Displaying items by tag: Festivals

2nd March 2014

Shore Shots Surf Film Fest Returns Next Month

#Surfing - Following last year's successful inaugural event, the Shore Shots Irish Surf Film Festival is returning in 2014 to the appropriately named Light House Cinema in Dublin's Smithfield on 5-6 April.

After one of the best winters on record for Irish surfing, surfers from across the island will be gathering for two days in the capital to check out the latest waveriding adventures as seen through the lens of filmmakers and photographers.

Among the line-up of hotly anticipated surf edits from the country’s best surfers and film-makers, photography and video from around the globe will be screenings of Uncharted Waters, a profile of 1960s Aussie surfing legend Wayne Lynch, and The Old, The Young and The Sea, a road movie following Europe's premier surfing route from France to Portugal.

And a weekend celebrating Ireland's second ever surfing themed film festival wouldn't be complete without the now infamous Shore Shots Afterparty, hosted across Smithfield Square at the Generator Hostel.

For more on the festival and how to book tickets for screenings and the afterparty, visit the Shore Shots website HERE.

Published in Surfing

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New City Festival To Follow 94th Liffey Swim

#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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About the 29er Skiff Dinghy

The 29er is a one-design double-handed, single trapeze skiff for youth sailors.

There is an active class in Ireland, just one of the 38-countries from across all continents now racing the high-performance skiff.

The 29er is one of the latest dinghy classes to arrive in Ireland and has a 50/50 split between boys and girls.

The class like to describe the boat as "The most popular skiff for sailors who want to go fast!".

Derived from the Olympic class 49er class and designed by Julian Bethwaite the 29er was first produced in 1998.

Two sailors sail the 29er, one on trapeze.

The 6.25-metre high rig features a fractional asymmetrical spinnaker; a self-tacking jib decreases the workload of the crew, making manoeuvres more efficient and freeing the crew to take the mainsheet upwind and on two-sail reaches.

The 15.00 m2 spinnaker rigging set-up challenges crews to be fit and coordinated, and manoeuvres in the boat require athleticism due to its lack of inherent stability and the high speed with which the fully battened mainsail and jib power up.

The 74kg weight hull is constructed of fibreglass-reinforced polyester in a foam sandwich layout.

The fully battened mainsail and jib are made from a transparent Mylar laminate with orange or red Dacron trimming, while the spinnaker is manufactured from ripstop Nylon.

The mast is in three parts - an aluminium bottom and middle section, with a polyester-fibreglass composite tip to increase mast bend and decrease both overall weights, and the capsizing moment a heavy mast tip can generate. Foils are aluminium or fibreglass.

About the ILCA/Laser Dinghy

The ILCA, formerly known as the Laser, is the most produced boat in the world, with 220,000 units built since 1971.

It's easy to see why the single-handed dinghy has won the title of the most widely distributed boat of all time.

The Laser is a one-design dinghy, the hulls being identical but three rigs that can be used according to the size and weight of the sailor.

The class is international, with sailors from 120 countries. The boat has also been an Olympic class since 1996, being both the men's and women's singlehanded dinghy.

Three rigs are recognised by the International Laser Class Association (ILCA):

ILCA 4: sail of 4.70m2

ILCA 6: sail of 5.76 m2

ILCA 7: sail of 7.06 m2