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Displaying items by tag: Wins Award

Spanning the Barrow (downriver of the Port of New Ross) is the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Bridge which has won a prestigious international award for engineering excellence and design of the bridge that opened last year. 

As The Irish Times writes, The International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering said the bridge is “a landmark structure” that has pushed the boundaries for the span of a “concrete extrados bridge”. The association is a scientific and technical group with members in 100 countries, was founded in 1929 and has its seat in Zurich, Switzerland.

The bridge was awarded the Outstanding Structure award in the Bridge or Other Infrastructures category.

It was built as part of the N25 New Ross bypass project and is one of most remarkable bridges in Ireland, rising from the east and turning north, before making landfall on the west of the Barrow.

Most bridges are built along straight lines. But this one contains the longest post-tensioned all-concrete spans in the world. While there are longer spans in bridges, they all take advantage of a lighter steel composite section in the central part of the main span.

Further reading here from the newspaper on the bridge which permits ships to navigate underneath to Ireland's most inland port. 

Published in Inland Waterways

The East Tip Haulbowline Island Remediation Project in Cork Harbour, was voted the National Engineering Project of the Year for 2019 at a ceremony held in Dublin. 

As Afloat previously reported, Engineers Ireland invited members of the public to cast their vote in the shortlist of projects nominated in the awards' flagship category. 

According to Engineers Ireland, the project in Cork Harbour was conducted by Cork County Council, RPS, PJ Hegarty & Sons and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. 

The local authority engineering project that transformed the East Tip on the island (opposite Cobh) took the the lead at the 2019 Engineers Ireland Excellence Awards held in association with the ESB.

The remediation project, delivered on time and under budget, has seen 22 acres of the island’s East Tip transformed from a desolate, toxic, industrial site into a magnificent public recreational facility for local residents, workers and visitors in what has been one of the biggest environmental works in the history of the state.

The site at Haulbowline Island in Co Cork, formerly the home of Irish Steel, has been used for waste disposal for decades, with an estimated 650,000 cubic metres of slag and other waste metal from the steelworks deposited on the site from the 1960s until steel making ended at the plant in 2001.

Adopting the most innovative and customised engineering solutions throughout to overcome many challenges, the East Tip now boasts new playing pitches, walkways, cycleways, seating areas and the planting of hundreds of trees, woodlands and wildflower areas.

The Engineering Project of the Year category is sponsored by Transport Infrastructure Ireland and is voted for by a panel of judges and the public.

To read much more on the project click here (scroll down) to sub-heading: 'Immensely Challenging' 

Published in Cork Harbour

Irish Sailing Club of the Year Award

This unique and informal competition was inaugurated in 1979, with Mitsubishi Motors becoming main sponsors in 1986. The purpose of the award is to highlight and honour the voluntary effort which goes into creating and maintaining the unrivalled success of Ireland's yacht and sailing clubs. 

In making their assessment, the adjudicators take many factors into consideration. In addition to the obvious one of sailing success at local, national and international level, considerable attention is also paid to the satisfaction which members in every branch of sailing and boating feel with the way their club is run, and how effectively it meets their specific needs, while also encouraging sailing development and training.

The successful staging of events, whether local, national or international, is also a factor in making the assessment, and the adjudicators place particular emphasis on the level of effective voluntary input which the membership is ready and willing to give in support of their club's activities.

The importance of a dynamic and fruitful interaction with the local community is emphasised, and also with the relevant governmental and sporting bodies, both at local and national level. The adjudicators expect to find a genuine sense of continuity in club life and administration. Thus although the award is held in a specific year in celebration of achievements in the previous year, it is intended that it should reflect an ongoing story of success and well-planned programmes for future implementation. 

