Christmas & New Year Greetings

Thanks to all the regular visitors and "fans" of the Old Blog Cabin for bearing with me during the last year or so of relative inactivity. I will try to post more often in the New Year.

I would like to wish all of you a peaceful and joyous Christmas and a Happy New Year. In particular for those of you who will be at sea or tied up in a port far from home over the festive season I wish you the traditional Beanachtaí na Nollaig (Christmas Greetings in the Irish language) and safe return home soon to friends and family no matter where they may be.

Finally if you'll be in Cobh or Cork Harbour over the Christmas / New Year season you'll find plenty to do in this link which I should have posted much sooner.

Liam Clancy - Home from the Sea

I'm posting this for no better reason than to pay tribute to the late, great Liam Clancy who died earlier this week. This is one of his most popular songs and one which all seafarers can identify with.



Liam Clancy (1935-2009). Born Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary, died in Cork City. Ní bhéidh a leithéid aris ann.

Cork's maritime past comes back with a bang

The City and County of Cork got a sharp reminder of its maritime heritage over the past week with the worst floods in living memory.

The people of Cork are no strangers to flooding, but the floods which began on Thursday 19th November were something different. Cork was not the only place affected. The floods extended over a large area of Ireland and our neighbouring island, but Cork was one of the most badly affected areas in Ireland.

Cork city is built on a marsh, known in Irish as Corcach mór na Mumhan, the Great Marsh of Munster. The city centre is a series of about six islands and lots of smaller ones which have been drained and channelled. The main street of the city, St. Patrick's Street, was once a channel of the River Lee and much of the city centre is barely above high tide mark. Other streets that were previously waterways include the South Mall, Emmet Place and Drawbridge Street. When a combination of heavy rain of the type we had last week conspires with high tides and high winds the city gets flooded. What we got last Thursday could be called "the Perfect Flood". Except for those affected by it, who would call it something different.

Over 400 years ago the English poet Edmund Spenser wrote about the nature of Cork city in his epic poem The Faerie Queen, "The spreading Lee, that like an island fayre, Encloseth Corke with its divided flood".

The picture above shows Washington Street (then known as George's Street) at the height of the great flood of 1853. The same flood partially washed away St. Patrick's Bridge, not long after its predecessor had been washed away completely by another flood. Thankfully that didn't happen in the 2009 floods, although two people perished in Britain, one of them a police officer swept away when a bridge collapsed.

It all goes to show that we cannot take the planet upon which we live and its environment for granted. There is an interrelationship between the environment and those things we build on it. If you divert water from one place it must re-emerge somewhere else. Global warming is a reality and it is a fact that some of the wettest (as well as some of the warmest) years this century have taken place within the last two decades.

There is no doubt that more and more money is going to have to be spent on flood protection over the next few years. In some countries it is far more severe with places such as Bangladesh in dire trouble and large scale moving of people and cities may have to take place (except the developing world is turning a blind eye).
In places like Cork we are likely to see even more floods and other unusual weather phenomena. We seriously need to get prepared for them.

Ships of the Irish Marine Institute

The r.v. Celtic Voyager (rv stands for Research Vessel) has been around Cork Harbour and the south coast for the past few weeks as part of its research work for the Galway based Marine Institute.

The Celtic Voyager is the smaller of two research vessels owned and operated by the Marine Institute. These ships are involved in research and investigation into all aspects of the sea from marine life, fish stocks and the sea bed itself (e.g. seismic activity). As well as their work with the Marine Institute the vessels also work in conjunction with other vessels as part of an international research team.

The Celtic Voyager is 31.4 metres in length and 9 metres in breadth. The ship has three laboratories on board - a wet laboratory, a dry laboratory and a chemical laboratory. It is fitted with high-tech scientific equipment and can accommodate 6-8 scientists with a maximum endurance of 14 days.

The Celtic Explorer is a much larger vessel at 65.5 metres in length. It can accommodate 35 personnel including its team of 19 - 21 scientists. A special feature of this ship is that it is extremely quiet running and described as being "acoustically silent" to minimise fish avoidance (important when you're trying to study those fish).

You will find much more information on the Celtic Voyager, the Celtic Explorer and the work of the Marine Institute on their website www.marine.ie

Grimaldi Line - Regular callers to Cork Harbour

This is the first of a series in which ships which are regular visitors to Cork Harbour will be highlighted to give the reader an idea of the trade which is taking place in our port.

The first to be highlighted is the Grimaldi Line which has several ships which regularly ply their way between Cork Harbour and the European mainland carrying cars, vans and trucks.

The Grimaldi Line is a large shipping company based in Naples, Italy and operates various types of shipping services including freight and passengers. They have been in the roll-on roll-off (RoRo) business for more than fifty years. The ships which visit Cork and dock at the Ringaskiddy RoRo terminal are of the Grande Ellade class which include the Grande Europa, Grande Ellade, Grande Mediterraneo, Grande Scandinavia and Grande Bretagna (photo shows the Grande Scandinavia berthed at Ringaskiddy). They are each 180 meters long and can carry up to 2,500 cars. Top speed is 20 knots and they have a gross metric tonnage of 51,174. Their Cork agents are Ocean & General Ltd. Grimaldi have had their direct link with Cork since 1998.
As I write the Grande Mediterrraneo is on her way to Cork having left the Portuguese port of Setubal before which she came through the Mediterranean from Pireaus in Greece.

Grimaldi Ferries operates throughout the Meditteranean and Adriatic serving Italy, Greece, Malta, Spain and Tunisia.