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Displaying items by tag: Tunisia

A teenage sailor who competed for Tunisia at Tokyo 2020 has tragically died after an accident while training at sea.

According to BBC Sport, 17-year-old Eya Guezguez drowned after the boat she was sailing with her twin sister Sarra, who survived the incident, capsized in strong winds in the Mediterranean off the North African country's capital Tunis on Sunday (10 April).

The Guezguez twins were 16 when they raced in the 49erFX class at the Tokyo Olympic Games last summer — in a field that included Dublin sailor Saskia Tidey — and placed 21st overall.

They had been tipped to be future stars in the two-handed class.

BBC Sport has more on the story HERE.

Published in Tokyo 2020
Tagged under

#tunisiasuperyacht – One week since the world was left shocked at the news of an ISIS terrorist attack in Tunisia, local superyacht businesses are reassuring yachtsmen that security has been increased at Tunisian ports despite numerous cancellations.

Not long after the country has had to recover from the impact of the Bardo Museum attack where 17 were left dead, a total of 38 people, including at least 29 Britons were killed by a gunman with links to Islamic State extremists near Sousse, Tunisia.

Despite the upped security and the government's involvement, The UK Foreign Office has updated its travel advice to warn that further terrorist attacks in Tunisia are possible and are urging people to be vigilant. According to some local yacht businesses, superyacht owners, crew and charter companies are already cancelling their travel plans.

Kim Williams from Yacht Services Tunisia explained, "The management and staff at Yacht Services Tunisia will continue to support yachting tourism by 'riding out' this horrific incident, the same way we did during the Tunisian revolution; by re-assuring yachtsmen and their yachts that security has been greatly increased in Port Bizerte and Port Yasmine.

"The Tunisian people are deeply shocked and sickened by what has happened in their country and I want people to understand that the mentality of the attacker is not Tunisian."

Imed Mzoughi, port director from Port Yasmine also commented, "At this moment in time, we have only had a 3% cancellation rate since the attack. However, we have had very little new reservations, or let's say, we haven't had any more at all. The government and the marina have enforced measures to protect the marina and surrounding areas in a bid to save the rest of the season."

A meeting between Tunisian officials and EU ambassadors is likely to take place in the coming weeks, whereit is expected a request for more intelligence-sharing and electronic monitoring equipment will be made.

Published in Superyachts
Tagged under

Ireland's Trading Ketch Ilen

The Ilen is the last of Ireland’s traditional wooden sailing ships.

Designed by Limerick man Conor O’Brien and built in Baltimore in 1926, she was delivered by Munster men to the Falkland Islands where she served valiantly for seventy years, enduring and enjoying the Roaring Forties, the Furious Fifties, and Screaming Sixties.

Returned now to Ireland and given a new breath of life, Ilen may be described as the last of Ireland’s timber-built ocean-going sailing ships, yet at a mere 56ft, it is capable of visiting most of the small harbours of Ireland.

Wooden Sailing Ship Ilen FAQs

The Ilen is the last of Ireland’s traditional wooden sailing ships.

The Ilen was designed by Conor O’Brien, the first Irish man to circumnavigate the world.

Ilen is named for the West Cork River which flows to the sea at Baltimore, her home port.

The Ilen was built by Baltimore Sea Fisheries School, West Cork in 1926. Tom Moynihan was foreman.

Ilen's wood construction is of oak ribs and planks of larch.

As-built initially, she is 56 feet in length overall with a beam of 14 feet and a displacement of 45 tonnes.

Conor O’Brien set sail in August 1926 with two Cadogan cousins from Cape Clear in West Cork, arriving at Port Stanley in January 1927 and handed it over to the new owners.

The Ilen was delivered to the Falkland Islands Company, in exchange for £1,500.

Ilen served for over 70 years as a cargo ship and a ferry in the Falkland Islands, enduring and enjoying the Roaring Forties, the Furious Fifties, and Screaming Sixties. She stayed in service until the early 1990s.

Limerick sailor Gary McMahon and his team located Ilen. MacMahon started looking for her in 1996 and went out to the Falklands and struck a deal with the owner to bring her back to Ireland.

After a lifetime of hard work in the Falklands, Ilen required a ground-up rebuild.

A Russian cargo ship transported her back on a 12,000-mile trip from the Southern Oceans to Dublin. The Ilen was discharged at the Port of Dublin 1997, after an absence from Ireland of 70 years.

It was a collaboration between the Ilen Project in Limerick and Hegarty’s Boatyard in Old Court, near Skibbereen. Much of the heavy lifting, of frames, planking, deadwood & backbone, knees, floors, shelves and stringers, deck beams, and carlins, was done in Hegarty’s. The generally lighter work of preparing sole, bulkheads, deck‐houses fixed furniture, fixtures & fittings, deck fittings, machinery, systems, tanks, spar making and rigging is being done at the Ilen boat building school in Limerick.

Ten years. The boat was much the worse for wear when it returned to West Cork in May 1998, and it remained dormant for ten years before the start of a decade-long restoration.

Ilen now serves as a community floating classroom and cargo vessel – visiting 23 ports in 2019 and making a transatlantic crossing to Greenland as part of a relationship-building project to link youth in Limerick City with youth in Nuuk, west Greenland.

At a mere 56ft, Ilen is capable of visiting most of the small harbours of Ireland.

©Afloat 2020