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Displaying items by tag: Maritime Activities Programme

#WexfordMaritimeFestival –As the Wexford Maritime Festivals (27-20 June) gets underway tomorrow, the festival has many events lined-up for all to enjoy until this Sunday.

As reported on Afloat.ie, one of the largest such festivals now in its third year since its foundation in 2012 which is to honour the memory of the founder the US Navy Commodore John Barry in his hometown of Wexford – known in the U.S. as 'Father of the American Navy.

The festival attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year and this year's festival programme is certainly a treat! Among the many events taking place are those directly to do with all things nautical, for more visit Maritime Activities.

Among the lead-in events of the festival is the Maritime Heritage Week where tonight there is a talk at 8pm about the "Kerlogue" a general cargoship to be presented by Pat Sweeney. The emphasis of the talk will be the heroic rescue of German sailors by the cargoship following a battle at sea with the British Royal Navy in the Bay of Biscay during December 1943.

For much more details of 'all' events during the three-day festival visit the homepage here.

Published in Maritime Festivals

The Rankin Dinghy of Cobh, Cork Harbour 

A Rankin is a traditional wooden dinghy which was built in Cobh, of which it’s believed there were 80 and of which The Rankin Dinghy Group has traced nearly half. 

The name of the Rankin dinghies is revered in Cork Harbour and particularly in the harbourside town of Cobh.

And the name of one of those boats is linked to the gunboat which fought against the Irish Volunteers during the 1916 Easter Rising and later for the emergent Irish Free State Government against anti-Treaty Forces during the Irish Civil War.

It also links the renowned boat-building Rankin family in Cobh, one of whose members crewed on the gunboat.

Maurice Kidney and Conor English are driving the restoration of the Rankin dinghies in Cork Harbour. They have discovered that Rankins were bought and sailed in several parts of the country.