Over the years, the adjudication system has been continually refined in order to be able to make realistic comparisons between clubs of varying types and size. With the competition's expansion to include class associations and specialist national watersports bodies, the "Club of the Year" competition continues to keep pace with developing trends, while at the same time reflecting the fact that Ireland's leading sailing clubs are themselves national and global pace-setters

Irish Sailing Club of the Year Award FAQs

The purpose of the award is to highlight and honour the voluntary effort which goes into creating and maintaining the unrivalled success of Ireland's yacht and sailing clubs.

A ship's wheel engraved with the names of all the past winners.

The Sailing Club of the Year competition began in 1979.

PR consultant Sean O’Shea (a member of Clontarf Y & BC) had the idea of a trophy which would somehow honour the ordinary sailing club members, volunteers and sailing participants, who may not have personally won prizes, to feel a sense of identity and reward and special pride in their club. Initially some sort of direct inter-club contest was envisaged, but sailing journalist W M Nixon suggested that a way could be found for the comparative evaluation of the achievements and quality of clubs despite their significant differences in size and style.

The award recognises local, national & international sailing success by the winning club's members in both racing and cruising, the completion of a varied and useful sailing and social programme at the club, the fulfilling by the club of its significant and socially-aware role in the community, and the evidence of a genuine feeling among all members that the club meets their individual needs afloat and ashore.

The first club of the Year winner in 1979 was Wicklow Sailing Club.

Royal Cork Yacht Club has won the award most, seven times in all in 1987, 1992, 1997, 2000, 2006, 2015 & 2020.

The National YC has won six times, in 1981, 1985, 1993, 1996, 2012 & 2018.

Howth Yacht Club has won five times, in 1982, 1986, 1995, 2009 & 2019

Ireland is loosely divided into regions with the obviously high-achieving clubs from each area recommended through an informal nationwide panel of local sailors going into a long-list, which is then whittled down to a short-list of between three and eight clubs.

The final short-list is evaluated by an anonymous team based on experienced sailors, sailing journalists and sponsors’ representatives

From 1979 to 2020 the Sailing Club of the Year Award winners are:

  • 1979 Wicklow SC
  • 1980 Malahide YC
  • 1981 National YC
  • 1982 Howth YC
  • 1983 Royal St George YC
  • 1984 Dundalk SC
  • 1985 National YC (Sponsorship by Mitsubishi Motors began in 1985-86)
  • 1986 Howth YC
  • 1987 Royal Cork YC
  • 1988 Dublin University SC
  • 1989 Irish Cruising. Club
  • 1990 Glenans Irish SC
  • 1991 Galway Bay SC
  • 1992 Royal Cork YC
  • 1993 National YC & Cumann Badoiri Naomh Bhreannain (Dingle) (after 1993, year indicated is one in which trophy is held)
  • 1995 Howth Yacht Club
  • 1996 National Yacht Club
  • 1997 Royal Cork Yacht Club
  • 1998 Kinsale Yacht Club
  • 1999 Poolbeg Yacht & Boat Club
  • 2000 Royal Cork Yacht Club (in 2000, competition extended to include class associations and specialist organisations)
  • 2001 Howth Sailing Club Seventeen Footer Association
  • 2002 Galway Bay Sailing Club
  • 2003 Coiste an Asgard
  • 2004 Royal St George Yacht Club
  • 2005 Lough Derg Yacht Club
  • 2006 Royal Cork Yacht Club (Water Club of the Harbour of Cork)
  • 2007 Dublin Bay Sailing Club
  • 2008 Lough Ree YC & Shannon One Design Assoc.
  • 2009 Howth Yacht Club
  • 2010 Royal St George YC
  • 2011 Irish Cruiser Racing Association
  • 2012 National Yacht Club
  • 2013 Royal St George YC
  • 2014 Kinsale YC
  • 2015 Royal Cork Yacht Club
  • 2016 Royal Irish Yacht Club
  • 2017 Wicklow Sailing Club
  • 2018 National Yacht Club
  • 2019 Howth Yacht Club
  • 2020 Royal Cork Yacht Club

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