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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: Co Clare

Breaking News reports that a woman has been rescued after getting into difficulty while swimming at Spanish Point on the Co Clare coast this morning (Sunday 28 November).

It’s understood that the woman, in her 60s, found herself out of her depth in the water off Black Rock. She was reportedly recovered ashore by a passer-by who entered the water.

A multi-agency rescue operation was subsequently stood down but coastguard volunteers from Kilkee and other crews attended the scene, where the woman was treated at the scene. Breaking News has more HERE.

Published in Rescue
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The surfer who died after getting into difficulty off the Co Clare coast on Monday (5 July) has been named locally, according to the Irish Examiner.

And tributes have been paid by the community to 20-year-old Fionn O’Brien, a GAA standout “blessed with great skill and lightning speed”.

As previously reported on Afloat.ie, the young man was pronounced dead hours after he was airlifted to University Hospital Limerick from Lough Donnell in Quilty on Monday morning.

Clare County Council has opened a book of condolences for the young man ahead of his funeral tomorrow in Roslevan.

The Irish Examiner has more on the story HERE.

Published in Surfing

BreakingNews.ie reports that a surfer has died in hospital after he got into difficulty off the Co Clare coast this morning, Monday 5 July.

The Irish Coast Guard’s Kilkee unit and Rescue 115 helicopter from Shannon were among the emergency services to attend the scene at Lough Donnell in Quilty, where off-duty lifeguards in the area helped bring the surfer ashore.

The casualty was subsequently airlifted to University Hospital Limerick in critical condition.

This story was updated at 6.05pm on Monday 5 July.

Published in Rescue

Dusty the dolphin last weekend treated two SCUBA diving sisters to an encounter they will never forget, as RTÉ News reports.

Jessica and Jennifer Smith were diving with their father Finbar as part of a group with the Burren Sub Aqua Club last Saturday (1 May) when they were approached by the inquisitive bottlenose, who has been a fixture of the West Clare coast for some 20 years.

Previous encounters have been mixed — in particular an incident reported in Doolin some years ago in which a woman was hospitalised.

But the teens were delighted to meet a much calmer Dusty, who may have been surprised to find humans in the water after months of restrictions prevented group dives.

RTÉ News has more on the story HERE.

Published in Marine Wildlife

#Creeragh - Independent.ie reports that a man has died after he was swept into the sea by an unexpected wave near Kilkee in Co Clare yesterday (Saturday 13 January).

The 30-year-old man, believed to be a Hungarian national resident in Galway, is understood to have climbed down to the base of a cliff in Creeragh to take photos when he was washed away.

Emergency services were alerted immediately, and the Shannon-based Irish Coast Guard helicopter Rescue 115 quickly located the casualty and winched him from the water.

However, the man was later pronounced dead at University Hospital Limerick.

Published in News Update
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#Rescue - Kayakers paddled to the rescue of a man in his 60s spotted floating in the sea off Co Clare on Saturday morning (31 October).

According to The Irish Times, the man – thought to have fallen into the water from Seafield Pier near Quilty – was semi-conscious when he was retrieved by the kayakers.

The casualty was subsequently airlifted to hospital by the Irish Coast Guard helicopter Rescue 115, which was on a training exercise nearby.

The incident occurred just days after the body of local man Stephen Mungovan was recovered from the sea after what's believed to be an accidental fall late last Sunday night (25 October).

The Irish Times has more on the story HERE.

Published in Rescue

#Surfing - One of big wave surfing's best kept secrets off the Clare coast has seen the area named among the top surf spots in the UK and Ireland, as the Clare Herald reports.

Easkey in Co Sligo and The Peak in Bundoran, Co Donegal also made the grade alongside Aileens, a renowned offshore swell only accessible to those in the know, in the list put together by Surfholidays.com.

The Clare Herald has more on the story HERE.

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#Missing - Searching resumed this morning (Tuesday 27 October) for a 19-year-old Clare man feared to have fallen into the sea.

The Irish Times reports that the man from the Quilty area was last seen on Sunday night (25 October) at the rear of his coastal home.

A cross-agency emergency response began yesterday (Monday 26 October) after the alarm was raised in the morning, covering the coastline between Quilty and Spanish Point in Co Clare.

Conditions have been hazardous in recent days, and Kilkee Coast Guard advises the public to "exercise extreme caution" by the sea till the weather improves. The Irish Times has more on the story HERE.

Published in News Update
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#Missing - Rescue services have formally stood down their search for a missing Japanese tourist off Co Clare after three weeks, the Irish Examiner reports.

As of yesterday (Tuesday 15 September) there has been no sign of Ushio Azaki (61), who went missing in Kilkee on 22 August with her companion Eiji Takagi (63), whose body was found by divers on 30 August.

Published in News Update
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#Missing - The search was set to resume this morning for a man who fell into the sea off Co Clare yesterday afternoon (15 December).

As The Irish Times reports, the missing man, a Latvian national, is one of two anglers who has been fishing from rocks near Blackhead, on the south side of Galway Bay.

It's believed the second man left the scene to get help when his colleague went into the water, and could no longer find him on his return.

It's also thought the Latvian national could have been in the water for several hours before emergency services were alerted.

Doolin coastguard, Aran Islands RNLI and the Shannon-based coastguard helicopter were all dispatched for the search and rescue operation, which was called off at 6pm in poor light.

Published in News Update
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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]