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#SURFING - The Irish Junior Surf Team departed yesterday for southwestern France to compete at the 2012 European Junior Surfing Championship at Lacanau-Océan which kicks off tomorrow.

The 19-strong team includes flagbearer Iarom Madden Traver and Cian Cagney in the U18 Boys division, Aaron O'Hare and Gearoid Mc Daid in the U16 Boys and Garbhan Mc Closkey and Dylan Noonan in the U14s Boys.

Ireland will be represented in the U18 Girls by Ayesha Garvey and Rachel Moore, while Eoin O'Malley Daly will compete in the Longboard event.

Meanwhile, Odhran McGovern and Kevin McGowan will challenge for the U18 Bodyboard, Cian McGovern and Oisin Cogan are in the U16 Bodyboards, and Meadb McCloskey is in the field for the U18 Girls Bodyboard.

Among the coaching staff joining the group are Irish Surf Team coach Pascal Devine and top female surf coach Shauna Ward, along with world-class bodyboarder Shane Meehan and U18 reserve Donough Cronin, who will both act as judges.

Heats will commence on Sunday 9 September running throughout the week, with the grand finals to take place the following Sunday 16 September.

The Irish Surfing Assocation has more HERE.

Meanwhile, Ireland's Glenn Hall as knocked out in the round of 16 at the ASP 6-Star San Miguel Pro Zarautz last week.

The Irish surf pro has established some impressive totals throughout the competition in Spain's Basque Country, but even his 13.40 in the fifth round wasn't enough to hold off the challenge of Ramzi Boukhiam, with the Moroccan pipping him by just 0.13 points.

Published in Surfing

About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).