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Displaying items by tag: Mutiny & Murder

#Lecture - "Mutiny & Murder on the Earl of Sandwich", a public lecture by Peter Brady marks the final lecture season organised by Baltimore Maritime Centre which is held in Dublin.

The illustrated talk is take place in Poolbeg Yacht & Boat Club in the heart of the working port on Thursday 16th April at 8pm. Entry is €5 and is aid of the RNLI.

The lecture is a tale of piracy and will relive the fateful voyage of The Earl of Sandwich" which sailed from Tenerife November 1765 with a valuable cargo of wine, silk and other goods. Also told will be how the story is closely linked with Cork, Carlow, Kildare, Wexford, and numerous Dublin locations, including Ringsend and the Muglins off Dalkey.

In the 18th century, conditions of pay and work were poor; injury and ill health were a constant risk; and life expectancy was no more than 45 years.

Such was the life of a merchant seaman as the Earl of Sandwich departed London for the Canary Islands on 10 August 1765.

At Tenerife, the ship was laden with wine, silk and other goods, including a rich cargo of coin, which ultimately proved too much of a temptation for some.

Peter has been a sports diver in 1980 and with links in his interest of maritime history to his early dives on the wreck of the Tayleur at Lambay Island.

His research into the 'Earl of Sandwich' began with the stories he heard of how pirates were once hung on the Muglins. The information he has gathered adds new insights into the tale of the ship, its crew and its passengers.

The winter lectures series will resume in the same venue of Poolbeg but not until the Autumn. 

Published in Boating Fixtures

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)