Displaying items by tag: death
Death of Rower Ailish Sheehan
#Rowing: Ailish Sheehan, the Limerick rower who was badly injured in a fall on Sunday after the World University Rowing Championships in Poznan, has died. BUCS, the British university and colleges sports organization, said in a statement:
British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) is deeply saddened to report the death of Ailish Sheehan on 9th September 2016.
Ailish, a postgraduate student at Goldsmiths, University of London representing the University of London Boat Club, was involved in an accident after the culmination of the 2016 FISU World University Championships for Rowing in Poznan, Poland on Sunday evening, 4th September. Ailish had been competing in the Women’s Four (W4) at the Championships, where she won a bronze medal.
BUCS, British Rowing and Rowing Ireland are providing support to her family during this difficult time and ask for their privacy to be respected.
On behalf of everyone at BUCS, I wish to extend our condolences to the family and friends of Ailish and our thoughts are with them at this difficult time.
Diver Death Off East Anglian Coast
#Diving - The Guardian reports that British police are investigating the death of a diver off the coast of East Anglia yesterday (30 August).
The deceased was one of two divers from a group of seven who got into difficulty off Lowestoft in Suffolk during a recreational diving trip.
The other diver was taken to hospital but police said he was likely to be discharged.
A police spokesperson added that the dead man is not thought to be local, and that the authorities are trying to trace his next of kin.
The death is currently being treated as unexplained until a portmortem can take place.
The 13 Deadliest Shipwrecks in History
#TITANIC - Irreverent tech website Gizmodo has marked the 100th annversary of the sinking of the Titanic with a list of the 13 deadliest shipwrecks in history.
The list runs the gamut from well over a century ago, in the early days of passenger shipping - see the SS Sultana, a tragedy overshadowed by the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the end of the American Civl War - to more recent events.
Included are such as sad tales as that of the Empress of Ireland, the worst disaster in Canadian maritime history in which more than 1,000 died, and much closer to home the Lusitania, which went down off Kinsale in May 1915 after a torpedo attack.
But the worst was arguably suffered by the passengers of the steamship SS Kiangya - which blew up 50 miles north of Shanghai in December 1948, taking as many as 3,920 lives - and the horror that befell the MV Doña Paz in the Philippines in December 1987, where estimates put the death toll at an unbelievable 4,000.
Gizmodo has more on the story HERE.
Corrib Anglers Donate to Rescue Boat
#ANGLING - Days after the tragic death of an angler on Lough Corrib, as previously reported on Afloat.ie, the Collinamuck Angling Club will donate €5 from every entry in the upcoming open wet fly competition on 22 April to the Corrib Mask rescue boat.
"The important work that is carried out by the volunteers of the Corrib Mask rescue boat is sometimes forgotted by us anglers," the club's Lionel Flanagan told the Galway Advertiser at the launch of this year's contest.
"We hope this small token will help the Corrib Mask rescue boat continue to provide this vital resource to Connacht anglers and visitors alike.”
Probe into Death of Seaman at Waterford Port
An investigation has been launched into the death of a seaman in Waterford Port yesterday.
The Irish Independent reports that the 51-year-old sailor from the Philippines fell more than five metres after being struck by machinery.
He had been tying down a load on the cargo ship MV Scot Pioneer when the incident occurred around lunchtime yesterday. He later died from his injuries.
The Health and Safety Authority and gardaí went to the scene, and RTÉ News reports that a post-mortem was set to take place yesterday afternoon.
The Port of Waterford Company also issued a statement extending its sympathies to the man's family and colleagues.
Kitesurfer Killed in France
A kitesurfer has been overwhelmed by the force of the wind while he was kitesurfing and been killed in France. He crashed into a nine-storey building and then went over it. The journal.ie has more on the accident. See over the fold.
