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Displaying items by tag: Storm Diana

Irish Coast Guard teams across Ireland have responded to incidents related to the extreme conditions brought by Storm Diana over the last two days.

Dun Laoghaire Coast Guard was tasked at lunchtime on Tuesday (27 November) to extract a member of the public that had walked out the South Bull wall during stormy conditions.

The safest option in that situation was the casualty to take shelter until the tide dropped.

Yesterday afternoon (Wednesday 28 November), the team was called out to the Shankill shoreline close to Shanganagh Water Treatment plant to reports of a vehicle submerged in water with person a trapped.

Dun Laoghaire Coast Guard were tasked immediately along with Rescue 116 from Dublin Airport and Dun Laoghaire RNLI. While crews were responding to the incident, the casualty was rescued by his colleagues. All crews were stood down.

Shortly after, Dun Laoghaire Coast Guard was tasked to another incident at the town’s East Pier, where members of the public were stranded due to waves breaching the pier wall.

On arrival, Dun Laoghaire Coast Guard members identified a few members of public on the pier and advised them to relocate to a safer location.

Elsewhere, Crosshaven Coast Guard was tasked several times, starting on Tuesday evening with a person who had fallen overboard from a yacht and had been in the water for almost an hour.

The casualty was evacuated to Crosshaven RNLI’s lifeboat station, while the coastguard crew refloated their vessel that had gone aground.

Crosshaven was tasked again yesterday morning to recover a yacht after it broke its mooring near Drakes Pool. A tow was quickly established and casualty vessel brought to safety to a Royal Cork Yacht Club mooring.

The Irish Coast Guard strongly advises the public to stay away from exposed beaches, cliffs and piers, harbour walls and promenades along the coast during storm conditions.

Remember to Stay Back, Stay High and Stay Dry.

If you see someone in difficulty in the sea, or on the shore dial 999/112 and ask for the coastguard.

Published in Coastguard

Met Éireann says a Status Yellow gale warning is in effect on all Irish coastal waters and on the Irish Sea as of 6am this morning (Tuesday 27 November) as the first of two waves of stormy weather conditions passes over the country.

Heavy downpours with spot flooding, and gales and severe gusts will be experienced nationwide, particularly from Dublin and much of south Leinster, across Munster, up to west Connacht and Donegal.

Winds are expected die down after 3pm but will pick up again this evening and overnight into Wednesday 28 November, again with very blustery strong to gale force winds, southeast veering southwest. Donegal Weather Channel predicts a potential Status Orange warning later today.

Published in Weather
Tagged under

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