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Displaying items by tag: Flagship ferry refit

#FlagshipRefit - The Iargest ferry on the Irish Sea the 50,938 tonnes Ulysses completed a Dublin-Holyhead crossing before departing Anglesey in the early hours of yesterday morning bound for an annual refit in Falmouth, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The flagship of Irish Ferries made what is understood to have been a 20 hour passage including the Celtic Sea before entering a drydock at A&P Falmouth last night in Cornwall.

The Finnish built flagship dating from 2001 was under the Irish flag, however for the past decade the 209 metre long vessel transferred to the Cypriot flag. She is to undergo a routine maintenance prior to beginning her 15th year in service.

Ulysses can carry 1,875 passengers, 1,372 cars and 300 trucks and is the fifth largest ferry in tonnage terms operating in UK waters. All these large ferries operate on North Sea routes to the Netherlands.

Taking Ulysses place on the Dublin route is Isle of Inishmore which repositioned from Rosslare-Pembroke duties and which in turn are been covered by Oscar Wilde. The Rosslare-based French seasonal services cruiseferry having completed Christmas sailings to boost capacity on the Holyhead service.

At the Cornish shiprepairer, conversion and maintenance facility is also the landing ship dock RFA Lyme Bay (L3007), coastal products tanker Whit Navigator and Wavewalker 1.

The latter craft based in Falmouth, is Fugro Seacore’s award-winning eight legged ‘walking’ jack-up rig that carried out maintenance work last year at the Arklow Arklow Bank Offshore Windfarm.

Published in Ferry

Irish Sailing Classes and Association – There’s no shortage of one-design classes from which to choose and each gives its enthusiasts great competition, fun and camaraderie, writes Graham Smith in this review of the classes. 

One-design racing is where it all starts. It is, after all, where all the top sailors earned their stripes, battling away for line honours without a thought for a handicapper’s calculator wiping away a hard-fought victory!

Indeed, you could count on less than one hand the number of top Irish sailors who didn’t cut their teeth in a one-design dinghy! Just think of Cudmore, Barrington, Watson, Wilkins, Hennessy and Dix to name a few and you realise that they honed their skills in everything from Enterprises to Lasers and a lot in between.

At present count, there are a little over 30 one-design classes in Ireland, split almost evenly between dinghies and keelboats, a statistic which might raise a few eyebrows. They range from the long-established Mermaids, IDRA14s and Dragons to the newer additions like Fevas, Topaz and RS Elite. They all fill a particular need and give their owners and crews considerable enjoyment.

Many have attracted their World or European Championships to Irish waters over the years and while 2009 is notable for a lack of such events here, the following year will see the Etchells Worlds at Howth and perhaps a few other international regattas too.

In addition to the review, we asked each class to complete a questionnaire giving details of their fleet numbers, whether they were on a growth pattern or holding their own, so we could highlight those ‘on the up’ and those remaining static in terms of numbers. The older traditional designs, as you might imagine, fall into the latter category, although that’s not a negative!

CLASS REVIEW  The State of the Classes – League Table (as at February 2009)

S = Static; U = Up/growing

275     Optimist   U

200+   Laser   S

189     Mermaid   S

160     Flying Fifteen   S

130     RS Feva   U

115     Shannon One Design    U

100+   Mirror   S

100+   Topper   U

99       Topaz   U

94       Laser SB3   U

87       GP14   U

85       Squib   S

70       Fireball   S

70       Ruffian   S

60       J24   S

60       Shipman   S

52       Dragon   S

50       RS400/200   S

50       420    U

43       Multihulls    U

42       Dragon    S

40       Water Wags    U

40       Wayfarer    S

34       IDRA14    U

33       Puppeteer    U

28       Etchells    S

27       E-Boat    U

26       Glen    S

25       Enterprise    S

18       Sigma 33    S

18       Howth 17    U

13       RS Elite    U