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Displaying items by tag: video

#HOW TO - Sail Magazine have posted a valuable video guide demonstrating how to set a kedge anchor for your vessel.

Every boat should carry a minimum of two anchors to give you security should the wind shift or pick up overnight and cause the boat to sway.

The second anchor should always be a different design to the primary anchor - an aluminium Fortress anchor would be perfect for this, being light to carry should it be needed.

Choice of rope is also important for a kedge anchor, with nylon being the better bet for its strength despite its lightness.

Get all of Sail Magazine's tips for setting a kedge anchor HERE.

Published in Boat Maintenance

#FUNGIE - A new video posted to YouTube celebrates 30 years of Fungie the dolphin in Dingle.

The male bottlenose dolphin appeared from out of nowhere in the Co Kerry fishing village in 1983 and soon made it his home, quickly becoming an integral part of the local community.

Since his arrival Fungie has made friends and warmed hearts with people both local and across the world, such as Dutch couple Jeannine Masset and Rudi Schamhart who have been meeting him for more than 20 years.

Meanwhile, locals hope that new measures for harbour users proposed earlier this year won't bring an end to boat trips to meet Dingle's most famous resident.

Published in Marine Wildlife

#TALL SHIPS - TheJournal.ie this week highlighted this wonderful video of the Tall Ships Races fleet as they departed Dublin Bay on Sunday 26 August.

Filmmaker Rachel O'Connor captured this footage on board the racing sloop Sceolaing along with its owners the Delaps.

"Nearly everyone who had a boat was out at sea," says O'Connor. "The spectacle was breathtaking."

Judging by the sights she captured here, we're inclined to agree!

Published in Tall Ships

#SURFING - Surfing website MagicSeaweed captured French surf pro Justine Dupont in top form at Aileens off the West of Ireland on Sunday 21 October.

The 21-year-old paddled out to the secret big wave surfing spot with 2011 Billabong XXL Biggest Wave Award winner Benjamin Sanchis, where they promptly broke their boards caught in the biggest barrels of the day.

Turning their attentions instead to the "infamous cold water right-hander", Dupont was towed into a stunning 12-foot tunnel of water - as the video above shows.

"It was more than a session, it was a mission," said Dupont. "From getting smashed paddling out to surfing that perfect beautiful wave, it was a day I’ll never forget."

MagicSeaweed has photos and video of Dupont's Aileens adventure HERE.

Published in Surfing

#SURFING - WorldIrish brings us another gem of a video as surf pros take on the challenging waves off the west coast of Ireland.

It's just the latest praise for the Emerald Isle as a world-class surfing destination.

Published in Surfing

#SURFING - A documentary charting Easkey Britton's history-making surfing trip to Iran will premiere on French TV later this month, according to The Irish Times.

The hour-long film was shot by French filmmaker Marion Poizeau during the Donegal surf champion's visit in September last year to Chabahar, a coastal town in southern Iran on the Pakistan border.

Britton - of the northwest surfing dynasty - became the first woman ever to surf in Iran when she donned a full-length 'hijab swimsuit' and took to the waves in near 40 degree temperatures - attracting much attention from the locals.

“Iran is not known as a surf destination," she says, "but experiencing a country through surf gives you a different perspective. It was a leap into the unknown, but I thought I’d give it a go.”

Britton is now hoping to encourage more women and girls in the Middle East to take up surfing, noting its growing popularity in the Gaza Strip.

The Irish Times has more on the story HERE.

Published in Surfing

#DIVING - WorldIrish have done it again with another great video find - this time following a team of divers off Donegal as they explore the wreck of the RMS/HMS Carinthia.

On 6 June 1940, during the Second World War, the transatlantic steam-powered cruise liner turned armed merchant ship was sunk by a German U-boat off Tory Island.

The video above shows some of the sights seen by Michael McVeigh and his diving team, including the ship's bow, the anchor telegraph and its wartime addition 6" gun.

Published in Diving

#SURFING - Top Irish surfer Richie Fitzgerald was on hand for a special open-air screening of the award-winning surfing documentary Waveriders on Inchydoney beach in West Cork, as the Irish Examiner reports.

Fitzgerald, who stars in the 2009 film, attended the Movies on the Beach event on Saturday evening to help boost fundraising efforts for the Clonakilty Flood Relief Fund.

The former champion surfer has been witness to some of the most spectular waves off the Irish coast, including the biggest rollers in years recorded off Mullaghmore Head this past March.

Published in Surfing

#KITESURFING - WorldIrish has posted video highlights of the recent Irish National Kite Surfing Championships on Duncannon Beach as part of the annual Wexford Kite Surfing Festival.

Though the event was marred somewhat by a lack of strong winds which saw the cancellation of the men's competition, the women's and junior divisions made the best of the bad weather, with Tereza Siminova and 15-year-old James Hayden taking the top honours respectively.

Published in Kitesurfing

#VOLVO OCEAN RACE - The official film of the latest edition of the Volvo Ocean Race - which had its finale in Galway last month - has been posted on YouTube.

Originally broadcast in late July on TG4, the documentary takes a look back at the 2011/2012 race as the boats left Alicante last October, sailing around the world and visiting ports and cities such as Cape Town, Abu Dhabi, Sanya, Auckland, Itajaí, Miami, Lisbon, Lorient and Galway. 

Delving into the world’s premier global race and one of the most demanding team sporting events in the world, VOR bosses say the film gets close to the action in the ultimate mix of world class sporting competition and on-the-edge adventure, a unique blend of onshore glamour with offshore drama and endurance.

Published in Ocean Race
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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.