Sharks in Irish waters
Irish waters are home to 71 species of shark, skates and rays, 58 of which have been studied in detail and listed on the Ireland Red List of Cartilaginous fish. Irish sharks range from small Sleeper sharks, Dogfish and Catsharks, to larger species like Frilled, Mackerel and Cow sharks, all the way to the second largest shark in the world, the Basking shark.
Irish waters provide a refuge for an array of shark species. Tralee Bay, Co. Kerry provides a habitat for several rare and endangered sharks and their relatives, including the migratory tope shark, angel shark and undulate ray. This area is also the last European refuge for the extremely rare white skate. Through a European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) project, Marine Institute scientists have been working with fishermen to assess the distribution, diversity, and monthly relative abundance of skates and rays in Tralee, Brandon and Dingle Bays.
“These areas off the southwest coast of Ireland are important internationally as they hold some of the last remaining refuges for angel shark and white skate,” said Dr Maurice Clarke of the Marine Institute. “This EMFF project has provided data confirming the critically endangered status of some species and provides up-to-date information for the development of fishery measures to eliminate by-catch.”
Irish waters are also home to the Black Mouthed Catshark, Galeus melastomus, one of Ireland’s smallest shark species which can be found in the deep sea along the continental shelf. In 2018, Irish scientists discovered a very rare shark-nursery 200 nautical miles off the west coast by the Marine Institute’s ROV Holland 1 on a shelf sloping to 750 metres deep.
There are two ways that sharks are born, either as live young or from egg casings. In the ‘case’ of Black Mouthed Catsharks, the nursery discovered in 2018, was notable by the abundance of egg casings or ‘mermaid’s purses’. Many sharks, rays and skate lay eggs, the cases of which often wash ashore. If you find an egg casing along the seashore, take a photo for Purse Search Ireland, a citizen science project focusing on monitoring the shark, ray and skate species around Ireland.
Another species also found by Irish scientists using the ROV Holland 1 in 2018 was a very rare type of dogfish, the Sail Fin Rough Shark, Oxynotus paradoxus. These sharks are named after their long fins which resemble the trailing sails of a boat, and live in the deep sea in waters up to 750m deep. Like all sharks, skates and rays, they have no bones. Their skeleton is composed of cartilage, much like what our noses and ears are made from! This material is much more flexible and lighter than bone which is perfect for these animals living without the weight of gravity.
Throughout history sharks have been portrayed as the monsters of the sea, a concept that science is continuously debunking. Basking sharks were named in 1765 as Cetorhinus maximus, roughly translated to the ‘big-nosed sea monster’. Basking sharks are filter feeders, often swimming with their mouths agape, they filter plankton from the water.
They are very slow moving and like to bask in the sun in shallow water and are often seen in Irish waters around Spring and early Summer. To help understand the migration of these animals to be better able to understand and conserve these species, the Irish Basking Shark Group have tagged and mapped their travels.
Remarkably, many sharks like the Angel Shark, Squatina squatina have the ability to sense electricity. They do this via small pores in their skin called the ‘Ampullae of Lorenzini’ which are able to detect the tiny electrical impulses of a fish breathing, moving or even its heartbeat from distances of over a kilometre! Angel sharks, often referred to as Monkfish have a distinctively angelic shape, with flattened, large fins appearing like the wings of an angel. They live on the seafloor in the coastal waters of Ireland and much like a cat are nocturnal, primarily active at night.
The intricate complexity of shark adaptations is particularly noticeable in the texture of their skin. Composed of miniscule, perfectly shaped overlapping scales, the skin of shark provides them with protection. Often shark scales have been compared to teeth due to their hard enamel structure. They are strong, but also due to their intricate shape, these scales reduce drag and allow water to glide past them so that the shark can swim more effortlessly and silently. This natural flawless design has been used as inspiration for new neoprene fabric designs to help swimmers glide through the water. Although all sharks have this feature, the Leafscale Gulper Shark, Centrophorus squamosus, found in Ireland are specifically named due to the ornate leaf-shape of their scales.