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A Sigma 33 One Design keelboat racing on Dublin Bay Photo: AfloatA Sigma 33 One Design keelboat racing on Dublin Bay Photo: Afloat

Displaying items by tag: liffey

#liffeyswim– The River Liffey glistened today as 335 men and women of all ages took to the water for the 94th Dublin City Liffey Swim, supported by Dublin City Council and staged by The Open Sea Committee.
219 men battled it out in the men's race that kicked off at 12.30pm at the Loop Line Bridge. Ciaran O'Driscoll from Half Moon Swimming Club in Great South Wall in Dublin won the men's race with an impressive time of 26.16 minutes. The women's race followed an hour later when 116 women took to Ireland's most famous river for their chance to swim competitively through the heart of Dublin city. Gina Murphy from Glenalbyn Masters in Stillorgan, Co Dublin crossed the winning line at the East Link Toll Bridge after only 32.22 minutes.
A special presentation with the Lord Mayor took place on the Cill Airne at 3.15pm when the winners were awarded their winners cups as well as a print of the historic 1923 Jack B Yeats painting titled "The Liffey Swim."
Speaking about the historic race, the Lord Mayor Oisín Quinn commented, "The Dublin City Liffey Swim has been growing in attendance year on year which illustrates just how important the legacy of the race is after 94 years. I would like to congratulate Ciaran and Gina as they have their names added to the historical list of Dublin City Liffey Swim winners. This year Dublin City Council is delighted to be in a position to provide additional support to this fantastic sporting event with the introduction of the first Liffey Living Festival and we hope that everyone that has attended the swim and festival has enjoyed an exhilarating free family day out."
The infectious atmosphere of the swim was carried on in "The Liffey Living Festival" presented by Dublin City Council in Grand Canal Dock where they were treated to an evening of free family activities such as giant sized street games, a live band "The Ships", ambient DJ and a specially erected floating open-air cinema, showing the classic movie "The Swimmer"!

Published in Sea Swim

#liffeyswim – The Lord Mayor Oisín Quinn will officially start the 94th Liffey Swim, supported by Dublin City Council, this Saturday 24th August as hundreds of brave swimmers take the plunge. This year's race will start at the Loop Line Bridge beside Butt Bridge and finish at the pontoon on the North side of the river beside the East Link Toll Bridge in front of the O2.

The 94th Dublin City Liffey Swim, supported by Dublin City Councilwill start at the Loop Line Bridge beside Butt Bridge and finish at the pontoon on the North side of the river beside the East Link Toll Bridge in front of the O2.

The 1,600-metre race, organised by Leinster Open Sea Swimming Club and supported by Dublin City Council will commence at 12.30pm with over 300 entrants taking to the water for the historic swim.

The inaugural Liffey LivingFestival will take the infectious atmosphere of the swim on in to the Grand Canal Dock post race for free, family friendly activities such as giant sized street games, a live band, ambient DJ and a specially erected floating open-air cinema, showing water themed movies! Dublin City Council's Liffey Living Festival will run from 3pm -10.00pm

WHEN:
SATURDAY 24th AUGUST 2013
MENS LIFFEY SWIM COMMENCES AT 12.30PM
WOMENS LIFFEY SWIM COMMENCES AT 1.30PM

Published in Sea Swim
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#Kayaking - Kayaking in the capital will bring the Liffey "back to life", according to one enterprising watersport fan.

The Irish Independent reports on City Kayaking, a business operated from the IFSC in Dublin's Docklands by Donnchadh MacCobb, who's hoping to secure funding from the Arthur Guinness Projects initiative to expand his base and attract more people to the experience of kayaking through the city centre.

"We’ll let people explore underneath some of Dublin’s most famous bridges and take in some of the most iconic landmarks while paddling along the River Liffey," he says.

Keeping with the padding theme, the Sunday Independent's Fiona O'Connell headed waterside to see the Thomastown Paddlers' Annual Canoe Race.

