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Displaying items by tag: Dublin Port Dredging

#MarineWildlife - This weekend Dublin Port is deploying data buoys in Dublin Bay to monitor marine wildlife activity during the controversial dredging works at Alexandra Basin.

According to The Irish Times, the four boys will provide live data on any whales, dolphins or porpoises in the vicinity of the Burford Bank near Howth, where up to a million tonnes of dredge spoil will be dumped over the next few weeks.

As previously reported on Afloat.ie, campaigners have raised concerns about the safety of Dublin Bay’s harbour porpoises, protected by an SAC since 2013, during the dredging operation.

The Irish Times has more on the story HERE.

Published in Dredging

#marinewildlife - Concerns have been voiced by campaigners about the safety of the Dublin Bay porpoise as Dublin Port commences dredging.

The Journai.ie writes that the Dublin Port Company (DPC) plan to remove up to a million tonnes of material from the port and dump it near Howth in order to keep the port deep enough for large naval vessels.

DPC says that the maintenance dredging process, which starts today, will last for between two to four weeks. Maintenance dredging is the periodic removal of sediments and is vital for many ports.

However, campaigners say that the waste material should not be dumped at DPC’s usual site near Howth. They are also fearful that porpoises could be harmed by the dredging vessel.

For more on the story click here. 

Afloat adds that a dredger from the UK is to arrive to the port tomorrow. 

Published in Dredging

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)