Displaying items by tag: Frithjof Kleen

23rd March 2011

Irish Olympic Crews in Top Twenty of World Rankings

Two of Ireland's 2012 Olympic squad crews are ranked in the top twenty in World sailing rankings announced this week.

Peter O'Leary who has been sailing with three different crews, David Burrows, Frithjof Kleen and Timothy Goodbody to date is ranked 17th by the International Sailing Federation (ISAF).

O'Leary and Burrows sailing in the Star keelboat class were recent top finishers at 93-boat fleet in Miami. They finished second overall after they lost the overall lead in the last race of the 2011 Bacardi Cup.

Listen into a podcast about Peter O'Leary's Olympic sailing plans HERE.

Fellow Olympic squad member, 21-year old Annalise Murphy from Dun Laoghaire is now ranked 12th in the Laser radial class counting seven ISAF events. Murphy has also had success in Florida this season, she finished fourth in the Miami Olympic Classes regatta in January.

Listen to what Team Manager James O'Callaghan has to say about her progress:

The next release of the ISAF World Sailing Rankings will be on 13 April 2011 and will include the Trofeo SAR Princess Sofia Mapfre in Spain.

The ISAF World Sailing Rankings rate skippers based on their performances over the last two years. Skippers score points by competing in ISAF Graded events. The top finishers at all ISAF Graded events score Rankings points, with the highest points awarded to the event winner and then decreasing down relative to position.

More Irish Olympic Sailing News HERE.

Published in Olympics 2012

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O'Leary and Kleen Eight Points Clear in Weymouth

Royal Cork's Peter O'Leary and Frithjof Kleen have built an eight pont advantage to lead the Star class in Weymouth tonight. A fifth and a sixth were added to yesterday's stunning results (a first place after protest redress) in the 36 boat class that includes some of the world's top crews. Chasing the Ireland-German pairing is Swedish pair Frederick Look and Johan Tillander. Multiple Laser world champion Robert Sheidt of Brazil is seventh and Star Gold medallist Ian Percy of Britain is sixth. In another strong performance from an 11 member Irish squad is Annalise Murphy who is eighth in the Laser Radials. Results with Irish placings are below.

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A tight start for the Star class. Peter O'Leary and Frithjof Kleen lead the 36-boat fleet in Weymouth. Photo: OnEdition

It was a day when the trapdoor opened - we're at the end of the opening rounds of Skandia Sail for Gold 2010. The Gold fleets will be separated out tonight, and tomorrow we get down to the business end of the regatta. If you went through the trapdoor into the silver fleet today, there's no way back. Meanwhile, at the top end the high-fliers from the first three days were roped up and hauled back into the pack – the leaderboard has got tighter almost everywhere.

If you want to see some seriously intense competition, look no further than the Women's 470 fleet. World Champions, Lisa Westerhof and Lobke Berkhout overhauled the Japanese pair of Ai Kondo and Wakako Tabata today – and they did it despite a black flag disqualification in the first race – going on to win the second. They say that champions are measured by their response to adversity, and if so, these two are real champions.

Westerhof said afterwards, "Everyone is sailing really up and down and the fleet isn't very consistent, apart from the Japanese who are having a good series. Although we haven't been consistent, we have managed to get to the top, but it doesn't feel like it. We have had an OCS (over the start line early) and finished 18th in a race on the first day, so we need to work on that, but the result at the minute is great."

Westerhof and Berkhout count two firsts and two seconds with that DSQ and 18th – but headline interest in this fleet goes further down the scoring list. Ingrid Petitjean and Nadarge Douroux lead French compatriots Emmanuelle Rol and Helene Defrance by one point in the the ISAF Sailing World Cup standings, and by just one place in the regatta – they are fourth and fifth.

We talked about three (other) French teams yesterday, all with exceptional leads in their fleets – and while all of them held onto those leads, it was a struggle. In the Men's 470, Pierre Leboucher and Vincent Garos scored a 12th and a second, and are now just two points ahead of Australian World Champions, Matt Belcher and Malcolm Page. And it's a hot Aussie breath on the back of French necks. "We're having a good regatta," said Belcher, "we got two seconds today and things are going well. Obviously we've won the [ISAF Sailing] World Cup and the World Championships, so it's been a great year and we never expected to be able to head into this event with the World Cup title wrapped up, so it's a great position to be in."

It the 49er, Frenchmen Manu Dyen and Stephane Christidis had recorded a 2, 2, 2, 1, 1 up to this morning, but today they could only add a third and an eleventh. The chasing Kiwis, Peter Burling and Blair Tuke, didn't fair much better with a second and a 14th, and now find themselves just one point ahead of both their cross-Tasman rivals, Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen, and the British team of Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes. The latter crew had an outstanding day with a first and a third, and Morrison said afterwards, "It wasn't very easy to make big gains, it was tough on the start and it was generally one sided, and pretty much down to boat speed". Clearly, the British pair weren't lacking in that commodity today.

