Notes for the Cool Route and Failte Ireland
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| Visitor moorings in Clifden |
By Daria and Alex Blackwell
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| Pontoon at Clifden Boat Club makes access easy |
This summer, we spent a month sailing Ireland’s beautiful
southwest coast. We encountered many foreign vessels, more than we’ve ever seen
before, mostly from Britain and France.
The first questions a cruiser asks when arriving in a new destination are:
As Port Officers representing the west of Ireland for the Ocean Cruising Club, Seven Seas Cruising Association, and Trans Ocean eV, we heard from members visiting here about their experience. Below are a few observations which we believe need critical improvements in order to support continued interest in Ireland as a premiere cruising destination.
The first questions a cruiser asks when arriving in a new destination are:
- Are there visitor moorings and are they secure and easy to pick up?
- Is the anchorage sufficiently protected from wind and seas and does it offer good holding? What type of bottom composition does it have?
- Where is the access to shore? Is it a pontoon, a pier, or a beach?
- How can I dispose of garbage and recycling?
- Are there showers and toilets ashore?
- How far are the closest restaurants and pubs?
- Can I get water and fuel?
- Is there a shop for reprovisioning?
- Are there laundry facilities?
- What's the best thing to do here?
As Port Officers representing the west of Ireland for the Ocean Cruising Club, Seven Seas Cruising Association, and Trans Ocean eV, we heard from members visiting here about their experience. Below are a few observations which we believe need critical improvements in order to support continued interest in Ireland as a premiere cruising destination.
·
Garbage
and Recycling are perhaps the biggest challenge for boaters
o
Very few places have facilities to collect
garbage and dispose of it. If they do have it, it is often under lock and key,
most often in marinas which are few and far between on the west coast.
§
Dingle has a garbage skip behind a locked gate
that has to be opened by the marina manager. Only boats in the marina would
have access. Although it takes recycling, it does not have separate collection
containers for recycling so it is left behind co-mingled with the garbage.
§
Knightstown has a skip on the waterfront but it
is locked. We did not find recycling
facilities.
§
Schull and Glengarriff have recycling for bottles
and tins but no garbage. Visiting yachtsmen were leaving bags of garbage on the
ground next to the recycling containers during the Calves Regatta.
§
Crookhaven has no recycling and no garbage
dumpster.
§
Kinsale has the winning example of an excellent
facility. They have garbage bins right at the KYC clubhouse and extensive
recycling for everything including batteries. It is open to all who need it.
§
Friends from Britain sent us a photo of an Irish
trash collection point with the notice “The skips were removed because they
were being used.”
§
Whereas local authorities may find
garbage collection an issue/inconvenient, and some locals may indeed use
provided bins or skips, not providing these is an even bigger issue. It is a
serious deterrent to visiting yachts, and cleaning up loose garbage bags left
by desperate visitors is a much bigger task.
·
It should also be noted that every poor or
developing country we have visited does manage to provide adequate garbage
disposal facilities.
Recommendation:
·
Local authorities to provide suitable garbage
and recycling collection points at all shore access points.
·
Moorings
for visitors are welcome but not easily usable
o
Most of the council moorings have no pennants or
bridles so visitors have to struggle to get their mooring lines/warps through
the small metal loop. It is impossible
to bring the large yellow ball up to the deck of any boat with high freeboard.
o
In Kilronan we saw a small French yacht
struggling. A sailor actually got off the boat and stood on the mooring ball to
get a rope through it, then gave up and struggled to get back aboard. We gave up when we tried to pick up a mooring
when we could not reach down to it and get a line through the shackle. We saw a couple of other boats try to pick up
moorings in other harbours using truly bizarre tactics. One looped a rope underneath
the yellow buoy and three people dragged it up to the deck while a fourth tried
to get a rope through. They gave up but were now tangled up aft to with the
mooring. It took a long time for them to get disentangled and their boat kept
bumping into the boat next to them. It was not a safe situation. They sailed
away afterwards in frustration.
o
Mayo has the winning example of well-supplied
visitor moorings. The moorings now have bright
orange pick up ropes with a buoy attached making it very easy to pick up the
mooring using a boat hook and secure it temporarily while getting one’s own
ropes tied to the shackle. Brilliant!
§
The Mayo moorings are also the only ones
observed on the west and south coasts, where the mooring ball appeared to be
clean and riding relatively high in the water. This leads one to believe that
these are the only moorings regularly serviced.
o
Clifden YC has a similar set up to Mayo on the
visitor moorings by the clubhouse where they have pickup ropes streaming from
the mooring balls. This is potentially not as safe as having a small buoy on
the rope; it is hard to see the ropes in the water and potentially easier to
foul the prop.
Recommendations:
o
Moorings to be inspected, cleaned, and serviced
annually. Preferably this should be organized/overseen on a national level to
ensure quality and safety.
o
Orange polyester (floating) pick-up ropes with
an adequate eye splice should be shackled to all visitor moorings. Buoys on
these ropes are not necessary.
