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Displaying items by tag: Rowing Championships

#Rowing: Skibbereen took two of the three senior titles on offer in the evening session of the second day of the Irish Rowing Championships at the National Rowing Centre. The women's pair of Denise Walsh and Aoife Casey beat UCC, while the men's quadruple held off a late charge by a Queen's/Portadown composite.

 Monika Dukarska of Killorglin won the women's senior single. She was dominant all the way, with only Siobhan McCrohan of Tribesmen testing her to any degree.

 The junior women's eight gave Cork Boat Club a chance to impress. They led for most of the race, and while Bann held an overlap through the middle of the course, Cork were clear winners.

 Trinity were extraordinarily dominant in the men's novice eight - their win by 11 seconds was cheered lustily by their fans.

 Shandon fought through the opposition offered by Carlow to win the junior men's quadruple, and Roisin Maguire of Queen's was the best club single sculler.

 The man of the day was, arguably, the Clonmel competitor Daire Lynch. The teenager added the men's intermediate single scull to the club title he had won earlier in the day. He passed Declan O'Connor of St Michael's in the middle stages of the race and won well.

Irish Rowing Championships, National Rowing Centre, Cork

 Day Two (Selected results)

Men

Eight - Intermediate: Commercial 5:43.182. Novice: Trinity 6:00.157.

Four - Junior, coxed: 1 Cork A 6:29.20, 2 Portora 6:35.341, 3 Clonmel 6:40.716.

Pair - Senior: 1 Skibbereen 6:30.311, 2 UCD 6:33.546, 3 Portora 6:44.968.

Sculling, Quadruple - Senior: 1 Skibbereen 5:59.102, 2 Queen's/Portadown 5:59.790, 3 Shandon A 6:08.509. Junior: 1 Shandon 6:07.970, 2 Carlow B 6:13.361, 3 Three Castles 6:13.799.

Single - Inter: Clonmel (D Lynch) 7:04.573. Club: Clonmel (D Lynch) 7:15.463.

Women

Eight - Novice: Trinity 7:09.594. Junior: 1 Cork 1 Cork 6:39.271, 2 Bann 6:44.193, 3 Portora 6:49.287.

Pair - Senior: 1 Skibbereen 7:23.775, 2 UCC 7:29.369, 3 Trinity 7:46.166.

Sculling, Double - Inter: Lee 7:22.252.

Single - Senior: 1 Killorglin (M Dukarska) 7:35.069, 2 Tribesmen (S McCrohan) 7:50.320, 3 Skibbereen (O Hayes) 7:57.742. Club: Queen's (R Maguire) 8:15.155. Junior: 1 Skibbereen (E Hegarty) 8:05.674, 2 Neptune (C Feerick) 8:13.065, 3 Castleconnell (J Vascotto) 8:15.002.

 

Published in Rowing

#Rowing: The University Championships of Ireland at the National Rowing Centre tomorrow, Friday, are set to go ahead. The organisers may alter the schedule to concentrate on the bigger boats, depending on the weather on the day. There has been strong interest in the event, with 140 entries made.

Published in Rowing

This Friday the premier event of the domestic rowing season, the Irish Rowing Championship, takes place at the National Rowing Centre in Cork.  Over 1200 rowers will compete over two days of racing, the highlight being the Senior Eight or ‘Big Pot’, race on Saturday afternoon.

This year the Championships are split into two events in July and September.   The July championships features the big boats, the eights and fours while the singles, doubles and quads will be held in September.

“This is the first year of the new format and it is designed to allow crews to focus on two events.  It will also encourage rowing in smaller boats over the summer months which should help raise standards”, claimed Rowing Ireland CEO, Martin Corcoran.  He added, “The events for this weekend are eights and fours for men and women in junior, novice, intermediate and senior. There are also sculling and quad events for the under 14, 15 and 16 rowers”.