The Kilkenny-based club is also in the running for funding via the Arthur Guinness Projects, with the hope of purchasing new strength and fitness equipment to take its members to the next level.

Published in Kayaking
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#Liffey - Dublin Lord Mayor Oisín Quinn and Dublin City Council have announced details of the inaugural Liffey Living Festival - coinciding with the 94th edition of the Liffey Swim on Saturday 24 August.

Following the swim, Grand Canal Dock will host an afternoon and evening of free, family-friendly activities with street performers, giant-sized street games, live music with Dublin band Ships, special floating open-air cinema showing water themed movies.

The Liffey Swim race itself will commence at 12.30pm with the Lord Mayor firing the starting gun for the men’s race, while the ladies’ race commences at 1.30pm.

Speaking at today’s announcement, Lord Mayor Quinn commented: “I am delighted that we are staging the inaugural Liffey Living Festival. Dublin City Council has introduced this new element to the Liffey Swim as a way for people to continue to enjoy the vibrant waterways we have on our doorstep in Dublin City.

"We hope the introduction of the Liffey Living Festival as part of the Liffey Swim will continue to grow year on year and encourage people to come and enjoy all that the River Liffey and surrounding area has to offer.”

The post-race festivities be staged in Grand Canal Dock from 3pm till 11pm - and admission is free.

For more details on the Liffey Living Festival, visit www.dublin.ie. And see www.leinsteropensea.ie for more on the Liffey Swim and how to take part in that or other Leinster Open Sea races.

Published in Maritime Festivals
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Dublin City Kayaking Challenge in aid of the RNLI

#kayak – The first ever 5km kayaking challenge in Dublin's City Centre will take place on Sunday 28th April in aid of the RNLI.

Competitors will start at the Jeannie Johnson on Custom House Quay and kayak to the Aviva Stadium on the River Dodder and back. The race will be have four different start times. The first groups will start at 9:30am and the last group at 2pm. The competition is open to all members of the public. All proceeds will be donated to the RNLI, the charity that saves lives at sea. The cost to enter is €50 for two people in a two person kayak or €40 for two students. Tickets are available online from http://citykayakingchallenge.eventbrite.ie/ . The Dublin City 5km Kayaking Challenge is proudly sponsored by City Kayaking.

It will be a fun day for kayakers and spectators alike. There will be a barbeque, ice-cream, a raffle and prizes for the winning competitors.

For further information please contact Gavin on 086 071 8414 or email [email protected] .Donations can be made through the mycharity.ie page here http://www.mycharity.ie/event/dublincitykayakchallenge/ .

'Funds raised by the 5km City Centre Kayaking Challenge will ensure that our volunteer lifeboat crews go to sea with the best equipment available to ensure their safety when saving lives at sea' said Rose Michael, Howth RNLI Fundraising Chairperson.

Published in Kayaking

# ROWING: Neptune Rowing Club will hold their 31st annual regatta on Saturday  over a 1200 m course at Islandbridge. This is the first regatta of the season in the Irish rowing calendar, and it has attracted a big entry, with 204 races. Because of the large entry there will be 26 preliminary races held on the Friday evening between 6 and 7.30 pm.

 Racing on Saturday is scheculed from 8.30 am to 6.24 pm, with a race every three minutes throughout the day. The feature race will be the men's senior eights at 5.51 pm, which is a straight final between a Neptune/Commercial composite crew and a visiting English crew from Broxbourne Rowing Club with Irishman Albert Maher on board. Broxbourne will also compete in the men's intermediate eights and Albert Maher will compete in the senior sculls.

The women's senior single sculls is a straight final between Sarah Dolan and Eimear Lambe, both from Commercial. The men's novice single sculls has attracted an entry of 37 scullers, with 31 entrants from Dublin University!

