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Displaying items by tag: Corrib Shipping Group

#Concentrates – It is pleasing to concentrate on an Irish based ship management company that otherwise is not widely documented in mainstream media, writes Jehan Ashmore.

Cathma, a multipurpose dry-cargo carrier with an Ice Class (1A) certification was tracked by Afloat to the vessel's berth in Dublin Port this morning. The 100m long cargoship is managed by Corrib Shipping Group. The Dundrum based group also comprises a number of shipowning companies.

The 6000dwt Cathma as previously reported on Afloat’s ‘Cargoship’ focus discharged fertiliser in Foynes last year, belongs to the Group that was established in 1995. As part of the management team role, they are tasked to employ professional officers and crew to man its vessels.

Cathma is flagged in Curacao, a Dutch island in the Caribbean, is docked in Alexandra Basin along the north side of the 230m Bulk loading jetty. The facility completed in 1967 is served by rail-wagons laden with lead and ore concentrates from Bolidan Tara Mines in Co. Meath.

The loading facility in Dublin Port, which this year is 50 years old, is to be demolished as part of the port’s Masterplan. This involves phase one of a major €230m Alexandra Basin Redevelopment (ABR) project where quayside reconfiguration is underway to accommodate much larger deep drafted ships.

A new bulk-mineral loading facility will be reinstated within the basin.

Corrib Shipping also sail their ships as part of Royal Wagenborg (a Dutch operator of more than 170 ships) that acts as chartering agents for the Irish based group.

In January, Afloat investigated into the details of the 118m Viechtdiep, a 7,200dwt cargoship that was acquired by Corrib to become the group's fifth ship. The vessel was drydocked to emerge as the Dutch flagged Ziltborg operating for Wagenborg.

Published in Dublin Port

The Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) Information

The creation of the Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) began in a very low key way in the autumn of 2002 with an exploratory meeting between Denis Kiely, Jim Donegan and Fintan Cairns in the Granville Hotel in Waterford, and the first conference was held in February 2003 in Kilkenny.

While numbers of cruiser-racers were large, their specific locations were widespread, but there was simply no denying the numerical strength and majority power of the Cork-Dublin axis. To get what was then a very novel concept up and running, this strength of numbers had to be acknowledged, and the first National Championship in 2003 reflected this, as it was staged in Howth.

ICRA was run by a dedicated group of volunteers each of whom brought their special talents to the organisation. Jim Donegan, the elder statesman, was so much more interested in the wellbeing of the new organisation than in personal advancement that he insisted on Fintan Cairns being the first Commodore, while the distinguished Cork sailor was more than content to be Vice Commodore.

ICRA National Championships

Initially, the highlight of the ICRA season was the National Championship, which is essentially self-limiting, as it is restricted to boats which have or would be eligible for an IRC Rating. Boats not actually rated but eligible were catered for by ICRA’s ace number-cruncher Denis Kiely, who took Ireland’s long-established native rating system ECHO to new heights, thereby providing for extra entries which brought fleet numbers at most annual national championships to comfortably above the hundred mark, particularly at the height of the boom years. 

ICRA Boat of the Year (Winners 2004-2019)