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Displaying items by tag: Niall Malone

Royal Irish Yacht Club cadet member Niall Malone has sent the club an update of his recent competitions in New Zealand, where he currently lives and races.

First up was two weeks of racing in Sydney, Australia last month — at the Harken International Youth Match Racing Championships hosted by the Royal Prince Alfred from 18-22 November, and the Musto Youth Match Racing Internationals at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia from 26-29 November.

“We had a good two weeks racing in a very close fleet in Sydney,” Niall says, hailing the “extremely high level of sailors” at both events.

Musto was his team’s first ever Grade 1 event, the helm says, so it was “a great opportunity just to be among such a good fleet and we were able to learn a lot”.

Despite neither event seeing him get the results hoped for, the young Irishman is proud that he “had some very close races, finishing less than half a boat length behind the world number two [New Zealand youth Nick Egnot-Johnson] and taking two wins of the Musto Youth International defending champion Frankie Dair”.

Next up for Niall will be the first ever New Zealand Foiling Match Racing Championships, being held at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron from 13-17 January, in which he will be representing the RIYC.

Published in Match Racing

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.