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Displaying items by tag: Irish Islands ferries

#ISLANDS – A public meeting between the islanders of Cape Clear and the Cailín Óir Ferry Service will be held on Saturday 28th January, so  to discuss proposed changes to the ferry schedule in 2012.

The meeting is to be held in the local community hall, where other matters in relation to the year round service between Baltimore and the Gaeltacht speaking island will be aired. The island which is three miles long and one and half mile wide has a resident population of 130 inhabitants, which swells significantly during the summer months.

In March last year a new main ferry was purchased the Island Princess and renamed Dún an Óir II. She operates a schedule that varies between one and up to three round trips daily, subject to the day and time of the year, to view the current winter timetable click HERE.

Published in Island News

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.