Blogs
Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta Events Director Paddy Boyd On a Harbour Transformed (Podcast)
2nd July 2023 Wavelength Podcast
If it’s July, it must be the return of the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta, along with Coastival, the new festival celebrating the rich maritime heritage of the south Dublin waterfront. Over 370 boats have registered for the regatta, opening on…
A week of maritime-related festivity is underway today (Saturday) as Coastival gets going in Dun Laoghaire, with the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta from next Thursday through to Sunday contributing mightily to a peak of dynamic interaction between town entertainment and…
Calculating the Weather - Met Éireann's Recently Retired Evelyn Cusack
29th June 2023 Wavelength Podcast
Did you know that Met Éireann calculates the weather every 2.5 kilometres, whereas the global models accessible on mobile phones are calculated every nine or every twelve kilometres? The one exception to that is the Norwegian forecasting service, used by…
Kinsale’s Simply Blue Sovereign’s Cup Regatta Can Sparkle As Sailing Stars Shine
24th June 2023 W M Nixon
Although Friday’s racing was cancelled in the face of heavy winds and the strong possibility of fog in a notably unstable weather phase, it has otherwise been Camelot in Kinsale for the Simple Blue Sovereigns Cup 2023. Any serious rain…
Jakub Ziemkiewicz is Building His Own Racing Yacht in Cork Harbour to Race the Mini Globe
22nd June 2023 Tom MacSweeney
Jakub Ziemkiewicz tells me he was “born to sail but forced to work.” He is working as I talk to him - on the yacht he is building in a shed at Aghada in the northeast corner of Cork Harbour…
Conor O'Brien’s Saoirse Departure Centenary Underlines Dun Laoghaire’s Central Role
17th June 2023 W M Nixon
A hundred years ago next Tuesday, June 20th, Conor O'Brien (1880-1952) of Foynes took his departure with some fanfare aboard his 42ft Saoirse from the harbour her skipper preferred to call Dunleary, though most of its citizens saw it as…
Mini Boats Are Different But Convey a Message to the Next Marine Generation
15th June 2023 Tom MacSweeney
Captain Jacek Berenek of the container ship, ‘Independent Horizon,’ on its regular monthly call to the Port of Cork’s Deepwater Berth at Ringaskiddy, explained to the pupils of Barryroe National School from West Cork where he would launch their mini-boat…
The Government’s promise of consultation and involvement of the fishing industry in the development of offshore wind farms is not being delivered on according to South East Coast fishermen, who claim that consultation and discussion, which was promised, has turned…
Volvo Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race 2023 – An Entire Saga Of Sailing In Just Twenty-Six Hours
9th June 2023 Dun Laoghaire Dingle
It was that noted offshore yachtsman and rail travel enthusiast Vladimir Ilyich Lenin who observed that ten years can go past with no significant history occurring at all, and then suddenly ten years of hectic history can happen in just…
New York Yacht Club Among The Entries for Wednesday's Volvo Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race
3rd June 2023 Wavelength Podcast
“They are missing a lot of berths down there, but we’ll get everybody in by hook or by crook! The words of Adam Winkelmann, chairman of the Dun Laoghaire-Dingle Race, speaking about Dingle’s marina. A collision by a French fishing…
Volvo Dun Laoghaire-Dingle Race Will Celebrate 30th Anniversary With Record Fleet
3rd June 2023 W M Nixon
There’s more than a few of us around who well remember the launching of the new 280 nautical miles Dun Laoghaire to Dingle race by the ideas-filled duo of Martin Crotty and Peter Cullen of the National Yacht Club. It…
The Royal Cork Yacht Club cancelled its regular Thursday night league racing this week and called members to a meeting instead to discuss an incident between some boats in the racing fleet on the previous week’s Thursday and a tanker…
Leonie King's Memories of Her Late Father Solo Sailor Commander Bill King
31st May 2023 Wavelength Podcast
“There’s a Japanese man coming, it’s probably revenge..would you just go away, I’m old; I don’t mind dying “ “I came back three hours later and they were on their third bottle of white wine..” That’s one of many memories…
This weekend sees ancient gaff-rigged and other craft of multiple vintages gathering at Poolbeg Yacht and Boat Club in Ringsend in the heart of Dublin Port, within sight of some of the most modern ships afloat. It’s the 60th Anniversary…
Baltimore Wooden Boat Festival Says Conor O'Brien Could Be the Focus for Developing Maritime Education
24th May 2023 Tom MacSweeney
Wooden boats will dominate Baltimore Harbour this weekend when the West Cork village welcomes back the annual gathering of traditional vessels. Like many other events the Baltimore Wooden Boat Festival, which had been held annually for seventeen years from 2002,…
There’s a remarkable inherited experience of staging regattas in Dun Laoghaire, reinforced by the shared skill in running races of appropriate type and length, which comes through from the unrivalled memory bank of what is and isn’t reasonably possible, passed…