But it is the premier trophy event, the Senior Eight or Big Pot which the top clubs vie for.  This year’s Senior Eight form clubs are NUIG, Queen’s Belfast, Muckross, Killarney, St. Michaels, Limerick and a UCD/Commercial composite crew.  The composite crew will include the UCD four who won at Henley together with Olympian Sean Jacob along with Commercial’s, Colm Dowling, Dan Murphy and Frank Folan.

Last year’s race produced  a close finish with reigning champions NUIG, whose crew this year includes Beijing Olympian Cormac Folan along with Alan Martin and James Wall, winning by a mere canvas ahead of Queens University.  Queens University have had a great season being unbeaten in Ireland and winning the British University Championship.  Another form crew are Muckross of Killarney who beat NUIG in the eights at the Metro Regatta last month.

The fours race has  a similar line up with the addition of Cork BC and a Commercial/Skibbereen composite.  It will be a difficult to predict a winner here as NUIG are reigning champions while Commercial have beaten them this year and UCD won at Henley.

The women’s senior eights race has an interesting composite crew consisting of seven clubs -  St Michaels, University of Limerick, Carrick on Shannon, Killorglin, City of Derry, Skibbereen and  Cork BC. The crew includes a serious line-up of single scullers who were part of the international team trials and includes Dympna Kelly, Carrick,  Sheila Clavin, St. Michael’s, Orla Hayes, Skibbereen and Monika Dukarska, Killorglin.

There is a massive entry for Junior 14, 15 and 16 boys and girls with thirty two scullers entered in the boys under 16 race. Over 300 crews will compete over two days in a range of categories and with record entry levels, it promises two days of action packed racing. The championships take place at the National Rowing Centre in Farran Wood, Iniscarra, Co Cork on Fri 16th and Sat 17th July from 8am to 5pm each day.

Note: The Championships have a long tradition as an All-Ireland event with the first one taking place nearly one hundred years ago at the Dublin Metropolitan Regatta in Ringsend in 1912.  The top clubs winning across all categories since the inaugural event are Dublin clubs Neptune (149) and Commercial (133), Skibbereen (109), UCD (81), Garda Siochána ((72) and NUI Galway (56).

The annual event takes place at the National Rowing Centre, Cork.  The centre, opened in 2007, is the sport’s high performance headquarters. An indication of the state of the art facilities on offer is the number of top rowing nations that have expressed interest in using the centre for training camps in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics.

NUIG_celebrate_their_Senior_Eight_win_at_the_2009_Irish_Rowing_Championships

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Published in Rowing

Dublin Bay 21s

An exciting new project to breathe life into six defunct 120-year-old Irish yachts that happen to be the oldest intact one-design keelboat class in the world has captured the imagination of sailors at Ireland's biggest sailing centre. The birthplace of the original Dublin Bay 21 class is getting ready to welcome home the six restored craft after 40 years thanks to an ambitious boat building project was completed on the Shannon Estuary that saved them from completely rotting away.

Dublin Bay 21 FAQs

The Dublin Bay 21 is a vintage one-design wooden yacht designed for sailing in Dublin Bay.

Seven were built between 1903 and 1906.

As of 2020, the yachts are 117 years old.

Alfred Mylne designed the seven yachts.

The total voting population in the Republic's inhabited islands is just over 2,600 people, according to the Department of Housing.

Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) commissioned the boat to encourage inexpensive one-design racing to recognise the success of the Water Wag one-design dinghy of 1887 and the Colleen keelboat class of 1897.

Estelle built by Hollwey, 1903; Garavogue built by Kelly, 1903; Innisfallen built by Hollwey, 1903.; Maureen built by Hollwey, 1903.; Oola built by Kelly, 1905; Naneen built by Clancy, 1905.

Overall length- 32'-6', Beam- 7'-6", Keel lead- 2 tons Sail area - 600sq.ft

The first race took place on 19 June 1903 in Dublin Bay.

They may be the oldest intact class of racing keelboat yacht in the world. Sailing together in a fleet, they are one of the loveliest sights to be seen on any sailing waters in the world, according to many Dublin Bay aficionados.

