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Displaying items by tag: Solo Sailer Tom Doran

#Lecture - "2016 Offshore Racing in France-A Steep Learning Curve" -An illustrated lecture by Solo Offshore Sailor Tom Dolan is to take place on Thursday 16 February at 20:00hrs.

The venue for the Glenua & Friends organised lecture series as usual is at the Poolbeg Yacht & Boat Club, Ringsend, Dublin 4. There will be an entry fee of €5 in aid of the RNLI.

What a year 2016 was for Tom Dolan!

About this time last year on a wet and windy Thursday night in Poolbeg Yacht and Boat Club, he gave a short presentation to Glenua members and friends on his experiences in the Mini Transat 2015. As promised, he is back in Poolbeg after a much more successful season where learning from mistakes was crucial.

Tom spent the winter preparing a new boat from scratch. His first outing with the new machine led him to his first (and Ireland’s first) victory in the class when he won the 500 Mile "Mini en Mai".

A month later another win in the Trophée MAP and he set his sights firmly on the SAS,a singlehanded race from Les Sables d'Olonne to The Azores and back for which he was named favourite. He arrived in Horta in second place but disaster struck in the return leg. He arrived back in France in 11th place!

Tom promises to share, warts and all, this and other learning experiences in his presentation in video and slide formats.

A rapid progression by Tom in the Glenans Irish Sailing School from volunteer to sailing instructor, to sailing centre manager in Ireland and France and passion for the sea, earned him an enviable reputation in the sail training world. However, below the radar, so to speak, was talent and increasing engagement with the challenges of ocean racing.

Published in News Update

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.