In the Finn, the French high-flier yesterday was Jonathan Lobert, with a first and two seconds. But overnight, three of the major contenders, Ben Ainslie (GBR), Dan Slater (NZL) and Ed Wright (GBR) got awarded average points for yesterday's race, because of confusion over a change of course. The trio got those average points calculated on all their other races up to the end of today. So Ben Ainslie promptly went out and scored two seconds - hitting the kind of form that's won him more Finn bling than we can count. And so he's now up to second, 5.5 points behind Lobert...

The Skud-18 got back on the water today, after missing out yesterday when the breeze made sailing impossible. And Aussies, Daniel Fitzgibbon and Rachael Cox also had an outstanding day with three bullets to take a three point lead from the Brits, Alexandra Rickham and Nikki Birrell. Elsewhere there was another solid performance from Peter O'Leary and Frithjof Kleen in the Star. The early leaders, Kiwi America's Cup stars Hamish Pepper and Craig Monk, have faded badly to drop to ninth, leaving the Irish team clear by eight points from Swedes, Fredrik Loof and Johan Tillander.

In the Men's RS:X, Brit Nick Dempsey now leads overall after a great day, scoring a first and a second. Dempsey's agreed with his compatriot, Stevie Morrison (49er) about the start, "The difficult thing today was the starts, you could win or lose the race by the way you performed on the line so it was really important to ensure a safe start." And finally, we can't leave without a nod to the Laser Radial fleet, who were out there till late afternoon before they could get off the start line cleanly. No shortage of competitive athletes then, with Dutch girl, Marit Bouwmeester, now even at the top of the leaderboard with France's Sophie de Turckheim.

Results – Top Five - (results conditional on protests)

Star results – (After six races)

1st O'leary and Kleen IRL 19 points

2nd Loof and Tillander SWE 27 points

3rd Kusznierewicz and Zycki POL 29 points

4th Florent and Rambeau FRA 29 points

5th Polgar and Koy GER 30 points

Irish Interest

25th Max Treacy and Anthony Shanks 108pts

470 Woman Results (After six races)

1st Westerhof and Berkhout NED 24 points

2nd Kondon and Tabata JPN 25 points

3rd Pacheco and Betanzo ESP 30 points

4th Petitjean and Douroux FRA 33 points

5th Rol and DeFrance FRA 40 points

470 Men Results (After six races)

1st Leboucher and Garos FRA 8 points

2nd Belcher and Page AUS 10 points

3rd Mantis and Kagialis GRE 18 points

4th Fantela and Marenic CRO 20 points

5th Patience and Bithell GBR 21 points

49er Results (After seven races )

1st Dyen and Christidis FRA 11 points

2nd Burling and Tuke NZL 17 points

3rd Outteridge and Jensen AUS 18 points

4th Morrison and Rhodes GBR 18 points

5th Sibello and Sibello ITA 24 points

Irish Interest

15th Ryan Seaton and Matthew McGovern

43rd Ed Bulter and Ben Lynch

57th Alistair KIssane and Ben Scallan

Finn Results (After races)

1st Lobert FRA 14 points

2nd Ainslie GBR 19.4 points

3rd Scott GBR 26 points

4th Railey USA 27 points

5th Kljakovic CRO 30 points

Irish Interest

40th Ross Hamilton 196 points

Laser Results – (After 6 races)

1st Goodison GBR 13 points

2nd Murdoch NZL 19 points

3rd De Haas NED 20 points

4th Meech NZL 21 points

5th Slingsby NZL 24 points

Laser Radial Results (After races)

1st Bouwmeester NED 11 points

2nd De Turckheim FRA 11 points

3rd Steyaert FRA 12 points

4th Fenclova CZE 15 points

5th Van Acker BEL 15

Irish Interest

8th Annalise Muphy 28pts

51st Tiffany Brien 125pts

76th Saskia Tidey 141pts

RS:X Men Results (After six races )

1st Dempsey GBR 8 points

3rd Rodrigues POR 13

3rd Van Rijsselberge NED 14 points

4th Tobin NZL 15 points

5th Bontemps FRA 15 points

RS:X Women Results (After six races)

1st Manchon ESP 14 points

2nd Picon FRA 17 points

3rd Shaw GBR 29 points

4th Linares ITA 33 points

5th Tartaglini ITA 34 points

Women's Match Racing - Qualified for the Gold Fleet

Leroy, Riou and Bertrand FRA

Souter, Curtis and Price AUS

Macgregor, Lush and Macgregor GBR

Tunicliffe, Vandemer and Capozzi USA

Sally Barkow, Alana O'Reilly, Genny Tulloch USA

Renee Groeneveld, Annemieke Bes, Brechtje van der Werf NED

Repecharge Results so far...