·
Anchorages
are full of legacy moorings limiting space where yachts can anchor safely.
o
Many of the harbours (e.g. Kerry) have no
visitor moorings anymore yet the anchorages are often so full of legacy
moorings, pots, and other gear that finding a safe spot to drop the anchor without
fouling can be difficult. Designated anchorages should be kept free of debris
to encourage anchoring.
o
Inishbofin is a good example. There are no official visitor moorings but
finding space to anchor between the various buoys is quite a task. There are
even ropes without buoys floating up from mooring blocks on the bottom.
o
As visitor moorings are rated for 15 tons,
larger yachts must anchor. Clearing
designated anchorages would encourage larger vessels to visit. In Scotland,
many anchorages have one mooring designated for larger vessels.
Recommendation:
o
Lift and remove all unused mooring blocks.
Arrange private and visitor moorings to optimize space.
·
Water
availability is often good but rarely by hose.
o
Marinas at Dingle, Kinsale, Kilrush, Galway, Fenit
and Lawrence Cove on Bere Island have water available on the docks. Even the pontoon in Knightstown has water
(but no electricity).
o
Many harbours, especially those with active
fishing fleets have water available at or near the piers. We found access in Crookhaven, Schull,
Castletownsend, etc, where we could fill a water container to bring aboard by
dinghy.
o
In some cases the spigots were fancy looking,
but ill-suited for filling canisters.
Recommendation:
o
It would be helpful to have a guide/sign to
where to find the water access point.
·
Diesel
and petrol are hard to come by.
o
The only marinas that we know of on our route
with diesel fuel pumps are in Kinsale, Lawrence Cove, Kilrush, and Fenit.
§
A few places one can get fuel in by truck
(Dingle, Galway, Killybegs)
§
Fuel is otherwise only accessible using road
transport and jerry cans.
§
The fuel dock in Kinsale is currently occupied
by a disabled racing boat and so was difficult to access.
o
Petrol for the dinghy engine has to be obtained
by jerry can from petrol stations if they can be found nearby. Glengarriff for
example has a petrol station right on the harbour. Petrol fuelled power vessels
would be likely to have difficulty cruising in the west.
o
Taxed white diesel, which is legal for yachts to
use, is not available anywhere dockside.
Recommendations:
o
Provide adequate dockside diesel and petrol
purchasing points at key locations along the coasts.
o
Green/Red diesel vs white diesel: see submission
from Norman Keane (Irish Cruising Club and Irish Sailing Association) regarding
green diesel vs white diesel.
·
Propane/butane
virtually inaccessible
o
We came across a few sailors asking how to
refill propane or butane tanks. None of the marinas had facilities available or
publicized.
§
Yachts generally have non-standard gas tanks to
fit the available space that need refilling
o
Fittings for systems other than Calor gas tanks
are unheard of and unavailable. The
marina manager at Fenit can apparently organize Camping Gaz.
o
As cooking aboard is essential especially in the
more remote regions where self-sufficiency is key, access to cooking gas must
be communicated.
Recommendation:
o
Work out arrangements nationwide with commercial
propane providers to have filling stations at key locations.
·
VHF radio
coverage is spotty
o
CG radio reception for weather forecasts and
marine advisories is hard or even impossible to hear due to static or lack of
signal in many locations.
o
Hailing the coast Guard in these locations is
conversely also impaired or not possible. There is a serious marine safety
issue here.
o
As AIS vessel tracking is collected by shore
stations, this is also impeded/impossible depending on VHF communications with
the CG shore stations (local ship to ship is, of course, unaffected)
o
For example:
§
In Inishbofin we could hear the general CG announcements
but we couldn’t hear Clifden for the detailed forecasts.
§
Bantry Bay and SW Cork had intermittent static,
like an open mike, starting at 9 am daily for 3 weeks while we were there;
squelch didn’t help.
§
In Westport and just about anywhere inside Clew
Bay (just inside Clare Island) there is no Coast Guard VHF reception.
·
AIS tracks of vessels entering Clew Bay stops
inside Clare Island.
o
These types of failures of VHF cause boaters to
rely on mobiles instead of VHF.
§
The result is that no one is listening if
there’s a problem on a vessel.
§
Mobile signal is often unavailable in remote
coastal areas.
§
It’s a self-perpetuating issue.
§
It is a serious safety issue.
Recommendation:
o
Coast Guard to do a comprehensive survey of the
coastline; determine the black or grey spots and develop the necessary
infrastructure.
·
Shore
access by dinghy can be challenging
o
In some places it can be easy to find your way
ashore. In other places, it’s very challenging. Some of the fishing piers have good stairs or
ladders and space for dinghies to tie up.
Pontoons are definitely preferable, especially for an aging cruising population.
o
Where they are available, the visitor’s pontoons
in July/August were severely overcrowded, often by very large RIBs that are
quite outside the definition of dinghy.
Recommendation:
o
Provide pontoons, communicating their location
and instituting rules for their use would be very helpful in getting the
boater’s ashore to spend their money eagerly.
·
General /
Other points to be addressed:
o
Access to shopping and re-provisioning
o
Toilets and Showers
o
Chandleries and sail services
Overall Recommendation:
Conduct a detailed, independent survey of the entire
coastline to map out available infrastructural elements, as well as what state
these elements are in, and what is missing/needed.
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| Laundromat in KYC a little overused |
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| Recycling in KYC was exemplary |
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| Even battery and oil recycling in KYC |
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| Garbage skips in KYC are welcome |
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| Ladies toilets in KYC |
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| Facilities are much better than they were |
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| Ball of hair in the shower, need tokens for shower |
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