere canvas ahead of Queens University.  Queens University have had a great season being unbeaten in Ireland and winning the British University Championship.  Another form crew are Muckross of Killarney who beat NUIG in the eights at the Metro Regatta last month.

The fours race has  a similar line up with the addition of Cork BC and a Commercial/Skibbereen composite.  It will be a difficult to predict a winner here as NUIG are reigning champions while Commercial have beaten them this year and UCD won at Henley.

The women’s senior eights race has an interesting composite crew consisting of seven clubs -  St Michaels, University of Limerick, Carrick on Shannon, Killorglin, City of Derry, Skibbereen and  Cork BC. The crew includes a serious line-up of single scullers who were part of the international team trials and includes Dympna Kelly, Carrick,  Sheila Clavin, St. Michael’s, Orla Hayes, Skibbereen and Monika Dukarska, Killorglin.

There is a massive entry for Junior 14, 15 and 16 boys and girls with thirty two scullers entered in the boys under 16 race. Over 300 crews will compete over two days in a range of categories and with record entry levels, it promises two days of action packed racing. The championships take place at the National Rowing Centre in Farran Wood, Iniscarra, Co Cork on Fri 16th and Sat 17th July from 8am to 5pm each day.

Note: The Championships have a long tradition as an All-Ireland event with the first one taking place nearly one hundred years ago at the Dublin Metropolitan Regatta in Ringsend in 1912.  The top clubs winning across all categories since the inaugural event are Dublin clubs Neptune (149) and Commercial (133), Skibbereen (109), UCD (81), Garda Siochána ((72) and NUI Galway (56).

The annual event takes place at the National Rowing Centre, Cork.  The centre, opened in 2007, is the sport’s high performance headquarters. An indication of the state of the art facilities on offer is the number of top rowing nations that have expressed interest in using the centre for training camps in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics.

NUIG_celebrate_their_Senior_Eight_win_at_the_2009_Irish_Rowing_Championships

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Published in Rowing

Howth 17 information

The oldest one-design keelboat racing class in the world is still competing today to its original 1897 design exclusively at Howth Yacht club.

Howth 17 FAQs

The Howth 17 is a type of keelboat. It is a 3-man single-design keelboat designed to race in the waters off Howth and Dublin Bay.

The Howth Seventeen is just 22ft 6ins in hull length.

The Howth 17 class is raced and maintained by the Association members preserving the unique heritage of the boats. Association Members maintain the vibrancy of the Class by racing and cruising together as a class and also encourage new participants to the Class in order to maintain succession. This philosophy is taken account of and explained when the boats are sold.

The boat is the oldest one-design keelboat racing class in the world and it is still racing today to its original design exclusively at Howth Yacht club. It has important historical and heritage value keep alive by a vibrant class of members who race and cruise the boats.

Although 21 boats are in existence, a full fleet rarely sails buy turnouts for the annual championships are regularly in the high teens.

The plans of the Howth 17 were originally drawn by Walter Herbert Boyd in 1897 for Howth Sailing Club. The boat was launched in Ireland in 1898.

They were originally built by John Hilditch at Carrickfergus, County Down. Initially, five boats were constructed by him and sailed the 90-mile passage to Howth in the spring of 1898. The latest Number 21 was built in France in 2017.

The Howth 17s were designed to combat local conditions in Howth that many of the keel-less boats of that era such as the 'Half-Rater' would have found difficult.

The original fleet of five, Rita, Leila, Silver Moon, Aura and Hera, was increased in 1900 with the addition of Pauline, Zaida and Anita. By 1913 the class had increased to fourteen boats. The extra nine were commissioned by Dublin Bay Sailing Club for racing from Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire) - Echo, Sylvia, Mimosa, Deilginis, Rosemary, Gladys, Bobolink, Eileen and Nautilus. Gradually the boats found their way to Howth from various places, including the Solent and by the latter part of the 20th century they were all based there. The class, however, was reduced to 15 due to mishaps and storm damage for a few short years but in May 1988 Isobel and Erica were launched at Howth Yacht Club, the boats having been built in a shed at Howth Castle - the first of the class actually built in Howth.

The basic wooden Howth 17 specification was for a stem and keel of oak and elm, deadwood and frames of oak, planking of yellow pine above the waterline and red pine below, a shelf of pitch pine and a topstrake of teak, larch deck-beams and yellow pine planking and Baltic spruce spars with a keel of lead. Other than the inclusion of teak, the boats were designed to be built of materials which at that time were readily available. However today yellow pine and pitch pine are scarce, their properties of endurance and longevity much appreciated and very much in evidence on the original five boats.

 

It is always a busy 60-race season of regular midweek evening and Saturday afternoon contests plus regattas and the Howth Autumn League.

In 2017, a new Howth 17 Orla, No 21, was built for Ian Malcolm. The construction of Orla began in September 2016 at Skol ar Mor, the boat-building school run by American Mike Newmeyer and his dedicated team of instructor-craftsmen at Mesquer in southern Brittany. In 2018, Storm Emma wrought extensive destruction through the seven Howth Seventeens stored in their much-damaged shed on Howth’s East Pier at the beginning of March 2018, it was feared that several of the boats – which since 1898 have been the very heart of Howth sailing – would be written off. But in the end only one – David O’Connell’s Anita built in 1900 by James Clancy of Dun Laoghaire – was assessed as needing a complete re-build. Anita was rebuilt by Paul Robert and his team at Les Ateliers de l’Enfer in Douarnenez in Brittany in 2019 and Brought home to Howth.

The Howth 17 has a gaff rig.

The total sail area is 305 sq ft (28.3 m2).

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