Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Displaying items by tag: Breakthrough

Flagship ferry Manxman has returned to normal service on the Douglas-Heysham route which resumed with twice a day crossings that include evening and overnight sailings.

The move as IOMToday reports, follows a breakthrough between the Isle of Man Steam Packet Co. and a seafarers’ trade union working on the flagship which was introduced last summer.

Crew members of Nautilus International working on board Steam Packet vessels ceased industrial action after the government owned ferry operator withdrew its termination letters.

On both sides of the dispute, they have committed to further talks and arbitration if necessary.

The Steam Packet announced last week that it would be cutting the number of crossings by Manxman each day, to just one return sailing for over a period of two weeks.

As for the reduced frequency of sailings, this arose as one officer had to unexpectedly take leave from duties, citing personal reasons.

Published in Ferry

#rshyr – Irish crewed yacht Breakthrough is an estimated two hours off the overall handicap lead at the halfway stage of the 635–mile Sydney–Hobart yacht Race. Lead by top Irish offshore sailor Barry Hurley, the New South Wales entry from Jonathan Stone and Mathew Vadas is lying 33nm SE of Gabo Island in third place in the 109–boat fleet. After its second night at sea Breakthrough has still to sail 382.5 miles to the Tasmanian finish.

Hurley has on board Dublin Bay sailors Alexander and Kenneth Rumball and Catherine Halpin along with a local Sydney crew. The Aussie–Irish team are currently behind Roger Hickman's Wild Rose and Ron Foster's Ariel on IRC handicap.  

Prior to his departure Hurley wrote about preparations for his third successive Sydney–Hobart race

Published in Sydney to Hobart

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.