Other visiting crews to the regatta are Portora, Bann and Belfast Rowing Clubs from Northern Ireland, as well as a good representation from all over Leinster. There will also be crews from Waterford Boat Club and Fossa from Munster and Sligo R.C. from Connaught.

Published in Rowing

# ROWING: The Dublin Head of the River finished in a dead heat on Saturday, the first time this has happened in exactly 60 years. A big composite crew built around the Commercial senior four and with with members of three other clubs finished with the same time as UCD in cold and clear conditions. The college crew rested their senior oarsmen for the event.

 The only other dead heat in the 69 years of the event came in 1953 when UCD and Trinity dead-heated in an event which featured only nine crews. An impressive number of crews – 32 – took on the sometimes choppy water this year, but the boats set off at sometimes very long intervals, dulling some of the competitive edge.

UCD’s senior women won their battle with Trinity, covering the course from the Ha’penny Bridge to Islandbridge nine seconds faster than their rivals.

One negative note was the break-in and theft from three cars in the UCD car park.

Dublin Head of the River (Selected Results)

Overall: 1= UCD senior eight; Commercial/Grainne Mhaol/ Old Bones/University of Limerick 10 minutes 32.0 seconds; 3 UCD intermediate eight 11:02.0, 4 Trinity novice eight 11:17.0, 5 UCD intermediate eight 11:25.0, 6 Neptune junior eight 11:35.0.

Graded Results

Men, Eight – Senior: 1= UCD and Commercial/Grainne Mhaol, Old Bones/University of Limerick 10:32.0. Intermediate: 1 UCD 11:02.0, 2 UCD B 11:25.0, 3 Commercial 11:41.0. Novice: 1 Trinity 11:17.0, 2 Queen’s 11:39.0, 3 Trinity 12:09.0. Junior: 1 Neptune 11:35.0, 2 Blackrock College 12:27.0, 3 Neptune B 14:49.0.

Four – Senior: 1 Commercial B 12:35.0, 2 Commercial 31:18.0. Masters: Commercial 13:28.0. Quadruple – Novice: Trinity 13:49.0.

Women – Eight, Senior: 1 UCD 12:04.0, 2 Trinity 12:13.0. Intermediate: 1 Commercial 12:56.0, 2 UCD 12:58.0. Novice: 1 UCD 13:34.0, 2 Trinity 13:57.0, 3 Trinity B 14:08.0. Junior: 1 Commercial 14:00.0, 2 Commercial B 15:33.0.

Four – Senior: Trinity 14:47.0.

Published in Rowing
Forty cruising boats will sail up the river Liffey to spend a night near the the replica famine ship Jeanie Johnston. The East Link bridge will lift and the Samuel Beckett bridge will swing open at noon on Saturday 24 September.

The boats are mostly modest sailing yachts with some motor cruisers, typically eight to twelve metres long with up to six people aboard. They come from ports on the East coast of Ireland between Arklow and Skerries.

The sailors will spend the afternoon visiting other boats, renewing friendships and comparing notes. Some will use the opportunity to explore the city centre from this unusual perspective.

There are organised visits to the Jeanie Johnston and the Guinness Storehouse. A special attraction this year is a guided tour of the docks in an inflatable boat, by Sea Safari.

In the evening the whole group, about a hundred people, will gather for dinner in a nearby hotel. Formalities will be limited to a review of the season in general and the summer cruise in Strangford Lough, but the party is likely to continue until late.

Most sailors will spend the night aboard their boats. On Sunday morning commodore Derek Harris will say mass aboard the Jeanie Johnston. The bridges will open once more at noon, and the fleet will disperse to their home ports.

This annual event is organised by the Cruising Association of Ireland with the co-operation of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority and Dublin Corporation.

