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Displaying items by tag: French Market Festival, Dublin 2010

#TALLSHIP GALWAY – Not all tallships visiting Irish waters were concentrated in Dublin Port for the successful tallships festival, as the French three-masted barque Belém, built in 1896, docked into Galway Harbour last week, writes Jehan Ashmore.

She moored alongside the North Dun Aengus Quay, in the single dock basin port, where the veteran vessel (116 years old!) stayed for two nights. On board were 49 trainees who had made the passage from St. Malo in Brittany.

Belém which is run by the Paris based Belem Fondation, has had a long and varied career, as previously reported on Afloat.ie.

According to Galway Harbour Master, Brian Sheridan she has had an "interesting history" trading mostly to the West Indies and Guyana before being owned by the Duke of Westminster and also by Arthur Ernest Guinness.

In recent years Belém has called to several Irish ports, with the last visit to Galway in 2007 and also to Dublin in 2010 for the inaugural French Market Festival. She also took part in the first Tall Ships Races to be hsoted in Waterford in 2006.

She has also been involved in transporting commercial quantities of wine between Bordeaux and Quebec and also on a publicity wine-trade marketing visit to Dublin, prior to her call in 2010.

Published in Tall Ships

Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Yacht Race Information

The biennial Dun Laoghaire to Dingle race is a 320-miles race down to the east coast of Ireland, across the south coast and into Dingle harbour in County Kerry.

The race is organised by the National Yacht Club.

It never fails to offer a full range of weather, wind and tide to the intrepid entrants, ranging from a 32ft cruiser to a 79ft all-out racer.

Three divisions are available to enter: cruiser (boats equipped with furlers), racing (the bulk of the fleet) and also two-handed.

D2D Course change overruled

In 2019, the organisers considered changing the course to allow boats to select routes close to shore by removing the requirement to go outside Islands and Lighthouses en route, but following input from regular participants, the National Yacht Club decided to stick with the tried and tested course route in order to be fair to large and smaller boats and to keep race records intact.

RORC Points Calendar

The 2019 race was the first edition to form part of the Royal Ocean Racing Club “RORC” calendar for the season. This is in addition to the race continuing as part of the ISORA programme. 

D2D Course record time

Mick Cotter’s 78ft Whisper established the 1 day and 48 minutes course record for the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race in 2009 and that time stood until 2019 when Cotter returned to beat his own record but only just, the Dun Laoghaire helmsman crossing the line in Kerry to shave just 20 seconds off his 2009 time.