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Displaying items by tag: Maurogiovanni

#Rowing: David McGowan from Australia will be the new Ireland heavyweight coach. As an athlete he competed in the Australia four which finished fourth in the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004. As a coach he had a successful run in the Netherlands. He coached the lightweight eight to gold at the World Championships in 2007, then took the men’s heavyweight eight through the Olympic Qualifiers in 2008 and they went on to the Beijing Olympic Games. He coached with Nereus, the famed student club from Amsterdam and in Sweden. Most recently, he was appointed head coach at Swan River Rowing Club in Perth in Australia.  

 He will take up his post next month and will be expected to create a pathway for Irish rowers from junior and  university levels on to the Ireland high performance system.

 In a statement from Rowing Ireland, McGowan said: “I feel privileged to have been offered this opportunity in such an exciting time for Irish rowing. I look forward to both working with Rowing Ireland and rowing in Ireland and I am excited to be joining the team shortly.”

 Rowing Ireland chief executive, Hamish Adams, added: “We are delighted to have secured the services of an experienced international coach like David and I believe he will deliver real value to our heavyweight programme across the island of Ireland. Development of the heavyweight category offers a great opportunity to us as a rowing nation and we feel it is important to engage with all our stakeholders to deliver on our potential in this area.”

Published in Rowing

#Rowing: The new High Performance Director for Irish rowing will be Antonio Maurogiovanni. The Italian will take up the role in August.

Maurogiovanni rowed for Italy at the 1988 Seoul and 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games in the four and eight respectively.

As a coach he was involved in seven Olympic Games with several nations including Italy, the Netherlands, and Australia. He moves on from his role with Rowing Australia as Head Coach with the Western Australian team after 15 years. He said he was excited to take up the new challenge.

He said rowing has been his passion and made up much of his life. “It has taken me from Italy to Australia to the Netherlands and back to Australia and now to Ireland. I look forward to applying the experience and knowledge I have acquired over the years and using it to the best of my ability to bring success in Ireland.”

Hamish Adams, the chief executive of Rowing Ireland, said: “We have been through an extremely robust and intensive recruitment process to source the best possible candidate for this demanding role. As a professional coach with a background in sport science and vast Olympic experience Antonio is an exceptional candidate and we are delighted to welcome him to our team.

“I wish to thank Neville Maxwell, Chair of our High Performance Committee, Paul McDermott, Sport Ireland High Performance Director and Gianni Postiglione, World Rowing (FISA) coaching representative for their personal contributions to this recruitment process."

Published in Rowing

Galway Port & Harbour

Galway Bay is a large bay on the west coast of Ireland, between County Galway in the province of Connacht to the north and the Burren in County Clare in the province of Munster to the south. Galway city and port is located on the northeast side of the bay. The bay is about 50 kilometres (31 miles) long and from 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) to 30 kilometres (19 miles) in breadth.

The Aran Islands are to the west across the entrance and there are numerous small islands within the bay.

Galway Port FAQs

Galway was founded in the 13th century by the de Burgo family, and became an important seaport with sailing ships bearing wine imports and exports of fish, hides and wool.

Not as old as previously thought. Galway bay was once a series of lagoons, known as Loch Lurgan, plied by people in log canoes. Ancient tree stumps exposed by storms in 2010 have been dated back about 7,500 years.

It is about 660,000 tonnes as it is a tidal port.

Capt Brian Sheridan, who succeeded his late father, Capt Frank Sheridan

The dock gates open approximately two hours before high water and close at high water subject to ship movements on each tide.

The typical ship sizes are in the region of 4,000 to 6,000 tonnes

Turbines for about 14 wind projects have been imported in recent years, but the tonnage of these cargoes is light. A European industry report calculates that each turbine generates €10 million in locally generated revenue during construction and logistics/transport.

Yes, Iceland has selected Galway as European landing location for international telecommunications cables. Farice, a company wholly owned by the Icelandic Government, currently owns and operates two submarine cables linking Iceland to Northern Europe.

It is "very much a live project", Harbourmaster Capt Sheridan says, and the Port of Galway board is "awaiting the outcome of a Bord Pleanála determination", he says.

90% of the scrap steel is exported to Spain with the balance being shipped to Portugal. Since the pandemic, scrap steel is shipped to the Liverpool where it is either transhipped to larger ships bound for China.

It might look like silage, but in fact, its bales domestic and municipal waste, exported to Denmark where the waste is incinerated, and the heat is used in district heating of homes and schools. It is called RDF or Refuse Derived Fuel and has been exported out of Galway since 2013.

The new ferry is arriving at Galway Bay onboard the cargo ship SVENJA. The vessel is currently on passage to Belem, Brazil before making her way across the Atlantic to Galway.

Two Volvo round world races have selected Galway for the prestigious yacht race route. Some 10,000 people welcomed the boats in during its first stopover in 2009, when a festival was marked by stunning weather. It was also selected for the race finish in 2012. The Volvo has changed its name and is now known as the "Ocean Race". Capt Sheridan says that once port expansion and the re-urbanisation of the docklands is complete, the port will welcome the "ocean race, Clipper race, Tall Ships race, Small Ships Regatta and maybe the America's Cup right into the city centre...".

The pandemic was the reason why Seafest did not go ahead in Cork in 2020. Galway will welcome Seafest back after it calls to Waterford and Limerick, thus having been to all the Port cities.

© Afloat 2020