The Cruising Association of Ireland supports and represents the cruising community in Ireland, both power and sail (www.cruising.ie). Contact Derek Harris 087 6740334 [email protected], or Simon Parker 0872497859 [email protected]


Published in Cruising
The Cunard Cruise Ship Queen Elizabeth arrived in to Dublin Port this morning on schedule marking the start of an important visit to Irish shores. The ship passed the Baily Light marking the entrance to Dublin Bay at 7am. The maiden voyage here of the 90,901 gross registered tonnes cruise ship starts in the capital where the liner will berth on the river Liffey before heading south to Cork harbour where a major ceremony is planned for the arrival of the 965-feet long ship.
Published in Cruise Liners

The 91st annual Dublin Liffey Swim sponsored by Dublin City Council took place today, Saturday 3rd September 2011. This year's swim, extended to 2.4 kilometres, started at Watling Street Bridge (opposite Guiness Brewery) at 14.45 hrs and finished at the Jeanie Johnston Mooring (Dublin Docklands). The swimmers were each assigned a time handicap depending on their level of proficiency. Declan Proctor, Eastern Bay Club won the mens race  in a time of 39 minutes and 43 seconds (no handicap).The womens race was by Maria Quintanilla, Dublin Club in a time of 40 minutes and 53 seconds. (handicap - started 8 mins 30 secs after first swimmers into water).

Men's Event

Mens Winner - Declan Proctor, Eastern Bay Club in a time of 39 minutes and 43 seconds (no handicap).

Second place - Sean Kenna, St. Vincent's Club in a time of 40 minutes and 20 seconds (handicap - started 9mins 15 secs after first swimmers into the water).

Winners Resulta Maria Quintanilla, Dublin Club in a time of 40 minutes and 53 seconds (handicap - started 8 mins 30 secs after first swimmers into water).

Second place - Joan Barron, St. Vincent's Club in a time of 41 Minutes and 5 seconds (handicap 1 min 45 secs after first swimmers into water).

Third place - Sinead Tyrell, Garda Club in a time of 41minutes and 14 seconds (handicap 14 min 15 secs after first swimmers into water).


Published in Sea Swim
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How to sail, sailing clubs and sailing boats plus news on the wide range of sailing events on Irish waters forms the backbone of Afloat's sailing coverage.

We aim to encompass the widest range of activities undertaken on Irish lakes, rivers and coastal waters. This page describes those sailing activites in more detail and provides links and breakdowns of what you can expect from our sailing pages. We aim to bring jargon free reports separated in to popular categories to promote the sport of sailing in Ireland.

The packed 2013 sailing season sees the usual regular summer leagues and there are regular weekly race reports from Dublin Bay Sailing Club, Howth and Cork Harbour on Afloat.ie. This season and last also featured an array of top class events coming to these shores. Each year there is ICRA's Cruiser Nationals starts and every other year the Round Ireland Yacht Race starts and ends in Wicklow and all this action before July. Crosshaven's Cork Week kicks off on in early July every other year. in 2012 Ireland hosted some big international events too,  the ISAF Youth Worlds in Dun Laoghaire and in August the Tall Ships Race sailed into Dublin on its final leg. In that year the Dragon Gold Cup set sail in Kinsale in too.

2013 is also packed with Kinsale hosting the IFDS diabled world sailing championships in Kinsale and the same port is also hosting the Sovereign's Cup. The action moves to the east coast in July with the staging of the country's biggest regatta, the Volvo Dun Laoghaire regatta from July 11.

Our coverage though is not restricted to the Republic of Ireland but encompasses Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Irish Sea area too. In this section you'll find information on the Irish Sailing Association and Irish sailors. There's sailing reports on regattas, racing, training, cruising, dinghies and keelboat classes, windsurfers, disabled sailing, sailing cruisers, Olympic sailing and Tall Ships sections plus youth sailing, match racing and team racing coverage too.