In 1964, some of the owners thought that the boats were outdated, and needed a new breath of fresh air. After extensive discussions between all the owners, the gaff rig and timber mast was abandoned in favour of a more fashionable Bermudan rig with an aluminium mast. Unfortunately, this rig put previously unseen loads on the hulls, resulting in some permanent damage.

The fleet was taken out of the water in 1986 after Hurricane Charlie ruined active Dublin Bay 21 fleet racing in August of that year. Two 21s sank in the storm, suffering the same fate as their sister ship Estelle four years earlier. The class then became defunct. In 1988, master shipwright Jack Tyrrell of Arklow inspected the fleet and considered the state of the hulls as vulnerable, describing them as 'still restorable even if some would need a virtual rebuild'. The fleet then lay rotting in a farmyard in Arklow until 2019 and the pioneering project of Dun Laoghaire sailors Fionan De Barra and Hal Sisk who decided to bring them back to their former glory.

Hurricane Charlie finally ruined active Dublin Bay 21 fleet racing in August 1986. Two 21s sank in the storm, suffering the same fate as a sister ship four years earlier; Estelle sank twice, once on her moorings and once in a near-tragic downwind capsize. Despite their collective salvage from the sea bed, the class decided the ancient boats should not be allowed suffer anymore. To avoid further deterioration and risk to the rare craft all seven 21s were put into storage in 1989 under the direction of the naval architect Jack Tyrrell at his yard in Arklow.

While two of the fleet, Garavogue and Geraldine sailed to their current home, the other five, in various states of disrepair, were carried the 50-odd miles to Arklow by road.

To revive the legendary Dublin Bay 21 class, the famous Mylne design of 1902-03. Hal Sisk and Fionan de Barra are developing ideas to retain the class's spirit while making the boats more appropriate to today's needs in Dun Laoghaire harbour, with its many other rival sailing attractions. The Dublin Bay 21-foot class's fate represents far more than the loss of a single class; it is bad news for the Bay's yachting heritage at large. Although Dún Laoghaire turned a blind eye to the plight of the oldest intact one-design keelboat fleet in the world for 30 years or more they are now fully restored.

The Dublin Bay 21 Restoration team includes Steve Morris, James Madigan, Hal Sisk, Fionan de Barra, Fintan Ryan and Dan Mill.

Retaining the pure Mylne-designed hull was essential, but the project has new laminated cold-moulded hulls which are being built inverted but will, when finished and upright, be fitted on the original ballast keels, thereby maintaining the boat’s continuity of existence, the presence of the true spirit of the ship.

It will be a gunter-rigged sloop. It was decided a simpler yet clearly vintage rig was needed for the time-constrained sailors of the 21st Century. So, far from bringing the original and almost-mythical gaff cutter rig with jackyard topsail back to life above a traditionally-constructed hull, the project is content to have an attractive gunter-rigged sloop – “American gaff” some would call it.

The first DB 21 to get the treatment was Naneen, originally built in 1905 by Clancy of Dun Laoghaire for T. Cosby Burrowes, a serial boat owner from Cavan.

On Dublin Bay. Dublin Bay Sailing Club granted a racing start for 2020 Tuesday evening racing starting in 2020, but it was deferred due to COVID-19.
Initially, two Dublin Bay 21s will race then three as the boat building project based in Kilrush on the Shannon Estuary completes the six-boat project.
The restored boats will be welcomed back to the Bay in a special DBSC gun salute from committee boat Mac Lir at the start of the season.
In a recollection for Afloat, well known Dun Laoghaire one-design sailor Roger Bannon said: "They were complete bitches of boats to sail, over-canvassed and fundamentally badly balanced. Their construction and design was also seriously flawed which meant that they constantly leaked and required endless expensive maintenance. They suffered from unbelievable lee helm which led to regular swamping's and indeed several sinkings.

©Afloat 2020