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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: Police

Scottish police were called to deal with ferry passengers who refused to leave the Brodick terminal after they were left stranded on the Isle of Arran when the last sailing back to the mainland was cancelled (on Friday).

This came after the Arran ferry, MV Caledonian Isles, due to sail at 16.40 was diverted to assist a mayday distress call from a yacht that had lost its power around 4 pm.

Although the Caledonian Isles was stood down and returned to service, the 19.00 sailing was cancelled due to bad weather.

It was suspected that 40 passengers were left without accommodation, with some being forced to sleep in their vehicles during the bad weather.

For those on foot, they were told to seek alternative accommodation, even though the buses that could take them further out into the island had finished.

The island is currently at summer peak season and most accommodation was fully booked.

HeraldScotland.com has more. 

Published in Ferry

#rcycRoyal Cork yacht club sailor Billy Duane came fourth for Ireland in the World Police & Fire Games sailing event in the Laser standard, on Belfast Lough at the weekend.

The action took place over 3 days at Ballyholme Yacht Club.

The start was delayed on Friday and despite two races starting, they were abandoned due to 30 knot winds. A change of course on the Saturday and a slight drop in wind facilitated four good races with Duane taking two thirds and a couple of fourth places.

Sunday started light but in the space of ten minutes the wind picked up to 18 knots and another 3 good races were had with Duane just missing out on a podium position.

Winner of the event, Jules Ferrer, is the French National Laser Champion and silver medalist Rob Cullen is Canadian champion in the former Olympic Star keelboat fleet.

Published in Racing
Tagged under

#NEWS UPDATE - A fisherman whose body was found in a Scottish harbour on St Stephen's Day has been identified as that of a 34-year-old Donegal man, the Belfast Telegraph reports.

Philip Anthony Toland, from Glengad in Inishowen, Co Donegal, was last seen on Christmas Day near the pier at Ullapool harbour in the Scottish Highlands.

As BBC News reports, concerns were raised later that evening and a search was launched involving police, coastguard and RNLI lifeboat teams.

The body was located by a police dive team in the sea near the pier when the search resumed on Monday morning.

It is being speculated that Toland - who has an eight-year-old son - may have slipped and fallen into the water while returning to his boat.

Published in News Update
Red Bay RNLI Lifeboat crew joined the search this morning for Ballycastle woman who has been missing since Sunday evening.

The volunteer lifeboat crew assisted in an intensive shoreline search today along the coastline around Ballycastle from Fair Head to Kinbane head.

The lifeboat was joined in the shoreline search by local Coast Guards and the Police helicopter in the search, which lasted several hours.

Red_Bay_Lifeboat

Red Bay RNLI Lifeboat searching near Ballycastle

Weather conditions for the search were difficult with strong gusty winds.

Nothing was found in the operation, which lasted several hours.

The search continues throughout the Ballycastle area.

 

Published in RNLI Lifeboats

Coastguard and Lifeboat services were pressed in to action early this morning to search for missing surfers on the North Coast.

At 02.20 am MRCC Belfast received a call from Police Service Northern Ireland reporting that they had received a call from a lady reporting that her son had not returned from a surfing trip with a colleague.

They had gone surfing at 6.00 pm yesterday evening and were due to return at 11.30 pm.

Belfast immediately called out the Coleraine Coastguard rescue team and requested the launch of the Portrush RNLI lifeboat and inshore lifeboat. The Coastguard helicopter R118 from Sligo, Ireland was also scrambled. PSNI officers with dogs were also assisting in the search.

A search was initiated based on the location of their car which was located at Whiterocks car park containing their personal items and their board covers.

At 3.45 am this morning, the two surfers emerged from a cave. They had gone surfing when one of the surfers sustained a head injury when thrown onto the rocks by the waves. They went into a cave to shelter. They think had been there 6 hours could not get out due to the waves. They were waiting until waves subsided, saw the boat and came out of the cave when a little shore line appeared. The men then went onto the road and met the Coastguard search team.

Liam Colquhoun, Watch Manager Belfast said:

We are pleased that the two men have been located. They have declined any medical treatment and have gone home.

The two men had done the correct thing in making sure that a shore contact knew when they were due to return from undertaking their activity.

If you see someone in trouble at sea or on the coast, Dial 999 and ask for the Coastguard.

Published in Coastguard

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]