Sailing Club News

There is a network of over 70 sailing clubs in Ireland and we invite all clubs to submit details of their activities for inclusion in our daily website updates. There are dedicated sections given over to the big Irish clubs such as  the waterfront clubs in Dun Laoghaire; Dublin Bay Sailing Club, the Royal Saint George Yacht Club,  the Royal Irish Yacht Club and the National Yacht Club. In Munster we regularly feature the work of Kinsale Yacht Club and Royal Cork Yacht Club in Crosshaven.  Abroad Irish sailors compete in Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) racing in the UK and this club is covered too. Click here for Afloat's full list of sailing club information. We are keen to increase our coverage on the network of clubs from around the coast so if you would like to send us news and views of a local interest please let us have it by sending an email to [email protected]

Sailing Boats and Classes

Over 20 active dinghy and one design classes race in Irish waters and fleet sizes range from just a dozen or so right up to over 100 boats in the case of some of the biggest classes such as the Laser or Optimist dinghies for national and regional championships. Afloat has dedicated pages for each class: Dragons, Etchells, Fireball, Flying Fifteen, GP14, J24's, J80's, Laser, Sigma 33, RS Sailing, Star, Squibs, TopperMirror, Mermaids, National 18, Optimist, Puppeteers, SB3's, and Wayfarers. For more resources on Irish classes go to our dedicated sailing classes page.

The big boat scene represents up to 60% of the sail boat racing in these waters and Afloat carries updates from the Irish Cruiser Racer Association (ICRA), the body responsible for administering cruiser racing in Ireland and the popular annual ICRA National Championships. In 2010 an Irish team won the RORC Commodore's Cup putting Irish cruiser racing at an all time high. Popular cruiser fleets in Ireland are raced right around the coast but naturally the biggest fleets are in the biggest sailing centres in Cork Harbour and Dublin Bay. Cruisers race from a modest 20 feet or so right up to 50'. Racing is typically divided in to Cruisers Zero, Cruisers One, Cruisers Two, Cruisers Three and Cruisers Four. A current trend over the past few seasons has been the introduction of a White Sail division that is attracting big fleets.

Traditionally sailing in northern Europe and Ireland used to occur only in some months but now thanks to the advent of a network of marinas around the coast (and some would say milder winters) there are a number of popular winter leagues running right over the Christmas and winter periods.

Sailing Events

Punching well above its weight Irish sailing has staged some of the world's top events including the Volvo Ocean Race Galway Stopover, Tall Ships visits as well as dozens of class world and European Championships including the Laser Worlds, the Fireball Worlds in both Dun Laoghaire and Sligo.

Some of these events are no longer pure sailing regattas and have become major public maritime festivals some are the biggest of all public staged events. In the past few seasons Ireland has hosted events such as La Solitaire du Figaro and the ISAF Dublin Bay 2012 Youth Worlds.

There is a lively domestic racing scene for both inshore and offshore sailing. A national sailing calendar of summer fixtures is published annually and it includes old favorites such as Sovereign's Cup, Calves Week, Dun Laoghaire to Dingle, All Ireland Sailing Championships as well as new events with international appeal such as the Round Britain and Ireland Race and the Clipper Round the World Race, both of which have visited Ireland.

The bulk of the work on running events though is carried out by the network of sailing clubs around the coast and this is mostly a voluntary effort by people committed to the sport of sailing. For example Wicklow Sailing Club's Round Ireland yacht race run in association with the Royal Ocean Racing Club has been operating for over 30 years. Similarly the international Cork Week regatta has attracted over 500 boats in past editions and has also been running for over 30 years.  In recent years Dublin Bay has revived its own regatta called Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta and can claim to be the country's biggest event with over 550 boats entered in 2009.

On the international stage Afloat carries news of Irish and UK interest on Olympics 2012, Sydney to Hobart, Volvo Ocean Race, Cowes Week and the Fastnet Race.

We're always aiming to build on our sailing content. We're keen to build on areas such as online guides on learning to sail in Irish sailing schools, navigation and sailing holidays. If you have ideas for our pages we'd love to hear from you. Please email us at [email protected]