Displaying items by tag: Howth Coastguard

6th June 2013

Howth Coastguard Rescues Stranded Baby Porpoise at Portmarnock

Howth Coast Guard picked up a baby Porpoise stranded in shallow water off Portmarnock beach, Dublin yesterday and brought it one kilomretre back out to sea to safety.

Howth Coastguard was requested to assist the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) yesterday afternoon at Portmarnock beach in North Dublin as the youtube video above depicts.

A Coast Guard team from Howth station travelled by boat and jeep to the location and meet with the IWDG representative.

The decision was made to bring the baby mammal who was beached back to the sea in the hope it would swim away.

The boat team lead by coxswain Jaimie Blandford carefully placed the mammal on board and brought it a kilometre out into the open water.

Porpoises are very similar to dolphins but have shorter beaks and are seen in the Irish Sea with the same swimming patterns as dolphins.

The porpoise now named "Fungie Beag" was placed in the water, after some initial hesitation it successfully returned to the water and swam back into the Irish Sea, hopefully returning to its family.

Published in Marine Wildlife

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26th April 2011

Dublin Bay Mudflat Rescue Caught on Video

A Dubliner had a lucky escape after being stranded on mudflats between Baldoyle and Sutton Point, on Dublin Bay last week.
The man had sunk waist-deep in mud on a low tide and was unable to free himself. Dublin Fire Brigade was tasked to the scene along with the Howth Coast Guard unit. The Youtube clip of the entire incident is below.
Rescue helicopter 116, which was already on the ramp at Dublin Airport in preparation for a training exercise, was also tasked at 16.18pm according to a report on the the SAR Ireland blogspot.
After obtaining permission to cross the 'Live' runway at Dublin airport, R116 was on scene within minutes and quickly identified the man who was described as wearing 'dark clothing'. He was quickly winched to safety and returned to Dublin Airport at 16.36pm, where he availed of crew facilities to clean himself down and arrange transport home.

12th March 2011

Spending the Day with the Howth Coast Guard

The Government news service MerrionStreet.ie recently paid a visit to the Howth Coast Guard unit to see some of its 24 volunteers train on the water and cliffs.

Cliff rescue forms a major part of the work done by the Howth unit, so regular searches of the coves around the coast on Howth Head and training of new volunteers are are a must.

Their work is co-ordinated by staff at the new National Coast Guard Centre at the Department of Transport, which manages nearly 1,000 volunteers across 54 units nationwide.

MerrionStreet.ie has more on the story HERE.

http://www.merrionstreet.ie/index.php/2011/03/a-look-at-the-irish-coast-guard

The Government news service MerrionStreet.ie recently paid a visit to the Howth Coast Guard unit to see some of its 24 volunteers train on the water and cliffs.

Cliff rescue forms a major part of the work done by the Howth unit, so regular searches of the coves around the coast on Howth Head and training of new volunteers are are a must.

Their work is co-ordinated by staff at the new National Coast Guard Centre at the Department of Transport, which manages nearly 1,000 volunteers across 54 units nationwide.

MerrionStreet.ie has more on the story HERE.

Published in Coastguard

Tagged under

14th July 2010

Howth Coastguard in Car Plunge Rescue

Howth Coast Guard were paged yesterday to a car that had crashed into Howth harbour. Ten members of the unit joined members of the RNLI Lifeboat, Gardai and Dublin Fire Brigade. Two people had been in the car when it had gone off the middle pier in Howth; one of the passengers luckily managed to escape. The body of the other person in the car was recovered from the water by a dive team along with the RNLI lifeboat and taken away by Fire Brigade Paramedics.

The Coast Guard boat "Grainne" was launched and booms were placed in the water to contain any pollution threat from the car. The middle pier is the smallest one of three and is mainly used by fishing vessels. More HERE.

Published in Coastguard

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Howth Coastguard

The Half Ton Class was created by the Offshore Racing Council for boats within the racing band not exceeding 22'-0". The ORC decided that the rule should "....permit the development of seaworthy offshore racing yachts...The Council will endeavour to protect the majority of the existing IOR fleet from rapid obsolescence caused by ....developments which produce increased performance without corresponding changes in ratings..."

When first introduced the IOR rule was perfectly adequate for rating boats in existence at that time. However yacht designers naturally examined the rule to seize upon any advantage they could find, the most noticeable of which has been a reduction in displacement and a return to fractional rigs.

After 1993, when the IOR Mk.III rule reached it termination due to lack of people building new boats, the rule was replaced by the CHS (Channel) Handicap system which in turn developed into the IRC system now used.

The IRC handicap system operates by a secret formula which tries to develop boats which are 'Cruising type' of relatively heavy boats with good internal accommodation. It tends to penalise boats with excessive stability or excessive sail area.

Competitions

The most significant events for the Half Ton Class has been the annual Half Ton Cup which was sailed under the IOR rules until 1993. More recently this has been replaced with the Half Ton Classics Cup. The venue of the event moved from continent to continent with over-representation on French or British ports. In later years the event is held biennially. Initially, it was proposed to hold events in Ireland, Britain and France by rotation. However, it was the Belgians who took the ball and ran with it. The Class is now managed from Belgium.