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Displaying items by tag: Exxon Mobil

Oil exploration company Exxon Mobil will begin exploring underwater areas off Ireland's South West coast this June, with a three-week stint in the area planned. The area they will be surveying is close to recently-discovered areas of rare deep-water coral on the Porcupine slopes.

A notice to mariners on the Department of Transport's website reads: 

The Department of Transport would like to advise that ExxonMobil Exploration & Production Ireland (Offshore) Ltd will be carrying out a site survey off the Southwest Coast of Ireland as highlighted in the attached map.  The seismic vessel “M/V FUGRO MERIDIAN – C6QR4” is scheduled to carry out the work. The vessel will tow 1 x 3km-long streamer, and will have a minimum turning radius of 2 km. The survey vessel will be restricted in her ability to manoeuvre whilst carrying out the survey and all vessels are requested to give this operation a wide berth. The vessel will be listening on VHF CH 16 throughout the project.

The works are expected to commence in early June 2010 and last for 3 - 4 weeks approximately subject to weather.

Latitude                        Longitude

51° 20' 49.351"             12° 35' 32.935"

51° 24' 56.106"             12° 25' 57.046"

51° 18' 55.191"             12° 19' 24.114"

51° 14' 49.282"             12° 28' 59.106"

The full notice is downloadable here as a pdf file, with a map of the area included therein.

Published in Marine Warning

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)