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Displaying items by tag: Rower of the Month,

In the light of the absence of all the domestic events in the month and the severe curtailment of the Ireland trials, the judges have decided not to choose an Afloat Rower of the Month for February 2020.

 The pincer movement of very bad weather at home, which forced organisers to abandon heads of the river, and the encroaching threat of the Covid-19 virus has left rowing with very little competition.

 A limited trial for lightweights and for sweep women went ahead, but no official details were released.

Rower of the Month awards: The judging panel is made up of Liam Gorman, rowing correspondent of The Irish Times and David O'Brien, Editor of Afloat magazine. Monthly awards for achievements during the year will appear on afloat.ie. Keep a monthly eye on progress and watch our 2020 champions list grow.

Published in Rower of Month

#Rower of the Month: Sanita Puspure is the Afloat Rower of the Month for May. The Old Collegians sculler had struggled with injury early in the year, but come the Ireland trial at the National Rowing Centre, she was one of the top performers. She would carry that form into the first World Cup Regatta in Belgrade, where she took silver behind world champion Jeannine Gmelin of Switzerland and ahead of world bronze medallist Magdalena Lobnig of Austria and Britain’s Victoria Thornley, the silver  medallist at last year’s World Championships.

 May was also an excellent month for Irish juniors. Castleconnell were honoured as the best junior club at the Ghent International Regatta.  Enniskillen, Workmen’s, Bann and Fermoy also shone at the British National Schools Regatta on Dorney Lake. Fermoy’s Gill McGirr and Eliza O’Reilly won gold in the Championship Pair.

Rower of the Month awards: The judging panel is made up of Liam Gorman, rowing correspondent of The Irish Times and David O'Brien, Editor of Afloat magazine. Monthly awards for achievements during the year will appear on afloat.ie. Keep a monthly eye on progress and watch our 2018 champions list grow.

Published in Rower of Month

#ROWING: The Afloat Rowers of the Month for July are the Grainne Mhaol/NUIG crew which won the senior eights final at the Irish Championships. This was the third win of the last four years for a senior eight involving NUIG. The victory over Queen’s came by virtue of a stunning finish, a characteristic of NUIG crews in recent years. The achievement was all the more poignant as it was dedicated to long-time coach Tom Tuohy, who died last year after a short illness.

Rower of the Month awards: The judging panel is made up of Liam Gorman, rowing correspondent of The Irish Times and David O'Brien, Editor of Afloat magazine. Monthly awards for achievements during the year will appear on afloat.ie and the overall national award will be presented to the person or crew who, in the judges' opinion, achieved the most notable results in, or made the most significant contribution to rowing during 2012. Keep a monthly eye on progress and watch our 2012 champions list grow.

Published in Rowing

# ROWER OF THE MONTH: John Keohane is the Afloat Rower of the Month for June. The Corkman won Division One of the men’s single sculls at Cork Regatta, his second such win in the eFlow League series. He had also won at Skibbereen Regatta. Keohane competed in the Diamond Sculls at Henley, but he was beaten by Luke Moon in difficult conditions for the lighter Irishman.

Rower of the Month awards: The judging panel is made up of Liam Gorman, rowing correspondent of The Irish Times and David O'Brien, Editor of Afloat magazine. Monthly awards for achievements during the year will appear on afloat.ie and the overall national award will be presented to the person or crew who, in the judges' opinion, achieved the most notable results in, or made the most significant contribution to rowing during 2012. Keep a monthly eye on progress and watch our 2012 champions list grow.

Published in Rowing

# ROWING: Sanita Puspure is the Afloat Rower of the Month for May. The 30-year-old gave Ireland a place in the rowing programme at the Olympic Games in London with a characteristically gutsy performance which placed her fourth in the single scull at the Olympic Qualifier in Lucerne. This was the final Olympic place on offer, and she won a battle in the closing stages with Iva Obradovic of Serbia to clinch the spot. She is the deserving and popular winner of the Afloat Rower of the MonthRower of the Month awards:

The judging panel is made up of Liam Gorman, rowing correspondent of The Irish Times and David O'Brien, Editor of Afloat magazine. Monthly awards for achievements during the year will appear on afloat.ie and the overall national award will be presented to the person or crew who, in the judges' opinion, achieved the most notable results in, or made the most significant contribution to rowing during 2012. Keep a monthly eye on progress and watch our 2012 champions list grow.

Published in Rower of Month

ROWING: Michael Maher is the Afloat Rower of the Month for March. The Dubliner won the Open Lightweight category at the British Indoor Championships in Nottingham. In 2010 he was part of the Ireland lightweight quadruple scull which took silver at the World Under-23 Championships. Last year he and the lightweight quadruple finished fourth at the senior World Championships.

Rower of the Month awards: The judging panel is made up of Liam Gorman, rowing correspondent of The Irish Times, President of Rowing Ireland Anthony Dooley and David O'Brien, Editor of Afloat magazine.

Published in Rowing

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.