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Displaying items by tag: Storm Angus

#CoastalNotes - Coastal defences in Wicklow suffered significant damage during last week’s Storm Angus, posing a renewed threat to the East Coast rail line, as The Irish Times reports.

The Irish Sea came within metres of the busy Dublin-Wexford line in parts between Newcastle and Wicklow town after erosion from high tides powered by Force 10 winds in the first winter storm of the 2016-17 season.

The same extreme conditions saw a Stena Line ferry stranded outside Fishguard, unable to dock in the Welsh port for more than 24 hours after sailing from Rosslare last Tuesday morning (22 November).

Damage is said to be most severe in Co Wicklow close to where extensive repairs were carried out this past January, with rock armour placed on the adjacent beach at the Murrough, a Natura 2000-designated wetland that’s the largest of its kind on the East Coast.

Further rock armour and steel piling is now being placed at Greystones going south to Kilcoole to protect that stretch of the line after the storm displaced a significant amount of sand, as Iarnród Éireann declared “emergency intervention was required immediately” to save the rail line from future incursion by the sea.

The Irish Times has more on the story HERE.

Published in Coastal Notes

#StrandedFerry - A Stena Line ferry reports RTE News will make another attempt to dock at the Port of Fishguard, Wales at around midday today - weather permitting.

The ferry, with 87 passengers and 59 crew on board, departed Rosslare yesterday at 9am but failed to dock twice due to high winds and rough seas.

A spokeswoman for Stena Line said: "The health and safety of passengers and crew is of paramount importance to Stena Line, therefore the 87 passengers and 59 crew members will remain onboard overnight until a second attempt at docking takes place at midday tomorrow."

Services on the Dublin to Holyhead crossing are expected to run as normal today, but intending passengers are advised to check in advance.

Yesterday, the UK was lashed by heavy rain as Storm Angus caused flooding and travel chaos across many parts of the country. For more on this click here

Published in Ferry

New York Yacht Club’s biennial Invitational Cup

Ireland has a proud history in New York Yacht Club’s biennial Invitational Cup, with Irish participation from the very start and a podium result in 2019.

In 2009, two Irish Clubs,  Royal St. George in Dun Laoghaire and Royal Cork in Crosshaven, entered into New York's newest sailing competition that was reminiscent of Newport’s America’s Cup days when 19 yacht club teams from 14 nations descended on this “City by the Sea”.

The Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup is a competition between yacht clubs, with strict eligibility rules ensuring that each team is comprised exclusively of amateur sailors.

The competition, which was first run in 2009, has drawn entries from 49 clubs from 22 nations on all six inhabited continents.

The New York Yacht Club won the inaugural event in 2009, with the Royal Canadian Yacht Club winning in 2011 and 2013, England's Royal Thames Yacht Club winning in 2015 and Southern Yacht Club from New Orleans winning in 2017.

In 2019 the regatta was sailed for the first time in the New York Yacht Club’s fleet of IC37 yachts, and Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, from Australia, became the first Southern Hemisphere club to win the trophy. And it was in this edition that Anthony O’Leary’s Royal Cork team took the bronze medal.