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Displaying items by tag: Tony's Marine Service (TMS)

Tony's Marine Service (TMS), a Northern Ireland marine engine and boat service specialist is celebrating 25 years in business in 2015.

Located in Coleraine on the North Coast of Northern Ireland, TMS was founded in 1990 by local man Tony Hodges.

TMS offers repairs, servicing, diagnostics, winterisation, boat modification and upgrades, valets and storage to private boat owners and clients across the public and private sectors.

It has an on-site chandlery store which stocks a selection of chandlery goods, safety equipment and maintenance products.

Operating under its own Xtreme Boat Sales brand, TMS also offers a range of boats for purchase and is the sole distributor in Ireland for US-manufactured Glastron sports boats and cruisers.

Hodges, who continues to adopt very much a hands-on approach to running the business, said that 2015 was set to be a very big year for TMS.

"I am very proud that, 25 years after establishing the business, TMS continues to go from strength to strength with new customers coming onboard on a regular basis.

Hodges is planning an exapnsion in his anniversary year and aiming for expanded sales across the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and beyond with some new promotions in 2015.

"with the economic outlook now looking more positive than for many years, I believe it is the right time to move the business into a new gear with the clear aim of expanding our operations, both geographically and in scale.

Tony's Marine Service (TMS) was established by Hodges in 1990 after he'd spent several years working as a mechanic at Coleraine Boat Centre on the banks of the River Bann.

TMS moved to its present site in 1992, which now incorporates a purpose-built workshop facility capable of holding up to four boats, an engine re-build room, an office, shop, store and a staff area.

Xtreme Boat Sales, the boat sales arm of TMS, was established in 2004 and operates from the same site.

Published in Marine Trade

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)