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Displaying items by tag: Patrick Coveney

Patrick Coveney, who retired in March as the chairman of the Irish Olympic Sailing Group, is to be ratified as an Independent Director of the Olympic Federation of Ireland at its Annual General Meeting on Wednesday evening. 

Coveney, who was co-opted to the position by the OFI Executive Committee, served a single term as Sailing's Olympic Group Chairman up to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics held in 2021 due to COVID. 

Coveney took over from Colm Barrington who retired in 2018 after Dublin Radial sailor Annalise Murphy won Silver at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Barrington is a current Vice Chairman of the OFI.

Murphy, who retired after Tokyo, was appointed in January to the OFI Athletes’ Commission to serve from 2022 to 2024.

Sydney 2000 Olympic discus thrower John Menton now leads Sailing's Olympic Steering Group following the retirement of Coveney.

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Colm Barrington has formally stepped down as chair of Irish Sailing’s Olympic Steering Group, as The Irish Times reports.

Greencore chief executive Patrick Coveney will succeed in the role that Barrington announced he would leave after the Rio 2016 games, at which Annalise Murphy won silver for Ireland in the Laser Radial.

Barrington — who says he considers Annalise’s medal win the high point of his 12-year tenure — was elected as first vice president of the Olympic Council of Ireland in February last year.

His successor, brother of Tánaiste Simon Coveney, is no stranger to the water as a member of the Royal Cork Yacht Club. The family previously owned a round-the-word One Tonner, Golden Apple. Coveney was a keen Enterprise dinghy helmsman sailing from Crosshaven in the 1980s.

Barrington told the newspaper that while there is a good system to bring young sailors through to international competition there is "a long way to go".

Not least are the current funding issues facing the new Chairman that led to the recent shut down of the 420 Academy, Optimist squad and Topper squads.

The senior team has also been refocussing with just under 600 days to Tokyo 2020 where Irish boats have yet to qualify.

Published in ISA

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.