Displaying items by tag: Alcatraz

13th October 2012

Irish Residents Among Rescued as Party Boat Hits Rocks in San Francisco

#RESCUE - An unconfirmed number of men from Ireland were among 22 people rescued from a sinking passenger boat in San Francisco Bay in the early hours of this morning.

KGO-TV News reports that the hull of The Neptune was punctured by a rock off Alcatraz around 9.15pm last night local time (5.15am this morning Irish time) and quickly began taking on water.

Matthew Rice was celebrating his bachelor party on the boat with 17 friends at the time - a number of whom has travelled from as far as Ireland - when "all of a sudden it was like boom, just the a big jolt and the next thing we knew the [US] Coast Guard boat came in and got us off," he recalls.

Crew member Rachel Smith, one of four crew on board the party boat, explained how the vessel had veered slightly off course due to a navigation error and hit an area known as 'Little Alcatraz', which resulted in two square-foot holes on either side of the rear hull.

All on board were taken to safety by the coastguard, and attempts were being made to bail the water out of the boat to allow its towing back to San Francisco overnight.

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The Kingstown to Queenstown Yacht Race or 'K2Q', previously the Fastnet 450

The Organising Authority ("OA") are ISORA & SCORA in association with The National Yacht Club & The Royal Cork Yacht Club.

The Kingstown to Queenstown Race (K2Q Race) is a 260-mile offshore race that will start in Dun Laoghaire (formerly Kingstown), around the famous Fastnet Rock and finish in Cork Harbour at Cobh (formerly Queenstown).

The K2Q race follows from the successful inaugural 'Fastnet 450 Race' that ran in 2020 when Ireland was in the middle of the COVID Pandemic. It was run by the National Yacht Club, and the Royal cork Yacht Club were both celebrating significant anniversaries. The clubs combined forces to mark the 150th anniversary of the National Yacht Club and the 300th (Tricentenary) of the Royal Cork Yacht Club.

Of course, this race has some deeper roots. In 1860 the first-ever ocean yacht race on Irish Waters was held from Kingstown (now Dun Laoghaire) to Queenstown (now Cobh).

It is reported that the winner of the race was paid a prize of £15 at the time, and all competing boats got a bursary of 10/6 each. The first race winner was a Schooner Kingfisher owned by Cooper Penrose Esq. The race was held on July 14th 1860, and had sixteen boats racing.

In 2022, the winning boat will be awarded the first prize of a cheque for €15 mounted and framed and a Trophy provided by the Royal Cork Yacht Club, the oldest yacht club in the world.

The 2022 race will differ from the original course because it will be via the Fastnet Rock, so it is a c. 260m race, a race distance approved by the Royal Cornwall Yacht Club as an AZAB qualifier.

A link to an Afloat article written by WM Nixon for some history on this original race is here.

The aim is to develop the race similarly to the Dun Laoghaire–Dingle Race that runs in alternate years.

Fastnet 450 in 2020

The South Coast of Ireland Racing Association, in association with the National Yacht Club on Dublin Bay and the Royal Cork Yacht Club in Cork, staged the first edition of this race from Dun Laoghaire to Cork Harbour via the Fastnet Rock on August 22nd 2020.

The IRC race started in Dun Laoghaire on Saturday, August 22nd 2020. It passed the Muglin, Tuscar, Conningbeg and Fastnet Lighthouses to Starboard before returning to Cork Harbour and passing the Cork Buoy to Port, finishing when Roches's Point bears due East. The course was specifically designed to be of sufficient length to qualify skippers and crew for the RORC Fastnet Race 2021.