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Displaying items by tag: Log of the Molly B

#Lecture – Dubliner Pete Hogan, a well-known artist specialising in painting boats is to present a lecture titled "The Log of the Molly B - Building and sailing a gaff-rigged ketch around the World".

The lecture takes place next Wednesday 13 March at 20:00 in Poolbeg Yacht and Boat Club, Ringsend, in the heart of Dublin Port.

Pete has been sailing all his life usually out of Dun Laoghaire but also in the Clew Bay area of Mayo. He worked as a commercial fisherman, as a deck hand on yachts and in the office of a paper company. In 1975 he emigrated to Vancouver, Canada.

Three years later he said 'To hell with this. I'm going to build a boat... ' He built a 30 foot double ended gaff rigged ketch and sailed it through the Panama Canal and back to Ireland without motor or electronics.

He then sailed Molly B around the World by way of the infamous Cape Horn. Embarking on a third voyage, Molly B sank in a storm in the Mediterranean and he was lucky to survive.

Pete recently published an illustrated book about his adventures with Molly B and this forms the basis of his talk and slide show.

The talk is part of the les Glénans Irish Sector Winter Lecture Series. All are welcome. Entry fee of €5 in aid of the RNLI. For further details contact: 087 2129614

 

Published in Boating Fixtures

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).