After a stormy night, members of the Sutton Dinghy Club raced out to the beach after the club's prized boat was tossed onto the beach by the elements.
Speaking to Dublin Live, club member Andy Johnston explained that the bad weather from Saturday night caused the boat to drift off its mooring. He said: "Last night there was a lot of wind, a lot of rain, big storm last night. So at about 8:30am this morning I got a call from one of the locals out walking who noticed our boat was drifting off it's mooring.
"By the time we can down the tide had gone out and the boat was on the beach, so the conditions were bad last night and they're likely to be again. So we just got a group of volunteers down to try and get the boat back floating," said Andy.
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Andy explained that himself and the volunteers had to put down floats to prevent further damage to the boat, due to it being stuck on a rocky area of the beach. He said: "We'll put some ribs down later on and when it starts to float we hope to pull it back out into the clear water and get it back on a mooring or we'll put on the beach next to the club so we'll be able to have a look at it."
According to Andy, the boat is a necessity to the club as it is used to start and finishes races that the club organises. He said: "It's not in itself a racing boat, it's our committee boat and we use it for race management. So we had Regatta last weekend, we would use this boat out in the bay to start the races and do the finishes, and we have a lot of events.
"It's a 32-foot Mitchell, it's got an inbord engine on it so it's quite important. We keep it moored here in the sailing season in the creek, but just the wind and sea sometimes what will happen is the sea is up and down and the constant weight of the boat on the ropes or shackles can get loose or break.
"We're not sure exactly until we get out into the water. The concern we have is there's a lot of rocks around it, left to its own devices to get off it would bang against them and get damaged," added Andy.
After much work by the volunteers, there was some good news this evening as the boat was back floating in the water.
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