Filed under: Events, Festivals, Ireland, People, Places, tourism | Tags: failte ireland, Galway, Galway Bay, galway ireland, galway tourism, Ireland, Irish Tourism, summer festivals, tourism galway, travel, visit galway, visitors to ireland, Volvo Ocean Race, west of ireland
Volvo ocean race galway
The organisations behind a high-profile event held earlier this year in Galway have yet to pay some of their suppliers and are in talks with a number of them in a bid to get their bills discounted or rescheduled.
Businesses which supplied Volvo Race in Galway say that they have yet to be paid by the organisations behind the event.
The Volvo Ocean Race have offering 70 per cent of the total that they owe with the prospect of further payments in the future.
The owner-manager of one of the suppliers pointed out that he has over 30 staff who have to be paid every week, and added that his business cannot afford to operate in a situation where it is not being paid.
The stopover of the Volvo Ocean Race, a round-the-world sailing event in Galway, was billed as a huge success. It was originally estimated that it would attract up to 140,000 spectators or “visits” over a two-week period.
Ultimately, it was estimated that it drew some 600,000, with a considerable spin-off for the city and the region.
A spokeswoman for Let’s Do It Galway, the group behind the organisation of the Volvo Ocean Race stopover in Galway, confirmed that it has a number of creditors who supplied goods and services to the event that have yet to be paid.
She said that the organisation had contracts with about 1,000 suppliers, and was dealing with debts running to a “double-figure number”.
The spokeswoman said that it was seeking discounts and attempting to reschedule payments to these suppliers.
State tourism agency Fáilte Ireland pledged €8 million to the Volvo Ocean Race. The spokeswoman explained that the body is not due to pay this money until Let’s Do It Galway completes a number of audits and reports on which it is currently working.
It also has to collect some sponsorship money due from smaller, local backers.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Galway, Galway Bay, galway tourism, Irish Tourism, Oceans, Sailing, tourism galway, travel, visit galway, visitors to ireland, Volvo Ocean Race
Volvo Ocean Race Galway
After months of prolonged negotiations it was finally announced this week that the oil tanks on the Docks will be removed in time for the arrival of the Volvo Ocean Race in May. The decision paves the way for the Galway Volvo Ocean Race Village to be included as originally planned on the site of the tanks, ensuring a connection between the village and Eyre Square via Victoria Street.
Making the announcement Galway Harbour Master, Brian Sheridan said he was delighted to see that all parties involved had finally reached a decision. Work on the decommissioning of the tanks in due to begin in the very near future and the expected month of work should be completed in plenty of time for the arrival of the tented village from Rio de Janeiro on Monday 11 May. According to Topaz, who will manage the decommissioning of the tanks, the work should be completed by the end of April allowing the race village be constructed in ample time.
Filed under: Ireland, People, Surfing Ireland, Volvo Ocean Race, tourism | Tags: Galway Bay, galway ireland, galway tourism, Ireland, Sailing, summer festivals, tourism galway, visitors to ireland, Volvo Ocean Race, west of ireland
TOURISM bosses have issued a stark warning to Galway hotels, bars and other businesses in the hospitality sector not to jeopardise the city’s reputation abroad by overcharging and ‘cashing-in’ during the Volvo Ocean Race this Summer. Up to 140,000 visitors are expected to visit Galway for the two week festival in May and June which represents a unique opportunity to showcase Galway and get repeat tourism business.
Fáilte Ireland have warned businesses that if they overcharge and fail to offer a warm welcome, the city’s reputation will be sullied which could cause damage to the long-term future of the tourism sector in Galway and the West.
Already 30 hotels have signed up to the ‘Galway accommodation charter’ where they have agreed to offer fair pricing during the stopover, and others have been urged to follow their lead as there are fears that negative publicity internationally about poor service and overcharging could damage Galway city’s bid to hold the stopover again in four years time.
Filed under: Ireland, Surfing Ireland, conservation | Tags: Energy Conservation, Galway Bay, Oceans, technology, Waves
The Irish government, university research departments, and a growing number of entrepreneurs are collaborating to tap the power and resources of the ocean. Wavebob and Ocean Energy, for instance, have installed wave power prototypes in Galway Bay and will experiment with larger prototypes in an energy park being created just to the north, off the coast of county Mayo according to recent reports.
By 2012, the government aspires to harvest 75 megawatts from waves and by 2020 to raise that energy production to 500 megawatts. It also wants to export services and equipment.
For all the promise of electric power generated by the sea, there are many impediments, from construction costs to environmental concerns and the sheer unpredictability of the weather. But rising energy costs and concerns over climate change are providing renewed impetus — and a new sales pitch — for those pursuing such projects.
Wavebob plans first to target customers with the greatest need: Ireland, Tahiti, Hawaii, and New Zealand are all promising early markets. Oil companies, which run their offshore derricks on diesel power, are also potential early customers. Chevron, in fact, is an investor. Defence departments are also interested.
Energy potential
For wave power, Ireland’s location is ideal. Perched in the North Atlantic, it sits in the path of the Gulf Stream, cold air masses from Greenland, and winds from North America. The fetch — or the distance that wind travels without obstruction — across the Atlantic is one of the longest in the world, and that wind energy in turn propels waves.
Potentially, waves could provide up to 70 per cent of Ireland’s electrical power. Ireland consumed 24 terawatt hours of power in 2006, and roughly 20 terawatt hours could conceivably be tapped from waves.
It could also mean quite a number of jobs in regions of the country hit hard by the decline in fishing. The government’s goal is to create 1,900 jobs. Wavebob, for one, will base some operations in Killybegs, a struggling fishing and shipbuilding centre.
In January 2008, the Irish government created a €26m (about £21m) fund for development and commercial deployment of ocean energy. The fund also provides for a feed-in tariff that will pay wave farm owners 22 cents per kilowatt hour for their energy, higher than the subsidy for wind power.
Hostile deep seas
The Wavebob device is a large buoy, technically called a self-reacting point absorber, with an internal chamber that can accommodate mechanics and technicians — will be capable of producing 1.5 megawatts of power when the full-scale version is ready in 2010.
When incoming waves pressurise fluids contained in chambers in the buoy, the pressure then turns a turbine. Unlike other prototypes, Wavebob’s device also senses the power of incoming waves and automatically adjusts to maximise pressure and energy extraction.
Wave energy won’t be easy, though, says Parish, Wavebob’s CEO. The company’s founder, William Dick, a physicist who helped computerise distilleries on the island, started working on wave power in the early 1990s. A small prototype in a wave tank in Cork and the quarter-size scale device in Galway have worked fine, but the real test comes with the full-scale device in two to three years off the Mayo coast. If it succeeds, multi-megawatt wave farms can start being planned for 2015 and beyond.
Besides needing to survive harsh seas, the devices have to be cost-effective. To this end, Wavebob has teamed up with Georgia Tech to see if it’s possible to make buoys out of concrete rather than steel. Capital will also have to be spent to build coastline power stations and undersea electrical cables, which can cost €1m per kilometre.
With all of these challenges, the government’s goals — 500 megawatts, 1,900 jobs — are pretty lofty. James Ryan, who manages strategic planning and development services at the Marine Institute, explains that knowledge about the ocean is fairly sketchy, too. The Institute recently completed a digital map of Galway Bay — the first map of the sea floor since Brits undertook the job with chains and weights in the 1860s.