Kjellberg SWE 3 - 0

Skudina RUS 2 - 1

Spithill USA 2 - 1

2.4mR Results – (After 6 races)

1st Damien FRA 7 points

2nd Schmitter NED 8 points

3rd Kol NED 13 points

4th Tingley CAN 25 points

5th Ruf USA 32 points

Skud-18 Results – (After 5 races)

1st Fitzgibbon and Cox AUS 4 points

2nd Rickham and Birrell GBR 7 points

3rd McRoberts and Hopkin CAN 12 points

4th Hovden and Millward GBR 16 points

5th Hall and Faulks GBR 20 points

Sonar Results – (After six races)

1st Hessels and Rossen NED 7 points

2nd Robertson and Stodel GBR 11 points

3rd Kroker and Prem GER 16 points

4th Cohen and Vexler 20 points (race 3 DNF)

5th Doerr and Freud USA 22 points

Published in Olympics 2012

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Changing Ocean Climate

Our ocean and climate are inextricably linked - the ocean plays a crucial role in the global climate system in a number of ways. These include absorbing excess heat from the atmosphere and absorbing 30 per cent of the carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere by human activity. But our marine ecosystems are coming under increasing pressure due to climate change.

The Marine Institute, with its national and international partners, works to observe and understand how our ocean is changing and analyses, models and projects the impacts of our changing oceans. Advice and forecasting projections of our changing oceans and climate are essential to create effective policies and management decisions to safeguard our ocean.

Dr Paul Connolly, CEO of the Marine Institute, said, “Our ocean is fundamental to life on earth and affects so many facets of our everyday activities. One of the greatest challenges we face as a society is that of our changing climate. The strong international collaborations that the Marine Institute has built up over decades facilitates a shared focusing on our changing ocean climate and developing new and enhanced ways of monitoring it and tracking changes over time.

“Our knowledge and services help us to observe these patterns of change and identify the steps to safeguard our marine ecosystems for future generations.”

The Marine Institute’s annual ocean climate research survey, which has been running since 2004, facilitates long term monitoring of the deep water environment to the west of Ireland. This repeat survey, which takes place on board RV Celtic Explorer, enables scientists to establish baseline oceanic conditions in Irish waters that can be used as a benchmark for future changes.

Scientists collect data on temperature, salinity, water currents, oxygen and carbon dioxide in the Atlantic Ocean. This high quality oceanographic data contributes to the Atlantic Ocean Observing System. Physical oceanographic data from the survey is submitted to the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) and, in addition, the survey contributes to national research such as the VOCAB ocean acidification and biogeochemistry project, the ‘Clean Atlantic’ project on marine litter and the A4 marine climate change project.

Dr Caroline Cusack, who co-ordinates scientific activities on board the RV Celtic Explorer for the annual survey, said, “The generation of long-term series to monitor ocean climate is vital to allow us understand the likely impact of future changes in ocean climate on ecosystems and other marine resources.”

Other activities during the survey in 2019 included the deployment of oceanographic gliders, two Argo floats (Ireland’s contribution to EuroArgo) and four surface drifters (Interreg Atlantic Area Clean Atlantic project). The new Argo floats have the capacity to measure dissolved ocean and biogeochemical parameters from the ocean surface down to a depth of 2,000 metres continuously for up to four years, providing important information as to the health of our oceans.

During the 2019 survey, the RV Celtic Explorer retrieved a string of oceanographic sensors from the deep ocean at an adjacent subsurface moored station and deployed a replacement M6 weather buoy, as part of the Irish Marine Data Buoy Observation Network (IMDBON).

Funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the IMDBON is managed by the Marine Institute in collaboration with Met Éireann and is designed to improve weather forecasts and safety at sea around Ireland. The data buoys have instruments which collect weather and ocean data including wind speed and direction, pressure, air and sea surface temperature and wave statistics. This data provides vital information for weather forecasts, shipping bulletins, gale and swell warnings as well as data for general public information and research.

“It is only in the last 20 years, meteorologists and climatologists have really began to understood the pivotal role the ocean plays in determining our climate and weather,” said Evelyn Cusack, Head of Forecasting at Met Éireann. “The real-time information provided by the Irish data buoy network is particularly important for our mariners and rescue services. The M6 data buoy in the Atlantic provides vital information on swell waves generated by Atlantic storms. Even though the weather and winds may be calm around our shores, there could be some very high swells coming in from Atlantic storms.”