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Displaying items by tag: Seychelles Piracy

#ON THE TV – In tomorrow's concluding two-part documentary 'Hostile Environment' (RTE 1, 21.35) actor Liam Cunningham explores the criminal world in the Seychelles. Also examined is the role of anti-piracy work, as almost one third of all the oil in the world passes through the Indian Ocean.

Cunningham highlights how the country is combating crime, and where Irish private security contractors have had an impact on turning around crime rates.

Former intelligence officers Declan Barber and Niall Scully were first brought to the island when the Seychelles government suspected sensitive information was being leaked.

This led to Barber and Scully recruiting former army ranger Seamus Griffin to set up and train the Tazar Unit, the Seychelles Anti-Terrorist Unit.

To date the unit has successfully stopped five pirate attempts, resulting in the release of 35 hostages and the capture of 63 pirates.

Published in Maritime TV

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)