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Displaying items by tag: cow

#deadcow – Round–the–World Yachtsman and Afloat.ie reader Pat Murphy says he enjoyed our story about the weekend rescue of a cow by the RNLI in Waterford. Unfortunately, Pat and his wife Olivia related a tale where they came across another cow in the same area (above) that was not so lucky. 'We came across him/her about six miles south of Hook Head while on passage from Waterford to Padstow in Cornwall on August Monday last in our yacht Aldebaran', Pat told Afloat.ie.

'I reported it to Rosslare Coastguard Radio as a navigational hazard. It was so bloated I think that to make contact with it could result in a not very nice shower!' he said.

Published in Cruising
Tagged under

#rnli – Dunmore East RNLI lifeboat in County Waterford rescued a cow on Saturday after she fell off a cliff and became stranded.
The volunteer crew launched their all-weather lifeboat just before 4pm at the request of the Irish Coast Guard following a report that a small boat with three people on board was in difficulty.

The vessel was reported to be in close proximity to rocks just under Creadan Head in the Waterford Estuary approximately two miles north east of Dunmore East.

The Trent Class lifeboat Elizabeth and Ronald arrived on scene five minutes after launching. The lifeboat crew noted that the small boat was not in actual difficulty but was trying to rescue a cow which had fallen over a cliff and was stranded at the bottom.
The RNLI crew assisted the three people by setting up a rope system for them and together with the assistance of Dunmore East Coast Guard the cow was brought ashore safely.

Speaking following the call out Dunmore East RNLI Deputy Coxswain Ray Power said: 'As a lifeboat crew we never know what we might be facing each time we are called, but in this case thankfully the actual call was not as serious as we first thought, but we were glad we could help all the same and bring the cow to safety.'

Published in RNLI Lifeboats
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