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Displaying items by tag: Tuscany

#RSFeva - Entries for the 2013 RS Feva Worlds in Tuscany broke the 100 mark on Friday 1 February, as Yachts and Yachting reports.

More than five months remain till the start of the event at Marina di Grosetto, which runs from 19-26 July - but with just 180 places in total, the rush is surely on for Feva sailors to stake their claim.

So far 14 countries across three continents will be represented, with newcomers including the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Switzerland, while Los Angeles will also send a boat for the first time.

Full details of the event including entry forms and the Notice of Race are available vis the RS Feva Worlds website. The entry deadline is 30 June 2013 but with more than half the available spots booked already, there's no time to waste.

Here's hoping Ireland will be as well represented as we were in 2010, when 34 Irish Feva sailors took part in the Worlds at Carnac in France.

Published in RS Sailing

#NEWS UPDATE - The Irish couple rescued from the stricken cruise liner off the Italian coast have spoken of their joy to be back home safe and sound.

Séamus Moore (52) and his wife Carol (50) from Clonmel were greeted by their three children at Dublin Airport yesterday, just two days after the Costa Concordia struck a sandbank and capsized off Tuscany.

“It was a difficult experience but at the end of the day it worked out very well for most people," Carol told The Irish Times. "It’s really, really a relief to be home.”

Commenting on the events of Friday night, Séamus likened their experiences on the sinking cruise ship to the film Titanic.

“When we were sitting on the side of the ship I said to her ‘now we know what Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslett felt like’ and she said ‘well at least Kate lived’."

As the boat listed, it also struck Séamus that while "everything was crashing one way, then the next, the one thing I did notice is that the piano player kept playing."

The couple were removed from the ship by lifeboat in the early hours of Saturday and looked after by the staff at the Irish Embassy in Rome before their return.

They were among some 4,000 passengers on the cruise ship, most of whom were rescued within hours of the incident. Six people are confirmed dead following the disaster, with more than 60 injured and 16 people still missing.

The captain of the 114,500-tonne vessel was arrested on Saturday accused of manslaughter and of abandoning ship before all passengers and crew had been evaculated.

The Irish Times has more on the story HERE.

Published in News Update

#NEWS UPDATE - An Irish couple were among those rescued from the cruise ship that ran aground off the coast of Italy on Friday night, the Irish Examiner reports.

Three people are believed to have died, while 14 others were injured, after the Costa Concordia struck a sandbank and capsized off the Tuscan coastline in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

The vessel was carrying more than 4,000 passengers at the time, many of whom jumped into the water as panic set in after the ship hit a rock that tore a 150ft gash in the hull.

As of Saturday three bodies had been recovered from the sea, with at least three more feared drowned.

The Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed that an Irish couple on board are safe and well, and are receiving consular assistance. Many survivors are taking refuge on the small island of Giglio close to the incident.

The Irish Examiner has more on the story HERE.

Published in News Update
Some of Ireland's top anglers are currently toughing it out in Tuscany at the 2011 World Championship of Shore Angling.
Team member Joe Byrne, from Courtown in Co Wexford, told the Gorey Guardian that the Irish are "in with a serious chance".
"Ireland won the World Championships last year [in South Africa], so there's a little pressure there. We'll just have to catch a few fish!"
The contest will take place over two-and-a-half weeks on Italy's Mediterranean coastline.
Some of Ireland's top anglers are currently toughing it out in Tuscany at the 2011 World Championship of Shore Angling.

Team member Joe Byrne, from Courtown in Co Wexford, told the Gorey Guardian that the Irish are "in with a serious chance".

"Ireland won the World Championships last year [in South Africa], so there's a little pressure there. We'll just have to catch a few fish!"

The contest will take place over two-and-a-half weeks on Italy's Mediterranean coastline.
Published in Angling

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