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Displaying items by tag: Benevenagh

#Coastguard - A Limavady councillor says two men rescued yesterday from the snow-covered Benevenagh Mountain should be billed for the cost of their "completely idiotic" escapade.

The Belfast Telegraph reports that the Irish Coast Guard's Sligo-based Rescue 118 helicopter was involved in the major operation to retrieve the two men who became stuck while climbing a snow gully.

It also emerged that a PSNI search and rescue team had to be airlifted to the site by an Army Air Corps helicopter that had been involved in distributing animal food relief to farmers badly affected by the recent poor weather.

Limavady councillor Edwin Stevenson, who is also a farmer, said: "I am at an absolute loss as to why anyone would decide to climb Benevenagh in these conditions and can only describe the actions of these two men as completely idiotic."

He suggested that the NI Executive should consider "billing people who carelessly risk not just their own lives, but also the lives of the emergency services who invariably end up having to dedicate time and energy rescuing them".

The Belfast Telegraph has more on the story HERE.

Published in Coastguard

The Dragon was designed by Johan Anker in 1929 as an entry for a competition run by the Royal Yacht Club of Gothenburg, to find a small keel-boat that could be used for simple weekend cruising among the islands and fjords of the Scandinavian seaboard. The original design had two berths and was ideally suited for cruising in his home waters of Norway. The boat quickly attracted owners and within ten years it had spread all over Europe.

The Dragon's long keel and elegant metre-boat lines remain unchanged, but today Dragons are constructed using the latest technology to make the boat durable and easy to maintain. GRP is the most popular material, but both new and old wooden boats regularly win major competitions while looking as beautiful as any craft afloat. Exotic materials are banned throughout the boat, and strict rules are applied to all areas of construction to avoid sacrificing value for a fractional increase in speed.

The key to the Dragon's enduring appeal lies in the careful development of its rig. Its well-balanced sail plan makes boat handling easy for lightweights, while a controlled process of development has produced one of the most flexible and controllable rigs of any racing boat.