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Displaying items by tag: Athlone River Festival

#RNLI - Organisers of the Athlone River Festival and Food Village have presented a cheque for €850 to Lough Ree RNLI.

The Athlone River Festival & Food Village took place on 12-13 September and included myriad activities showcasing Athlone’s culinary, entertainment and leisure amenities.

The event was a huge success, with over 4,000 people attending the revival of the festival, last held 20 years ago.

Lough Ree RNLI and Athlone SubAqua took part in the event with a river rescue demonstration, and Lough Ree volunteer crew members also built a raft, which they entered in the raft race.

The ‘Oysters, Guinness & Jazz’ installation, sponsored by John O’Sullivan (Hodson Bay Group) and Alan McCabe (Guinness), set a celebratory tone for the event and raised €850 for the lifeboat, which they presented to the crew at the quay wall beside Sean’s Bar on 6 October.

Lough Ree RNLI relies entirely on charitable donations to meet its running costs. Damien Delaney, Lough Ree RNLI lifeboat operations manager, said: "It’s good supporters like John, Alan and the local community that enable the lifeboat crews to respond to calls when they are needed, and we are grateful for their generous support."

Lough Ree RNLI is also holding a Halloween Party and Open Day on Saturday 31 October from 12 noon to 3.30pm. Wear your costume and join the lifeboat crew for some Halloween fun and games for all at Coosan Point.

For more visit the Lough Ree RNLI Facebook page HERE.

Published in RNLI Lifeboats

Esailing & Virtual Sailing information

The concept of e-sailing, or virtual sailing, is based on a computer game sailing challenge that has been around for more than a decade.

The research and development of software over this time means its popularity has taken off to the extent that it has now become a part of the sailing seascape and now allows people to take an 'active part' in some of the most famous regattas across the world such as the Vendée Globe, Route du Rhum, Sydney Hobart, Volvo Ocean Race, America’s Cup and some Olympic venues too, all from the comfort of their armchair.

The most popular model is the 'eSailing World Championship'. It is an annual esports competition, first held in 2018 and officially recognised by World Sailing, the sports governing body.

The eSailing World Championship is a yearly competition for virtual sailors competing on the Virtual Regatta Inshore game.

The contract to run the event was given to a private company, Virtual Regatta that had amassed tens of thousands of sailors playing offshore sailing routing game following major offshore races in real-time.

In April 2020, the company says on its website that it has 35,000 active players and 500,000 regattas sailed.

Virtual Regatta started in 2010 as a small team of passionate designers, engineers, and entrepreneurs gathered around the idea that virtual sailing sports games can mix with real races and real skippers.