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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: Masters

#Rowing: Jack Dorney (18) finished third in the Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston today. The Shandon man, defending his title in the men’s youth singles, was beaten by the winner, Nicholas Aronow, and second-placed Isaiah Harrison.

 In the men’s senior master eights (average age 50 plus), an Irish Masters Boat Club crew made up of rowers from around Ireland took fourth.  Ex Nemo won, while the second-placed Upper Yarra crew featured former Australian greats Duncan Free and James Tomkins as the stern pair.

Published in Rowing

#Rowing: The Afloat Rower of the Month for September is Ronan Byrne. On Sunday, September 1st, the 21-year-old Corkman partnered Philip Doyle to silver in the double sculls at the senior World Championships in Linz-Ottensheim in Austria. He then set off for the European Under-23 Championships in Ioannina in Greece. He won gold there in the single sculls, overhauling imposing Russian sculler Alexander Vyazovkin in the final to win by over a length.

 Byrne was the worldrowing.com Rising Star for September.

 The month was also a special one for Ireland’s masters rowers. Crews drawn from Irish clubs, often in composites, set a new record of 16 medal wins at the World Masters Championships, held this year at Lake Velence in Hungary. Denis Crowley was a part of many of those wins – he put together an astounding tally of eight medals at this one event.

 Monika Dukarska, who qualified the Ireland women’s pair for the Olympic Games at the World Championships, won gold for Killorglin in the single, the double and the coxed quadruple at the Irish Offshore Championships. Patrick Boomer won the men’s single for Loughros Point. 

Published in Rower of Month

#Rowing: Denis Crowley of Commercial brought his tally of wins to a remarkable six after three days at the World Masters Regatta in Budapest. In just one day, the 57-year-old won in the coxless four and twice in the single sculls – in the C class (43 years or more) and the E class for 55 or more. The decision to form composite crews again paid off for the Irish, with wins in the C eight and the D coxed four, along with Crowley’s haul.

World Masters Regatta, Budapest, (Selected Results, Irish interest, winners)

Friday

Men

Eight

(C – 43 or more): Heat Four: Commercial, Cork, Neptune, Clonmel, Shannon, Galway, Castleconnell (B Crean, B Smyth, R Carroll, O McGrath, G O’Neill, P Fowler, B O’Shaughnessy, K McDonald; cox: M McGlynn) 3:09.75.

Four

(E – 55 or more) Heat Five: Commercial, Neptune, Belfast BC, Galway (D Crowley, G Murphy, C Hunter, A McCallion)

Four, coxed

(D – 50 or more) Heat 3: Galway, Neptune, Castleconnell, Clonmel (G O’Neill, O McGrath, B O’Shaughnessy, T Dunn; cox: M McGlynn) 3:35.89.

Sculling, Single

(C - 43 or more) Heat 19: Commercial (D Crowley) 3:49.92.

(E – 55 or more) Heat 8: Commercial (Crowley)

Published in Rowing

#Rowing: The Irish eight which won at the World Masters Regatta at Lake Bagsvaerd, Denmark, have been chosen as the Afloat Rowers of the Month for September. There were a number of good results by Irish crews at the event, which is one of the biggest international events of the year. Among the competitors this year was Denmark legend Eskild Ebbesen. The Irish E eight (55 years or older), was drawn from five clubs (Commercial, Belfast Boat Club, Neptune, Old Collegians and Waterford Boat Club) and outpaced German and British rivals in a field of seven crews. They had also won last year at this level. The crew was: John Hudson, Denis Crowley, Gerry Murphy, Mick Heavey, Colin Dickson, Colin Hunter, Fran O’Toole, Donal Mc Guinness and cox Al Penkert.  

Rower of the Month awards: The judging panel is made up of Liam Gorman, rowing correspondent of The Irish Times, and David O'Brien, editor of Afloat magazine. Monthly awards for achievements during the year will appear on afloat.ie and the overall national award will be presented to the person or crew who, in the judges' opinion, achieved the most notable results in, or made the most significant contribution to rowing during 2016. Keep a monthly eye on progress and watch our 2016 champions list grow.

Published in Rowing

#lasermasters – Defending Champion Thomas Chaix will be back on Dublin Bay to defend his 2014 Irish Laser Masters Championships along with other confirmed entries from Howth, Malahide, Cork and Ballyholme. The local Bay fleet aims to muster a strong contingent too so it's shaping up to be great event, according to organiser Paul Keane.

Racing will able available in standard, radial and 4.7 rigs. Sailors must be over 35 on the first day of the event.

The event is hosted by the Royal Irish Yacht Club (RIYC) on the 31st May and the 1st June.

Live fleet tracking is promised and Saturday's après race BBQ is included in the entry fee for the LogMeIn–sponsored event. More details can be found here.

According to the International Laser class, Masters racing is broken into four age divisions: Apprentice (35-44 years old), Master (45-54 years old), Grand Master (55-64 years old) and Great Grand Master (65+). At the highly competitive but very fun World Championships racing against competitors is only in one age division but elsewhere racing can be an all in affair.

 

Published in Laser

#CanoeMarathon2013: Malcolm Banks of Salmon Leap Canoe Club finished fifth in the K1 50 to 54 class at the Canoe Marathon Masters World Cup in Copenhagen in Denmark today. The Irishman got away with the leading group and was just 28 seconds off a medal at the finish. Banks was a Masters world champion in 2008.

Published in Canoeing

The Mainport International Corporation has vacancies for the following positions.

Masters for their Seismic Support Vessels working worldwide. The suitable candidate is required to have good ship-handling experience, as the position involves replenishment of seismic vessels at sea, while underway. Simulation training will be given at the National Maritime College of Ireland (NMCI) Ringaskiddy prior to commencement of employment.

In addition there are vacancies for Engineers on board their Seismic Support Vessels. The position is for a tour of duty of two-months on and two- months off. Applicants are asked to email their CV and relevant certificates to [email protected] and [email protected]                                     

For further information in general about the Cork based Mainport Group logon to www.mainport.ie and for the NMCI www.nmci.ie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Published in Jobs

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]