Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Displaying items by tag: Monster

#roundireland – With under two months to the start of the Round Ireland yacht race in Wicklow, Wicklow Sailing Club member David Ryan has chartered the Monster Project, a Volvo 70 class yacht for the race.

Amongst his crew will be the three lucky winners from the national crew competition he organised with the Irish Cruiser Racing Association. Last Saturday at the ICRA Come Sailing Day in Howth, the finalists were chosen. His crew will also feature local Wicklow Sailing Club members and the club itself is delighted to support his venture as the official club entry in the race. David and his crew will set off from Wicklow Sailing Club on June 28th with the goal of winning line honours in the Round Ireland Yacht Race. With the right weather, this team could even challenge the race record.

The Round Ireland Yacht Race promises some of the most challenging conditions that offshore racing has to offer, from the tidal Irish Sea to the open Atlantic ocean.

Designed and built for these challenges in 2007, Monster Project is well-suited to the kind of conditions that competitors in the Round Ireland Race 2014 are likely to encounter. Having spent the last few months in the Caribbean, Monster Project will compete in the Round the Island race before heading off to challenge in the Round Ireland a few days later.

Published in Round Ireland

#LoughFoyleMonster - Could Lough Foyle be hiding its very own version of the legendary Lough Ness Monster? As the video above attests, some witnesses to a mysterious sighting in the lake recently seem to think so.

According to The Canadian, a glimpse of what appears to be a large rock-like creature just breaching the surface of the water was captured by a group on the lough.

“It's really difficult to determine what species of creature it was," said one of the group. "I really don't think this can be a whale. I've seen whales, but I've never seen one swim like this before. Also, the pattern on it doesn't really look like it’s a whale.”

But before we all get too excited, consider that the group who made the video admitted that they were shooting for a student film called Fishing With David Lynch - a film and TV director well known for his other-worldly twists on reality.

Published in Inland Waterways

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.