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Displaying items by tag: Fastnet '79 Race

Once again the Friends of Glenua launch their annual winter season of lectures with the 2019/20 programme held in Dublin at the Poolbeg Yacht & Boat Club, Ringsend. 

“Back to the Rock- Fastnet '79” is the title of the opening lecture in aid of the RNLI. This it take place on Thursday 17th October (at 8pm) at the venue located on Pigeon House Rd, Dublin 4. There will be an entry contribution of €5 in aid of the RNLI.

The speaker is John O’Donnell who, as a teenager on the yacht ‘Sundowner’, survived the massive Atlantic storm which turned the 1979 Fastnet Yacht Race into the greatest yacht-racing disaster ever witnessed.

In spite of the biggest peacetime rescue effort at sea, 21 people died, and boats were dismasted, abandoned or sunk as the race became a fight to stay alive.

Forty years later O'Donnell remembers the storm. In his illustrated presentation, John will tell the story of ‘Fastnet 79’ from the different perspectives of those at sea, as well as those on land. As he says: “I was lucky to survive the Fastnet Yacht Race in 1979 and I’ve been lucky again in 2019 in finding so many people who would share their stories with me”.

“Back To The Rock” is a gripping and evocative adventure story of hurricane winds and waves the size of houses. It is also a story of fear and courage.

John O’Donnell is a writer and lawyer. His work has been published and broadcast widely. A collection of short stories “Almost The Same Blue” is forthcoming from Doire Press in 2020.

“Back to the Rock” is also the title of his RTE radio documentary on Fastnet '79. Co-produced with Tim Dennehy, it is now available via this podcast link. 

Published in Dublin Bay

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.