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Displaying items by tag: lifesavers

#watersafety – Irish Water Safety Life Savers continue to make great progress on the world stage, competing last month at Rescue 2014:  The World Life Saving Championships in Montpelier, France. 

Ten years ago at Rescue 04 Team Ireland were delighted to make some semi finals but at Rescue 2014 the Irish squad finished with 51 World medals, countless A and B finals and numerous Irish records to boot!

Teams from 34 nations competed to test their life saving skills in France. The sport is involves life saving skills thought in pools and beaches, and putting them in a race format to compete to be the best life saver.

In particular, Irish youths are ranked ninth in the world. You can read more about how the Irish got on in France here

Published in Water Safety

#lifesaving – Competitors at the National Surf Lifesaving Championships had their skills and stamina tested in events that simulated emergency rescue scenarios in glorious sunshine and in an azure blue sea at Curracloe beach. The winning team from Clare dominated the competition with the fittest lifesavers nationwide at this annual gala of lifesaving. Ireland's best lifesavers were challenged in open water conditions off the Wexford coast to rescue simulated "casualties" in testing run, swim, board rescue, surf ski races and ocean man events. However the dominance of Clare came through with exceptional results with three Clare teams in the first four teams.

The President's Trophy (Prize for winning County Team was presented by President Séan O'Kelly in 1950):

1st: Clare Men
2nd: Donegal Ladies
3rd : Clare Ladies
4th : Clare Men B Team
5th : Waterford Men
6th : Galway Men

Irish Water Safety Chief Executive, John Leech said these are the lifeguards who saved 559 members of the public during the heat wave in July. This is hardly surprising as we have 7 European medalist's competing on these teams. These athletes demonstrated great competence and professionalism today and made for a stunning spectacle on a sun drenched Curracloe Beach. It is a credit to Irish Water Safety coaches nationwide who spent all year preparing competitors around Ireland's coastline. Ireland won 10 Junior and senior European medals in Holland and Italy during the summer.

The Sport of Lifesaving offers lifesaving skills and the development of a healthy lifestyle. As part of its remit to promote water safety in Ireland, Irish Water Safety trains Lifeguards employed at beaches, lakes, rivers and pools nationwide. Irish Water Safety encourages the public to learn to swim and enroll in one of the many courses nationwide in the valuable skills of water survival and lifesaving.

Published in Rescue

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